Author Description

. It argues that we know very little about how to intervene for sustainable agriculture, particularly for those areas where the Green Revolution has passed almost unnoticed and where degradation of natural resources is the normal practices, rather than the exception. As sustainability is a constructed, contextual and complicated concept, it is far from clear what sustainability is, how it comes about, and what it is actually for, although it has been at the top of the agenda for nearly a decade. No substantial biological or socialinstitutional breakthroughs or innovations have yet emerged, despite the considerable efforts that have been devoted so far to sustainable agriculture. Impressively, the word "sustainability" is such a powerful symbol that the very thought of an unsustainable agriculture immediately conjures up images of massive human deprivation and suffering and, ultimately, mass starvation. This study is an attempt to seek answers to the following questions: How to intervene, where to intervene, and with whom to intervene to support sustainable agriculture? What effects are likely to be produced by development efforts that seek to introduce sustainable agriculture? What are the factors associated with the effects of those efforts? The setting for this research is Nepal. The research had two phases. The first comprised a reconnaissance, the objective of which was to assess problem situations in sustainable agriculture and understand farmers'perceptions of and responses to sustainability/unsustainability of agriculture. It was conducted in two villages each of the Gorkha, Tanahu and Nawalparasi districts of Western Nepal, located in the mountains, hills and Terai regions respectively. Not only did this phase provide useful insight to the researcher to select cases of development efforts for the second and main phase of the research, but it also unveiled several sustainability problems of Nepalese agriculture. If resource degradation appeared a major proble