Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
agricultural sustainability are indispensable to
achieve sustainable development (social sustain-
ability) regionally, nationally and globally.
An excellent operational framework for
sustainable agriculture in both developed and
developing countries is embodied in the four pri-
mary imperatives set forth by the US National
Research Council's expert working committee in
the report
Toward Sustainable Agricultural
Systems in the 21st Century
(NRC, 2010). In
my view, these imperatives must be adopted and
actively pursued in animal agriculture in the
next 50 years in both developing and developed
countries for animals to be part of the sustain-
able agriculture. These imperatives are: (i) pro-
vide a secure, safe supply of food, feed and fibre
for humans and contribute to energy needs
(e.g. biofuels) (people); (ii) enhance the quality of
the physical environment (land, water and air) and
natural resource base (planet); (iii) foster and
support the economic viability and vitality of
agriculture and farmers (profit); and (iv) enhance
the quality of life of farmers, farm workers, and
agricultural, rural and urban communities, and
whole societies (people).
The objectives of this concluding chapter
are: (i) to revisit with readers the long-held basic
conceptual framework for sustainable agricul-
ture and nutrient cycling; (ii) to address
whether animal agriculture can have a funda-
mental and essential role in that framework in
the future; (iii) to emphasize particularly the
essentiality of one key natural resource - water
for sustainability - and to raise the question
as to whether animal agriculture must change
significantly its water use if it is to be a signifi-
cant component of a future sustainable agri-
culture; and (iv) to encourage all of us to 'go
back to basics' by placing animal agriculture in
the context of a continuum of different local
holistic, sustainable mixed plant-animal systems
that effectively recycle nutrients and energy, as
influenced by local setting and available and
implementable technologies, however simple or
sophisticated. The chapter concludes by encour-
aging students, scientists, animal farmers, all
agriculturalists, communities and societies and
thus policy makers, in both developing and
more developed countries to embrace the begin-
ning of the formative transformation and con-
tinuation to sustainable animal agriculture for
the mid-21st century.
Back to Basics
Schools of thinking about
agriculture sustainability
Three decades ago, Douglass (1984), in the
volume
Agricultural Sustainability in a Changing
World Order
, wrote about three specific 'schools
of thinking', which provide the foundation for
a working definition of sustainable animal
agriculture into the future. Each school repre-
sented a quite different viewpoint or belief about
sustainability:
1.
The notion of the first school is that sus-
tainability means food security with continu-
ously improving agricultural productivity and
efficiency to meet ever-increasing demands
for food for a growing population; with the
determinism that 'good' food security out-
comes rationalize (justify) other consequences -
negative or degenerative - that might occur
(e.g. water and air pollution, loss of topsoil, etc.).
2.
The second belief focuses on the absolute
necessity of stewardship of the environment
(maintaining the natural ecology) before agri-
culture can possibly be or become sustainable.
3.
The third conviction espoused by 'alter-
native' agriculturists is that preservation of nat-
ural resources, promoting rural cultures and
fostering self-reliance are utmost - all of which
they argue are intrinsic to preservation of family
farming.
In the introduction to the topic, Douglass (1984)
then proposed a conceptual compromise or inte-
gration among these schools (Fig. 18.1): 'That
agriculture will be found to be sustainable when
ways are discovered to meet future demands for
foodstuffs without imposing on society real
increases in social costs of production and with-
out causing the distribution of opportunities
and income to worsen.' Measured against these
standards and based on the evidence available
at the time, he concluded that then-existing
agriculture production systems were not sus-
tainable (Douglass, 1984). How would we answer
30 years later?
The first school of thinking embodies suf-
ficiency of food security through plant and
animal production in the farm, opportunities
to manage and improve productivity, and
