Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
habitat fragmentation. The net effect of these impacts over time will be to reduce the capacity
of the sustenance base to support increases in food production to meet the needs of future
generations and the needs of those who currently suffer from hunger and malnutrition.
These concerns regarding health, as well as the environmental impacts and sustainability of
conventional industrial agriculture have led to efforts directed at developing more sustainable
alternatives as described by [10-13]. Alternatives, variously described as organic food pro‐
duction systems, community supported agriculture (CSA), community-based agriculture, and
civic agriculture have begun to resonate and garner significant public support. These alterna‐
tive approaches to food production are community-based food production systems. Com‐
munity-based agriculture initiatives are nature-based and produce food in an environmentally
sustainable manner [14-15]. Sustainable agricultural production systems practice crop
rotation, no-till farming, diverse cropping patterns, use of organic matter or organically
derived fertilizers, integrated pest management, biological control, cover cropping, timing of
planting, leaving land in fallow, a variety of water conservation techniques and make optimum
use of the natural biological cycles. The objective of a sustainable agricultural system is to forge
a symbiotic relationship with the ecological capital and in the process learn to use the resources
it provides without affecting the capacity of the ecological capital to support food production.
This approach is tantamount to using a portion of the interest from an investment portfolio
and ploughing back some earnings to ensure the continued productive capacity of the base
investment capital. In contrast, conventional industrial agriculture views the ecology as
primary capital input or raw material that is to be manipulated or consumed in the production
process. The focus of sustainability in food production is to develop a food production system
that mirrors or integrates with the natural ecology in which it exists. It is believed that such a
system would achieve the highest degree of sustainability--the capacity to persist through time
as a system of food production.
3. Sustainable agriculture the undergirding principle of organic
agriculture 3
What exactly is sustainable agriculture? Scholars and technocrats alike don't agree on a single
definition, primarily because: (1) there is no way a single definition of the concept could be
applied to cover the diversity of ecologies, cultural and economic conditions under which
agriculture is practiced, and (2) there are several stakeholders, with a vested interest in the
concept, who cannot agree on a single definition [16]. Essentially then, the practice of sustain‐
able agriculture will be defined by local ecological and social conditions. Even though there is
lack of agreement on a single definition of sustainable agriculture, there is general agreement
that conventional agriculture or industrial agriculture is not sustainable for reasons mentioned
above. For example, conventional agriculture depends increasingly on energy supplies from
nonrenewable sources, depends on a narrow genetic base and intensive use of chemical
Search WWH ::




Custom Search