Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
legislation) pertaining to agriculture is to a
large degree responsible for the current agri-
culture production system in the USA (NRC,
2010). Many policies (international, federal,
state and local) involving agriculture prac-
tices, credit, energy, risk management and
environment dominate in farmers' manage-
ment decisions (Figs 18.1 and 18.4). These
policy drivers directly and indirectly influence
single farmer decisions and aggregates of
local or regional farming systems, greatly
influencing the degree to which they operate
sustainably. For example, in the USA, the
best-funded provisions of the Farm Bill (revis-
ited, revamped and renewed every 4-6 years)
traditionally include: food-purchasing assis-
tance to low-income families; significant
commodity subsidies paid to farmers for pro-
duction of maize, cotton, rice, soybean and
wheat; crop insurance and disaster relief;
and conservation programmes (Monke and
Johnson, 2010). About one-third of US farm-
ers receive commodity and conservation pay-
ments via the Farm Bill, which has major
influence on what, where and how food and
feed are produced and made available as
human-consumables.
The committee also noted that most ele-
ments of the US Farm Bill traditionally are not
intended to foster agriculture sustainability.
Commodity subsidies are often criticized for
distorting market incentives and making the
food system overly dependent on a few crops
(e.g. maize, wheat, soybeans), which are used
currently in significant amounts by animal
agriculture to grow and finish both ruminant
and non-ruminants and for highly processed
foods; both unfortunately, if not managed
properly, can have damaging effects of the
environment and human health (Dobbs and
Petty, 2004; Cox, 2011). All of which is largely
undergirded by relatively inexpensive govern-
ment-subsidized fossil fuels in the USA com-
pared with most other even-more developed
countries.
The NRC (2010) committee argued that
while significant remodelling of the US Farm
Bill to foster sustainable agriculture will be an
arduous task always with political friction and
budgetary constraints, much of the knowledge
and information needed to take the transfor-
mative path already is available (Batie, 2009).
Proposed remodelling includes reduced spend-
ing on subsidies that mask reality and risks
associated with conventional farming that
facilitate problems of unbalanced markets, and
cause issues with environmental and social
acceptability - unsustainable agricultural per-
formance. Funds should be re-deployed to
encourage farming systems and markets that
encourage and foster the four sustainability
imperatives, and are more able to respond to
resource constraints and variability in global
markets.
In the broader policy view, the NRC
(2001) committee encouraged much greater
integration of the concepts, practices and sys-
tems of agriculture sustainability into policy
discussions about many other looming issues
such as biofuel production, energy policy,
climate change, trade agreements, immigra-
tion reform and environmental regulation.
Otherwise, it maintained that there would be
very little possibility to achieve any major pol-
icy change or changes in farming practices or
systems to achieve long-term agriculture
sustainability.
Research and technology transformation
The committee also stressed publicly funded
research and technology development should
be re-directed and transformed in such a way
as to directly and inclusively make agricul-
tural sustainability the primary platform for
identifying research needs and deployment of
competitive as well as non-competitive local,
state and federal funds. This would bring the
transformational approach described above to
the forefront and facilitate more integrated
multidisciplinary projects and programmes.
Currently, the majority of public and private
agriculture research in the animal sciences is
narrowly focused (the incremental approach)
for enhancements in productivity and effi-
ciency of production, especially on develop-
ment or refinement of technologies that fit
into existing production systems or aim to
mitigate problems caused by these systems
(e.g. water and air pollution). Also, often the
more incremental discoveries and develop-
ment lead to proprietary private technologies
or benefits (Huffman and Everson, 2006;
NRC, 2010). This may represent a misuse of
