Shifting the Policy Focus from Green Revolution to Agroecology Necessitates the Latter’s Response to the Productivity Question

Can agroecological farming, besides contributing to sustainable agriculture, also ensure sufficient agricultural production? This question has largely remained unanswered, which is one of the major reasons, this paper argues, that governments, particularly in developing countries, have been hesitant in fully transitioning to agroecological policies and practices. Based on a thorough review of Nepal’s food and agriculture policies and interviews with stakeholders, the study finds that productivism objectives trump all other rationales for various economic, social, political (including, and importantly, geopolitical) reasons. Around two-thirds of Nepal’s population is still dependent on the agriculture sector in various ways, but the sector contributes only around one-fourth to the country’s gross domestic product. The lack of adequate returns from the sector has caused agriculture abandonment by hundreds of thousands of youths and their migration to urban areas or abroad for employment opportunities. The lack of the country’s competitiveness in manufacturing leaves agriculture as the chief source of people’s economic engagement. Moreover, the country imports food and agricultural products from India substantially, but has faced economic blockades several times in the past. Hence, the call for enhanced agricultural production for food self-sufficiency has grown even louder. To meet these simultaneous objectives from the agriculture sector, Nepal’s agriculture development paradigm is still one of productivism. Having said this, the simultaneous impacts of climate change on agriculture and vice versa are well-recognized, but policymakers are convinced on the use of technologies to tackle these challenges while maintaining their productivism objectives. Perhaps a return to agroecological practices for them is to promote subsistence agriculture, which they have been fighting against for long. Their preferred choice is the green revolution model of agriculture development. And solutions to the negative effects of the green revolution are sought for in modern and newer technologies than in the small-scale, traditional, subsistence-based agricultural methods as promoted by agroecologists. The limited push for organic agriculture production has been with a focus on the export market given the higher costs associated with it. The literature on agroecology confirms that agriculture production based on the agroecological model cannot match the level of output based on the green revolution model. Hence, the proposed alternatives are to shift the focus away from production to changes in people’s food habits and preferences. Attempting a shift in food culture is an extremely challenging endeavor compared to maintaining the status quo and relying on technologies to enhance production. In the latter policy choice, future stakes might be high, but governments, which stay in office for a relatively short period, are more concerned about the present than the future. In the food and agriculture realm, their success is measured in terms of their ability to address the economic, social and geopolitical exigencies than anything else. Hence, only demonstrating the sustainability potential of agroecology and not responding to whether it can contribute to meeting the other economic and political objectives risks limiting agroecology to social movements and academic scholarships.