Definitions of Sustainable Agriculture
Definitions of Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable Agriculture refers to a range of strategies for addressing many problems that effect agriculture. Such problems include loss of soil productivity from excessive soil erosion and associated plant nutrient losses, surface and ground water pollution from pesticides, fertilizers and sediments, impending shortages of non- renewable resources, and low farm income from depressed commodity prices and high production costs. Furthermore, “Sustainable” implies a time dimension and the capacity of a farming system to endure indefinitely.
(Lockertz, 1988)
The successful management of resources for agriculture to satisfy changing human needs while maintaining or enhancing the (Natural resource- base and avoiding environmental degradation) (TAC-CGIAR, 1988)
A sustainable Agriculture is a system of agriculture that is committed to maintain and preserve the agriculture base of soil, water , and atmosphere ensuring future generations the capacity to feed themselves with an adequate supply of safe and wholesome food’
(Gracet, 1990)
‘A Sustainable Agriculture system is one that can indefinitely meet demands for food and fibre at socially acceptable, economic and environment cost’
(Crosson, 1992)
A broad and commonly accepted definition of sustainable Agriculture is as follows:
Sustainable Agriculture refers to an agricultural production and distribution system that:
• Achieves the integration of natural biological cycles and controls
• Protects and renews soil fertility and the natural resource base
• Reduces the use of nonrenewable resources and purchased(external or off-farm) production inputs
• Optimizes the management and use of on- farm inputs
• Provides on adequate and dependable farm income• Promotes opportunity in family farming and farm communities,
and
• Minimizes adverse impacts on health, safety, wildlife, water quality and the environment.
Current concept of sustainable agriculture
A Current concept of sustainable Agriculture in the United States
showing the ends and the means of achieving them through low- input
methods and skilled management.
The ultimate goal or the ends of sustainable agriculture is to develop
farming systems that are productive and profitable, conserve the natural resource base, protect the environment, and enhance health and safety, and to do so over the long-term. The means of achieving this is low input methods and skilled management, which seek to optimize the management and use of internal production inputs (i.e., on-farm
resources) in ways that provide acceptable levels of sustainable crop
yields and livestock production and result in economically profitable returns. This approach emphasizes such cultural and management practices as crop rotations, recycling of animal manures, and conservation tillage to control soil erosion and nutrient losses and to maintain or enhance soil productivity. Low-input farming systems seek to minimize the use of external
production inputs (i.e., off-farm resources), such as purchased fertilizers
and pesticides, wherever and whenever feasible and practicable: to lower
production costs: to avoid pollution of surface and groundwater: to reduce pesticide residues in food: to reduce a farmer’s overall risk:; and to increase both short-term and long-term farm profitability. Another reason for the focus on low- input farming systems is that most high-input systems, sooner or later, would probably fail because they are not either economically or environmentally sustainable over the long-term.
1. Reduceduse of synthetic
2. chemical inputs
3. Biological pest control
4. Soil and water conservation practices
5. Use of animal and green manures processes
6. Biotechnology
7. Crop rotations
8.Use of Organic wastes
9.Crop- livestock diversification
10. Mechanical cultivation
11.Naturally occurring
A current concept of sustainable Agriculture in The United
States
Goals of sustainable Agriculture
A sustainable Agriculture, therefore, is any system of food or fiber production that systematically pursues the following goals:
• A more thorough incorporation of natural processes such as nutrient cycling nitrogen fixation and pest predator relationships into agricultural production processes:
• A reduction in the use of those off-farm, external and non-renewable inputs with the greatest potential to damage the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers, and more targeted use of the remaining inputs used with a view to minimizing variable costs:
• The full participation of farmers and rural people in all processes of problem analysis and technology development, adoption and extension.
• A more equitable access to predictive resources and opportunities, and progress towards more socially just forms of Agriculture:
• A greater productive use of the biological and genetic potential of
plant and animal species:
• A greater productive use of local knowledge and practices, including innovation in approaches not yet fully understood by scientists or widely adopted by farmers:
• An increase in self-reliance among farmers and rural people.
• An improvement in the match between cropping patterns and the productive potential and environmental constraints of climate and landscape to ensure long-term sustainability of current production
levels: and
• Profitable and efficient production with an emphasis on integrated form management: and the conservation of soil, water, energy and biological resources
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