The importance and volatility of food prices have made most governments reluctant to let market forces alone set these prices.Thus, a host of institutional measures have been implemented to address agricultural prices in order to manage their effects on consumer welfare, public coffers, farmer income, foreign exchange, food security, nutrition, and food distribution.Such policies include commodity programs, water and reclamation programs, import/export policies, and research and extension programs.Larger economic factors indirectly affect the agricultural system, factors such as interest rates, trade policy and negotiations, the exchange value of the U.S.dollar, and environmental regulations.In the context of these economic policies, agriculture is subject to non-agricultural constraints and conditions, a fact acknowledged broadly in the literature of both conventional and sustainable agriculture.Yet most research and extension programs in both conventional and sustainable agriculture do not recognize or address these macro factors.Sustainable agriculture efforts generally concentrate on environmentally sound farm-level technologies which are economically profitable for farmers to adopt.Less commonly do such efforts address how the technologies they generate will affect or be affected by larger economic concerns in the long run.A second assumption behind many sustainable agriculture definitions, that short-term profitability is of ultimate importance, is also common.This is a central tenet of LISA, forming the first of its ten Guiding Principles: “If a method of farming is not profitable, it cannot be sustainable.”This is problematic, particularly since there is little acknowledgement that profitability is determined by policies, fiscal procedures, and business structures that can obstruct sustainability.We recognize that short-term profit- ability is important in commercial agricultural systems; clearly,hydroponic nft system if growers are to adopt sustainable agricultural practices, these must be profitable in the short run as well as the long run.
The problem lies in pursuit of short-run profitability at the expense of environmental and social goals.In conventional agriculture, the drive to maximize short-term profit has meant that many pressing problems have been ignored or exacerbated.Natural resources have often been treated as expendable commodities , and agriculture has functioned more for financial gain than for human need.The social costs of production have generally been neglected: chronic hunger, inequitable economic returns and unsafe working conditions for farm labor, possible negative health effects related to nutrition and agrichemical use, and the decline of socioeconomic conditions in rural communities associated with large-scale industrial agriculture.Subsuming social goals to economic goals may easily be reproduced in sustainability programs unless sustainability concepts address the fact that profitability and social goals are often not compatible in current economic systems.A useful concept of agricultural sustainability needs not only to acknowledge social issues as priorities equivalent to those of production, environment, and economics, but to recognize the need for balance among those disparate but highly interactive elements which comprise agriculture.Toward this, we offer the following perspective: A sustainable food and agriculture system is one which is environmentally sound, economically viable, socially responsible, non-exploitative, and which serves as the foundation for future generations.It must be approached through an interdisciplinary focus which addresses the many interrelated parts of the entire food and agriculture system, at local, regional, national, and international levels.Essential to this perspective is recognition of the whole-systems nature of agriculture; the idea that sustainability must be extended not only through time, but throughout the globe as well, valuing the welfare of not only future generations, but of all people now living and of all species of the biosphere.This sustainability concept moves beyond emphasis of farm-level practices and micro-economic profitability to that of the entire agricultural system and its total clientele.Richard Lowrance, Paul Hendrix, and Eugene Odum16 describe a model which approximates a whole-systems approach.They see four different loci or subsystems of sustainability: 1) farm fields where agronomic factors are paramount; 2) the farm unit wherein micro-economic concerns are primary; 3) the regional physical environment where ecological factors are central; and 4) national and international economies where macroeconomic issues are most important.
Their model demonstrates that focusing on only one level of the agricultural system neglects others that are equally essential.A whole-systems perspective fosters an understanding of complex interactions and their diverse ramifications through- out agriculture and the systems with which it articulates.This understanding is at the root of sustainability.Vernon Ruttan17 describes an ever-widening comprehension of “whole system” as he delineates three waves of social concerns which have arisen about natural resource availability, environmental change, and human well-being.In the late 1940s and early 1950s the first wave focused on whether resources such as land, water, and energy were sufficient to sustain economic growth.The second wave, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, focused on the effect of growth-generated pollution on the environment.The most recent concerns, manifest since the mid-1980s, also center on adverse environmental effects, but the key distinction is the transnational issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain.As agriculture and its impacts become increasingly globalized, the need for a whole-systems perspective, particularly in terms of decision-making, become increasingly critical.Dahlberg 9 observes that although the impacts of modern industrial society are global, the data and analytical tools we use to assess those impacts are limited by national, disciplinary, or sectoral boundaries.Our educational and research institutions tend to mirror this shortcoming,with the result that the larger system contexts of research questions are infrequently investigated and poorly understood.Difficulties in apprehending and resolving problems whose constituents are grounded in several interrelated systems are compounded by the international community’s disparate, competitive political and economic systems.Nations act to promote their own priorities but affect, often negatively, globally shared resources and globally interdependent societies.Although nations and other sociopolitical groups generate impacts beyond their borders, they are generally incapable or unwilling to assess and react equitably to the results of their actions.Pierre Cross on and Norman Rosenberg 18 note the inadequacy of information feedback about significant environmental problems in modern societies, an inadequacy which characterizes feedback about social problems as well.
Accounting for the system-wide implications of local actions should be a primary objective for sustainable agricultural systems.The tools to facilitate such an accounting can only be developed within a whole-systems perspective.We believe it is inadequate to exclude social justice as a priority and that there is an ethical requirement for greater equity in the agricultural system.Some have combined concern for how we treat the environment with how we treat our fellow human beings.For those focusing on the latter, it is essential to look beyond sustaining our environmental and economic ability to produce agricultural goods.It is equally important to ensure that those goods are produced and distributed in an equitable manner.A concern with this human values aspect of agriculture involves a sweeping rather than localized concept of who constitutes “us.” Typically, resource conservation is dis- cussed in terms of its implications for farmers’ profit- ability or our descendants’ food-producing capabilities.The sustainability definition offered in this paper does not limit equity considerations to these groups.A concern with equitable social relations in agriculture requires defining “us” in terms of all fellow humans – not only farmers and future generations, but also farm workers, consumers, non-farm rural residents, Third World urban poor, and others.Sustainability in this sense is framed in terms of both inter generational and intragenerational equity.Thus, issues such as farm worker rights and inner-city hunger are as central as issues of soil erosion and groundwater contamination to the goals of agricultural sustainability.One of the most profound challenges facing agriculture is creating a decision-making process which will fairly resolve equity issues.Such a process must assess competing interests; evaluate agriculture’s costs and benefits,nft channel and the recipients of each; decide fairly what the compromises must be; recognize and encourage shared goals and common ground.In most discussions of sustainability either environmental quality or social justice issues are emphasized, but neither can be sup- ported wholly at the expense of the other.Nourishing humans, ensuring social justice, and providing a reasonable quality of life cannot be accomplished if agriculture’s resource base and environmental constraints are neglected.Likewise, few would argue that environmental considerations should be pursued at the expense of satisfying basic human needs.An equitable agricultural system must foster a decision-making process which is truly democratic, one which identifies not only what the costs and benefits are but how to distribute them fairly among all sectors of society.Many sustainability definitions, particularly those which guide applied sustainable agriculture programs, are based on the primacy of farm production and short-term profitability.
As sustainable agriculture programs have increasingly been incorporated into long-established agricultural institutions they have manifested the largely unquestioned intellectual assumptions and infrastructural constraints which characterize their parent institutions.This is problematic because conventional agricultural institutions have fostered many technologies and policies counter to sustainable agriculture goals.23 Such institutions have, for example, contributed to concentration within agriculture; have not generally benefited agricultural labor; and have systematically failed to examine their impact on the environment, the structure of rural households and communities, and the consequences of rural resident displacement.24 To situate new pro- grams designed to address these problems within the framework which produced them is of questionable value unless steps are taken to change the nature of that framework, for it determines the way its re- searchers see the world, pose questions, and define problems.When agriculture is viewed in a whole-systems context and sustainability is defined comprehensively, it is clear why the current popular focus on farm production practices is insufficient for achieving agricultural sustainability.Developing non-chemical pest management methods, for example, will effectively reduce pesticide use only if economic structures and policies encourage their adoption by farmers.More importantly, one cannot conclude that improved production practices will transform the agricultural system into one that meets all environmental, economic, and social sustainability goals.Social goals must be addressed explicitly.This is why production techniques such as organic farming, while a likely component of a sustainable food and agricultural system, cannot be thought of as synonymous with sustainable agriculture.Given the conventional institutional context of most state and federal sustainable agriculture programs it is not surprising that they tend to focus research on conventional priorities such as production practices and efficiency and have not, for the most part, aggressively addressed social and economic issues.Sustainability priorities – and the definitions which embody them – must be expanded to encompass the many factors affecting production and distribution as well as the larger environmental, economic, and social systems within which agriculture functions.This has been the focus of the Agroecology Program since its inception in 1982.Through conferences and publications* we have worked to expand the discussion and practice of integrating these aspects of sustainability.
Recently, the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program has broadened its agronomic focus to include social, economic, and policy issues.SAREP defines sustain- able agriculture as integrating “…three main goals – environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity.”Their grant program, which encourages research and education on social, economic, and public policy issues affecting food and agriculture, could become a model for other sustain- able agriculture programs such as LISA.We believe that it is important to continue exploring the meaning of agricultural sustainability.Before an improved agricultural system can be developed the biases and structures that have led to agricultural problems must be closely examined and concrete goals articulated, based upon a broadened concept of agricultural sustainability.The concept of sustainability offered in this paper emphasizes that social goals are as important as environmental and economic goals, and widens the opportunity to move beyond the narrow agricultural priorities expressed in the past.It is based upon the whole-systems, interactive nature of all aspects of the agricultural system – that problems and their resolutions must be conceived not only in terms of their immediate time frames and local impacts, but just as importantly, in terms of their future time frames and their global impacts.It encourages emphasis on optimum production over maximum production, the long term along with the short term, the public’s best interest over special interests, and the contextualization of disciplinary work within interdisciplinary frameworks.Our hope is that this definition helps advance the discussion on developing a food and agriculture system that is sustainable for everyone.Global warming attributed to the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases has increased the global temperature by ∼0.89 °C in the 20th century.Approximately 13% of total GHG emissions were contributed from agricultural lands and N2O emission from agriculture accounted for 61% of total anthropogenic N2O emissions.