Savory, Allan. 1994. "Will We Be Able to Sustain Civilization?" Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 16(2): 139-147.

Thesis:

"Neither 'organic' nor industrialized agriculture is able to promise any real hope for sustaining cities" (p. 142). A new agriculture is needed that integrates the human, land and wealth resources into one indivisible whole for management -- Holistic Resource Management.

Summary:

Savory argues that while agriculture makes civilization possible, agricultural practices often so damage natural resources, that in the end, they destroy the civilizations that they once supported. Failing cities mark the beginning of a civilization's collapse. Cities fail when their supporting agriculture can no longer feed them. Any discussion of sustainability and sustainable agriculture must include urban centers in the analysis.

Dependence upon fossil fuels to boost production has masked the reality of the interconnection between cities and agricultural lands. However, modern agriculture is "producing more eroding soil than food" (p. 140). New movements in the direction of "organic" or sustainable agricultural practices are merely a return to methods farmers used thousands of years ago, and many were unable to sustain their even modest cities.

A new agriculture is needed. "Sustainable" agriculture depends upon climate. Healthy watershed soils are high in biological diversity, absorb rainfall quickly, and release it slowly. If biological diversity is damaged, the same soil absorb slowly and release it quickly, resulting the further leaching of soil nutrients, and producing cycles of drought and flooding. Historically areas with well distributed humidity and low rainfall year-round can be sustained organically most successfully, and can support small communities agriculturally. This offers no hope for sustaining industrialized cities. (pp.141-142)

The crucial factor, which has been overlooked in human decision-making processes, is the need to cycle carbon back into the soil in seasonal rainfall climates. The desertification of grasslands has resulted in the release of carbon from grassroots and soil organic matter, and has disabled grasses from removing carbon gases from the air, contributing to global warming. In pre-civilization, carbon cycles and soil biodiversity were maintained by grasses and other plants, in partnership with large herding animals (which break up the soil, remove dead matter, and distribute seeds), pack-hunting predators (which keep herds bunched up and moving, to prevent overgrazing), and insects and microorganisms. Thus, seasonal rainfall grasslands, which account for two-thirds of the earth's land, functioned as complex, whole systems. Savory and his associates have been able to reverse the deteriorating situation by increasing numbers of grazing animals, simulating the predator presence to encourage bunching. Grazing and Animal Impact become two new "tools" in our management program. (pp.143-146)

Savory has developed a decision-making model for the management of ecosystems. The Holistic Resource Management model requires that the "whole" be identified -- the people, the resource base, and the money that can be generated from that resource base. Then the people set a three part goal that describes:

the quality of life desired -- people's values

what must be produced in order to sustain that quality of life -- forms of production

the resource base as it must be far into the future if it is to sustain those forms of production and values.

Then, management decisions must be made in light of four fundamental processes which drive our ecosystems and support civilization: the water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow, and community dynamics. (p.146)

Savory concludes that the new agriculture must "concern itself with the problems of cities and industry as well as facilitate the necessary links between urban and rural" (p.146).

Keywords: sustainable agriculture, biological capital, soil.