Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment. It has been defined as "an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term:
- Satisfy human food and fiber needs
- Make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls
- Sustain the economic viability of farm operations
- Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.”[1]
Sustainable Agriculture in the United States was addressed by the 1990 farm bill.[2] More recently, as consumer and retail demand for sustainable products has risen, organizations such as Food Alliance and Protected Harvest have started to provide measurement standards and certification programs for what constitutes a sustainably grown crop.[3]
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Farming and Natural Resources
The physical aspects of sustainability are partly understood.[4] Practices that can cause long-term damage to soil include excessive tillage (leading to erosion) and irrigation without adequate drainage (leading to salinization). Long-term experiments have provided some of the best data on how various practices affect soil properties essential to sustainability.
The most important factors for an individual site are sun, air, soil and water. Of the four, water and soil quality and quantity are most amenable to human intervention through time and labour.
Although air and sunlight are available everywhere on Earth, crops also depend on soil nutrients and the availability of water. When farmers grow and harvest crops, they remove some of these nutrients from the soil. Without replenishment, land suffers from nutrient depletion and becomes either unusable or suffers from reduced yields. Sustainable agriculture depends on replenishing the soil while minimizing the use of non-renewable resources, such as natural gas (used in converting atmospheric nitrogen into synthetic fertilizer), or mineral ores (e.g., phosphate). Possible sources of nitrogen that would, in principle, be available indefinitely, include:
- recycling crop waste and livestock or treated human manure
- growing legume crops and forages such as peanuts or alfalfa that form symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia
- industrial production of nitrogen by the Haber Process uses hydrogen, which is currently derived from natural gas, (but this hydrogen could instead be made by electrolysis of water using electricity (perhaps from solar cells or windmills)) or
- genetically engineering (non-legume) crops to form nitrogen-fixing symbioses or fix nitrogen without microbial symbionts.
The last option was proposed in the 1970s, but is only recently becoming feasible.[5][6] Sustainable options for replacing other nutrient inputs (phosphorus, potassium, etc.) are more limited.
More realistic, and often overlooked, options include long-term crop rotations, returning to natural cycles that annually flood cultivated lands (returning lost nutrients indefinitely) such as the Flooding of the Nile, the long-term use of biochar, and use of crop and livestock landraces that are adapted to less than ideal conditions such as pests, drought, or lack of nutrients.
Water
In some areas, sufficient rainfall is available for crop growth, but many other areas require irrigation. For irrigation systems to be sustainable they require proper management (to avoid salinization) and must not use more water from their source than is naturally replenished, otherwise the water source becomes, in effect, a non-renewable resource. Improvements in water well drilling technology and submersible pumps combined with the development of drip irrigation and low pressure pivots have made it possible to regularly achieve high crop yields where reliance on rainfall alone previously made this level of success unpredictable. However, this progress has come at a price, in that in many areas where this has occurred, such as the Ogallala Aquifer, the water is being used at a greater rate than its rate of recharge.
Several steps should be taken to develop drought-resistant farming systems even in "normal" years, including both policy and management actions: 1) improving water conservation and storage measures, 2) providing incentives for selection of drought-tolerant crop species, 3) using reduced-volume irrigation systems, 4) managing crops to reduce water loss, or 5) not planting at all.[7]
Soil
Soil erosion is fast becoming the one of the worlds greatest problems. It is estimated that "more than a thousand million tonnes of southern Africa's soil are eroded every year. Experts predict that crop yields will be halved within thirty to fifty years if erosion continues at present rates."[8] Soil erosion is not unique to Africa but is occurring worldwide. The phenomenon is being called Peak Soil as present large scale factory farming techniques are jeopardizing humanities ability to grow food in the present and in the future.[9] Without efforts to improve soil management practices, the availability of arable soil will become increasingly problematic.[10]
Some Soil Management techniques
- Growing wind breaks to hold the soil
- Incorporating organic matter back into fields
- Stop using chemical fertilizers (which contain salt)
Economics
Socioeconomic aspects of sustainability are also partly understood. Regarding less concentrated farming, the best known analysis is Netting's study on smallholder systems through history.[11] The Oxford Sustainable Group defines sustainability in this context in a much broader form, considering effect on all stakeholders in a 360 degree approach
Given the finite supply of natural resources at any specific cost and location, agriculture that is inefficient or damaging to needed resources may eventually exhaust the available resources or the ability to afford and acquire them. It may also generate negative externality, such as pollution as well as financial and production costs.
The way that crops are sold must be accounted for in the sustainability equation. Food sold locally does not require additional energy for transportation (including consumers). Food sold at a remote location, whether at a farmers' market or the supermarket, incurs a different set of energy cost for materials, labour, and transport.
Methods
What grows where and how it is grown are a matter of choice. Two of the many possible practices of sustainable agriculture are crop rotation and soil amendment, both designed to ensure that crops being cultivated can obtain the necessary nutrients for healthy growth. Soil amendments would include using localy available compost from community recycling centers. These community recyclying centers help produce the compost needed by the local organic farms.
Many scientists, farmers, and businesses have debated how to make agriculture sustainable. Using community recycling from yard and kitchen waste utilizes a local area's commonly available resources. These resources in past were thrown away into large waste desposal sites, are now used to produce low cost organic compost for organic farming. Other practices includes growing a diverse number of perennial crops in a single field, each of which would grow in separate season so as not to compete with each other for natural resources.[12] This system would result in increased resistance to diseases and decreased effects of erosion and loss of nutrients in soil. Nitrogen fixation from legumes, for example, used in conjunction with plants that rely on nitrate from soil for growth, helps to allow the land to be reused annually. Legumes will grow for a season and replenish the soil with ammonium and nitrate, and the next season other plants can be seeded and grown in the field in preparation for harvest.
Monoculture, a method of growing only one crop at a time in a given field, is a very widespread practice, but there are questions about its sustainability, especially if the same crop is grown every year. Today it is realized to get around this problem local cities and farms can work together to produce the needed compost for the farmers around them. This combined with growing a mixture of crops (polyculture) sometimes reduces disease or pest problems [13] but polyculture has rarely, if ever, been compared to the more widespread practice of growing different crops in successive years (crop rotation) with the same overall crop diversity. Cropping systems that include a variety of crops (polyculture and/or rotation) may also replenish nitrogen (if legumes are included) and may also use resources such as sunlight, water, or nutrients more efficiently (Field Crops Res. 34:239).
Replacing a natural ecosystem with a few specifically chosen plant varieties reduces the genetic diversity found in wildlife and makes the organisms susceptible to widespread disease. The Great Irish Famine (1845-1849) is a well-known example of the dangers of monoculture. In practice, there is no single approach to sustainable agriculture, as the precise goals and methods must be adapted to each individual case. There may be some techniques of farming that are inherently in conflict with the concept of sustainability, but there is widespread misunderstanding on impacts of some practices. Today the growth of local farmers markets offer small farms the ability to sell the products that they have grown back to the cities that they got the recycled compost from. By using local recycling this will help move us away from, the slash-and-burn techniques that are the characteristic feature of shifting cultivators are often cited as inherently destructive, yet slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced in the Amazon for at least 6000 years;[14] serious deforestation did not begin until the 1970s, largely as the result of Brazilian government programs and policies.[15] To note that it may not have been slash-and-burn so much as slash-and-char, which with the addition of organic matter produces terra preta, one of the richest soils on Earth and the only one that regenerates itself.
There are also many ways to practice sustainable animal husbandry. Some of the key tools to grazing management include fencing off the grazing area into smaller areas called paddocks, lowering stock density, and moving the stock between paddocks frequently.[16]
Several attempts have been made to produce an artificial meat, using isolated tissues to produce it in vitro; Jason Matheny's work on this topic, whichin the New Harvest project, is one of the most commented.[17]
Soil treatment
Soil steaming can be used as an ecological alternative to chemicals for soil sterilization. Different methods are available to induce steam into the soil in order to kill pests and increase soil health. Community and farm composting of kitchen, yard, and farm organic waste can provide most if not all the required needs of local farms.
Off-farm impacts
A farm that is able to "produce perpetually", yet has negative effects on environmental quality elsewhere is not sustainable agriculture. An example of a case in which a global view may be warranted is over-application of synthetic fertilizer or animal manures, which can improve productivity of a farm but can pollute nearby rivers and coastal waters (eutrophication). The other extreme can also be undesirable, as the problem of low crop yields due to exhaustion of nutrients in the soil has been related to rainforest destruction, as in the case of slash and burn farming for livestock feed.
Sustainability affects overall production, which must increase to meet the increasing food and fiber requirements as the world's human population expands to a projected 9.3 billion people by 2050. Increased production may come from creating new farmland, which may ameliorate carbon dioxide emissions if done through reclamation of desert as in Palestine, or may worsen emissions if done through slash and burn farming, as in Brazil. Additionally, Genetically modified organism crops show promise for radically increasing crop yields[citation needed], although many people and governments are apprehensive of this new farming method.
Some advocates of sustainable agriculture favour as the only system which can be sustained over the long-term. However, organic production methods, especially in transition, yield less than their conventional counterparts and raise the same problems of sustaining populations globally While evidence suggests that organic farms handle periods of drought better
Urban planning
There has been considerable debate about which form of human residential habitat may be a better social form for sustainable agriculture.
Many environmentalists advocate urban developments with high population density as a way of preserving agricultural land and maximizing energy efficiency. However, others have theorized that sustainable ecocities, or ecovillages which combine habitation and farming with close proximity between producers and consumers, may provide greater sustainability[citation needed].
The use of available city space (e.g., rooftop gardens, community gardens, garden sharing, and other forms of urban agriculture) for cooperative food production is another way to achieve greater sustainability[citation needed].
One of the latest ideas in achieving sustainable agricultural involves shifting the production of food plants from major factory farming operations to large, urban, technical facilities called vertical farms. The advantages of vertical farming include year-round production, isolation from pests and diseases, controllable resource recycling, and on-site production that reduces transportation costs[citation needed]. While a vertical farm has yet to become a reality, the idea is gaining momentum among those who believe that current sustainable farming methods will be insufficient to provide for a growing global population[citation needed]. For vertical farming to become a reality, billions of dollars in tax credits and subsidies will need to be made available to the operation.[18]
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Gold, M. (July 2009). What is Sustainable Agriculture?. United States Department of Agriculture, Alternative Farming Systems Information Center.
- ^ Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (FACTA), Public Law 101-624, Title XVI, Subtitle A, Section 1603
- ^ Organic and non-GMO Report. New certification programs aim to encourage sustainable farming.
- ^ Altieri, Miguel A. (1995) Agroecology: The science of sustainable agriculture. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 25, 2008 vol. 105 no. 12 4928-4932 [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa CEP Factsheet. http://www.sardc.net/imercsa/Programs/CEP/Pubs/CEPFS/CEPFS01.htm
- ^ Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1
- ^ CopperWiki Soil erosion http://www.copperwiki.org/index.php?title=Soil_erosion
- ^ Netting, Robert McC. (1993) Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford Univ. Press, Palo Alto.
- ^ Glover et al. 2007. Scientific American
- ^ Nature 406, 718-722 Genetic diversity and disease control in rice, Environ. Entomol. 12:625)
- ^ Sponsel, Leslie E. (1986) Amazon ecology and adaptation. Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 67-97.
- ^ Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn (1989) The Fate of the Forest: developers, destroyers and defenders of the Amazon. New York: Verso.
- ^ Pastures: Sustainable Management
- ^ "PETA’s Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat", NYT, April 21, 2023.
- ^ Vertical Farming
- ^ Pasakarnis G, Maliene V (2010). "Towards sustainable rural development in Central and Eastern Europe: applying land consolidation". Land Use Policy 27 (2): 545–9. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.07.008.
Sources
- Dore, J. 1997. Sustainability Indicators for Agriculture: Introductory Guide to Regional/National and On-farm Indicators, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, Australia.
- Gold, Mary. 1999. Sustainable Agriculture: Definitions and Terms. Special Reference Briefs Series no. SRB 99-02 Updates SRB 94-5 September 1999. National Agricultural Library, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Hayes, B. 2008. Trial Proposal: Soil Amelioration in the South Australian Riverland.
- Jahn, GC, B. Khiev, C. Pol, N. Chhorn, S. Pheng, and V. Preap. 2001. Developing sustainable pest management for rice in Cambodia. pp. 243–258, In S. Suthipradit, C. Kuntha, S. Lorlowhakarn, and J. Rakngan [eds.] “Sustainable Agriculture: Possibility and Direction” Proceedings of the 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Sustainable Agriculture 18–20 October 1999, Phitsanulok, Thailand. Bangkok (Thailand): National Science and Technology Development Agency. 386 p.
- Lindsay Falvey (2004) Sustainability - Elusive or Illusion: Wise Environmental Management. Institute for International Development, Adelaide pp259.
- Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn (1989) The Fate of the Forest: developers, destroyers and defenders of the Amazon. New York: Verso.
- Netting, Robert McC. (1993) Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford Univ. Press, Palo Alto.
- Dedicated double issue of Philosophical Transactions B on Sustainable Agriculture. Some articles are freely available.
University programs
- Central Carolina Community College, Pittsboro, North Carolina
- Chiang Mai University/ Sustainable Agriculture and Integrated Watershed Management MSc, Chiang Mai University, Thailand
- Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina
- The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
- Imperial College London, UK
- Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
- Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
- Educational and Training Opportunities in Sustainable Agriculture. 19th ed. 2009. World-wide directory of academic and organizational programs. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, National Agricultural Library. http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/edtr/EDTR2006.shtml
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
- Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
- Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
- Rutgers University / Student Sustainable Farm at Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California
- Sterling College (Vermont), Craftsbury, Vermont
- Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, Caracas-Ciudad Bolivar-Coro-Maracaibo, Venezuela
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
- University of British Columbia, Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm
- University of California, Davis, California
- University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
- University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii
- University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
- University of Kassel/Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, Witzenhausen, Germany
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky
- University of Maine, Orono, Maine
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
- University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
- University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
- University of Wisconsin–River Falls, River Falls, Wisconsin
- Wageningen University, Netherlands
- Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
- West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia
- Yale Sustainable Food Project, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Further reading
- Madden, Patrick (March/April 1986). "Debt-Free Farming is Possible". Farm Economics (Pennsylvania: Cooperative Extension Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture [and] The Pennsylvania State University). ISSN 0555-9456
- Pender J., Place F., Ehui S. (2006)Strategies for Sustainable Land Management in the East African Highlands
- Pollan M. (2007) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by
- Roberts W. (2008) The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food by Roberts W. (2008)
See also
External links
- Africa Project 2020 An Effort to Eradicate Hunger in Africa by empowering Farmers through Sustainable Agriculture.
- Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis
- Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Promoting the practice and understanding of the Biodynamic system of sustainable agriculture.
- Center for Environmental Farming Systems
- Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources (WSU)
- Food Alliance The most credible and comprehensive certification for sustainable agriculture and food handling in North America.
- A special issue of the Journal of Environmental Management focuses on farm management and sustainable agriculture.
- The Land Institute Research on sustainable perennial crop systems
- National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
- National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
- Sustainable Agriculture News - The Latest Cutting Edge Information on Sustainable Agriculture
- What is Sustainable Agriculture? (from SAREP: University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program)
- Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
- SAREP: University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
- Sustainable Commodity Initiative
- Industry-based initiative promoting sustainable agriculture for the production of mainstream agricultural materials
- Rainforest Alliance's Sustainable Agriculture program
- The Vertical Farm Project Envisioning the future of human food production as a mechanism for environmental restoration, protection from infectious disease, and a source of sustainable energy
- SANREM CRSP Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program at Virginia Tech
- Self Help Development International SHDI is an Irish agency engaged in promoting long term sustainable development projects in Africa.
- Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
- SAFECROP Centre for research and development of crop protection with low environment and consumer health impact
- Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and Livelihoods Programme, part of the Natural Resources Group, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
- Research on Agriculture and its role in international development from the Overseas Development Institute
- A Natural Step Case Study: Planning for the future harvest: Sustainability in the food industry - The Organically Grown Company
- Sustainable Agriculture Portal on WiserEarth
- List of Sustainable Agriculture Organizations on WiserEarth