A new social context — a new attitude to agriculture and the environment

This article is the author’s critical survey of earlier attitudes towards the environment. Agriculture was regarded simply as the means of social development, and the environment treated as an object. The author considers it necessary to redefine the social goals of development and relation towards the environment, which is a primary relation. It serves to define developmental goals and thus also to define the strategy of agricultural development. It must respect the entirety of the rural area, not only agriculture as a production activity. The meaning of agriculture is greater than purely economic. It is a culture in itself. An agrarian society is both an agrarian culture and an ecological type, and it differs from the industrial society, culture and ecological type that is based on the production model. Under new conditions of development in Croatia, the agricultural development strategy must bear in mind the fact of war destruction and devastation, a different position for rural areas and agriculture in the economy as a whole, and the use of international criteria of environmental protection. A system of ecological education will guarantee the efficiency of this strategy