Swedish agriculture during the twentieth century in relation to sustainability

This article describes the development processes of Swedish agriculture toward non-sustainability. It asserts that the challenge of agricultural sustainability can be fruitfully addressed within an analytical framework that consciously and explicitly considers agricultural development as consisting of processes of coevolution involving agriculture and the surrounding ecological and socioeconomic systems. When this framework and certain derived indicators for agricultural sustainability are applied to Swedish agricultural development during the twentieth century, the following conclusions are reached. First, the new system of traditional agriculture that had emerged towards the end of nineteenth century in relation to various interactive forces within the socioeconomic system was associated with strengthening rural-urban interaction and interconnectedness. The system was substantially improved during the first quarter of the twentieth century, becoming capable of producing a sufficient supply of food within rural-urban sphere. Second, Swedish agriculture was transformed during the second and third quarters into a modern industrial system characterized by weakening local coevolutionary processes and by various agro-ecological problems. Resource flows uncoupled from the surrounding ecological and socioeconomic systems and food consumption uncoupled from local food production. Third, agricultural sustainability was generally high and improving during the first quarter of the twentieth century, deteriorating during the second and third quarters, and low but improving during the fourth. Finally, attaining sustainable agriculture will likely entail the strengthening of coevolutionary processes at the municipality level.