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.[1] The Oxford Sustainable GroupW 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 resourcesW 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 externalityW, such as pollution as well as financial and production costs.

The way that crops are soldW must be accounted for in the sustainability equationW. 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 supermarketW, incurs a different set of energy cost for materials, labourW, 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 rotationW and soil amendmentW, both designed to ensure that crops being cultivated can obtain the necessary nutrientsW for healthy growth. Soil amendments would include using locally available compost from community recycling centers. These community recycling 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 the past were thrown away into large waste disposal 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.[2] This system would result in increased resistance to diseases and decreased effects of erosion and loss of nutrients in soil. Nitrogen fixationW 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 [3] but polyculture has rarely, if ever, been compared to the more widespread practice of growing different crops in successive years (crop rotationW) with the same overall crop diversityW. 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).

Polyculture practices in Andhra Pradesh

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 people away from the slash-and-burnW techniques that are the characteristic feature of shifting cultivatorsW are often cited as inherently destructive, yet slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced in the Amazon for at least 6000 years;[4] serious deforestation did not begin until the 1970s, largely as the result of Brazilian government programs and policies.[5] To note that it may not have been slash-and-burn so much as slash-and-charW, which with the addition of organic matter produces terra pretaW, 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 paddocksW, lowering stock density, and moving the stock between paddocks frequently.[6]

Several attempts have been made to produce an artificial meat, using isolated tissues to produce it in vitroW; Jason MathenyW's work on this topic, which in the New HarvestW project, is one of the most commented.[7]

Soil treatment

Soil steamingW 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. This composting could potentially be a reliable source of energy.

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 manuresW, 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 rainforestW destruction, as in the case of slash and burnW 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 2050W. Increased production may come from creating new farmland, which may ameliorate carbon dioxide emissions if done through reclamation of desert as in PalestineW, or may worsen emissions if done through slash and burnW farming, as in BrazilW. Additionally, Genetically modified organismW crops show promise for radically increasing crop yields, although many people and governments are apprehensive of this new farming method.

Some advocates favour sustainable agriculture 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.

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.

The use of available city space (e.g., rooftop gardensW, community gardens, garden sharingW, and other forms of urban agriculture for cooperative food production is another way to achieve greater sustainability.

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. 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.[8]

See also

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References

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Sources

Further reading

  • Laki, G. (2002): Added value as the basis of sustainable agriculture’s subsidy system. In: (Eds. Trebicky, V. - Novak, J.) "Rio+10 Transition from Centrally Planned Economy to Sustainable Society? (Visegrad Agenda 21)", Institute for Environmental Policy, Prague, 2002, 49. p.
  • Laki, G., Szakál, F. (2002): Added Value as a key indicator for sustainable agriculture. In: A mezőgazdasági termelés és erőforrás-hasznosítás ökonómiája - VIII. Nemzetközi Agrárökonómiai Tudományos Napok, SZIE Gazdálkodási és Mezőgazdasági Főiskolai Kar, Gyöngyös, 6 p.
  • 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)

External links


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  1. ↑ Netting, Robert McC. (1993) Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford Univ. Press, Palo Alto.
  2. ↑ Glover et al. 2007. Scientific American
  3. ↑ Nature 406, 718-722 Genetic diversity and disease control in rice, Environ. Entomol. 12:625)
  4. ↑ Sponsel, Leslie E. (1986) Amazon ecology and adaptation. Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 67-97.
  5. ↑ Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn (1989) The Fate of the Forest: developers, destroyers and defenders of the Amazon. New York: Verso.
  6. ↑ Pastures: Sustainable Management
  7. ↑ "PETA’s Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat", NYT, April 21, 2023.
  8. ↑ Vertical Farming
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