The optimum of each of the inputs may be different at various ecoregions and depend on
societal aims but it is definitely at higher yield levels than the actual yields, which are attained at
various places.
3. Development of agriculture and land use during the last 5 decades
During the last 5 decades changes in agriculture and its position in society were more dramatic
than in several ages before. They can be charac- terised as follows:
Productivity rise per ha, per man-hour and per unit input.
From empirical and skill driven activity to a more science and understanding based activity
with industrial characteristics.
Decoupling of productivity per crop, plant and animal on one hand and land use at the other.
Recoupling land related agriculture and other societal aims landscape, environment, nature
conservation and development and biodiver- sity, social.
Generic extensification cropping system level and specific intensification per crop to reach
biotechnical and environmental aims. To elaborate on these typical characteristics the
following remarks are made: The productivity rise per ha, per man-hour, and
per input was described at many places as a typical phenomenon of agriculture during the last
few decades. They resulted from innovations from various disciplines. The mutual interaction be-
tween these innovations created synergism that led to the enormous increase in productivity.
Each of the innovations gave a better, total result as compared with an addition of effects.
Such a green revolution may be repeated in the near future as knowledge and insight from vari-
ous disciplines may stimulate each other Evans, 1998.
Green revolution occurred in the industrialised world in the early fifties and sixties and were
repeated some decades later in the developing world where its impact for food production and
food security are impressive Conway, 1997. Agriculture as an empirical science, where pro-
gress is made through trial and error, is more and more strengthened by scientific insight in the basic
physical, chemical, physiological and ecological processes that together determine growth and pro-
duction. That insight combined with a detailed understanding of the genetic basis of various
characteristics and the possibilities to effect them have created a new science based agriculture. The
ecology revolution and biotechnology may help to reach ways of agriculture that are productive and
environmentally friendly.
Since the fifties production with agro-ecosys- tems has been disconnected from land use for
particular products. Production of flowers and vegetables in greenhouses, of mushrooms in
closed containers, intensive cattle breeding, they are all typical examples of ways of producing that
are similar to industrial processes. These ways of horticulture and agriculture are used for the high
valued products and not for the bulk food pro- duction such as wheat, rice, maize, potato and
soybeans. Energy use in such systems is still high, but may be considerable lower when all potential
innovations are introduced.
In land related agriculture the variation in pro- duction techniques within Europe is extreme.
Land productivity varies with a factor 6 and labour productivity with a factor 100. Neverthe-
less, the development is such that the variation is decreasing, as the tendency to reach optimal way
of producing becomes more and more the objec- tive of all farming systems. With a decreasing
number of people directly related with agriculture, there is an unexpected increasing interest in the
quality of products and the way they are pro- duced. Moreover, there is a growing valuation of
landscape and 25 nature as a public good. Agri- culture plays an important role to fulfill that
demand.
There are various systems of cross compliance to pay for the maintenance and production of
these goods. However, it is questionable whether that is in the long run a feasible approach to pay
for such goods. Multi-functionality as a side product in a structurally optimally functioning
agriculture seems a better route towards the struc- tural production of such public goods. The discus-
sion on product quality and production process shows a lot of ideology and a considerable interest
in agricultural techniques that are dominated by a particular view on life and man, such as in or-
ganic farming. The ban on artificial fertilisers and synthetic biocides is justified on basis of a philoso-
phy that originates from a time before the enlight- enment in agriculture started.
In spite of what was just stated, in the near future such discussions on agricultural methods
and their consequences for the environment, as well as various accepted values, will continue.
Finally there is a growing awareness that too narrow crop rotation and in generic terms too
intensive cropping and farming systems are sub- optimal in biotechnical and in environmental
terms. In fact, a crop should be grown at nearly maximum production levels potential levels, es-
pecially on the better soils, to realise the highest productivity and efficiency for each of the individ-
ual production factors. In general, it is therefore necessary to extensify too intensive generic sys-
tems and, counter intuitively, to intensify individ- ual crops when grown to reach optimality in
biotechnical
and environmental
terms. That
movement is present at various places and most clearly in those areas of Europe where too inten-
sive systems in generic terms were developed dur- ing the last few decades.
4. Biophysical possibilities of European agriculture: an explorative investigation
