Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

In very general terms rural development can be seen as the outcome of a history of struggle between the forces of expanding capitalisms (colonial and North American) and rural populist or nationalist movements. The principle threads are: colonial development and conservation programmes; the experience of the US in reconstructing shattered economies, at first in the southern US after the civil war, and later in China, Japan, South Korea, and India. These threads, in particular the latter, have shaped the dominant approach.