The sociology of agricultural sustainability: some observations on the future of sustainable agriculture

It is argued that sociology and the other social sciences can contribute to agricultural sustainability in several ways, one of which is to help in assessing and understanding the social forces that affect agricultural research and agricultural policy. Many of the conditions that gave rise to expansion of sustainable agriculture in the 1980s are changing, and sustainable agriculture faces several fiscal and political vulnerabilities. A typology of sustainable agriculture research is developed to illustrate the point that scientists and proponents of sustainable agriculture can help to address these vulnerabilities by deversifying their approaches to developing environmentally sound agricultural technologies.