What is Sustainable Agriculture?
"Get big or get out."
Ezra Taft Benson, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, 1953-1961
The philosopy memorialized by Secretary Benson helped to usher in an era of industrial agriculture, characterized by:
- Long distance food and heavy fossil fuel use,
- Monocropping and loss of biodiversity,
- The loss of farms, farmland, and farmers,
- The myth of cheap food,
- Reliance on fertilizers and pesticides (most notably leading to an ocean "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico),
- Megaherds and soil erosion,
- Factory farms,
- Deforestation,
- Aquifer drawdown and water pollution,
- Genetically modified organisms
- Obesity and other public health issues
Sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, is characterized by Aldo Leopold's well-known mantra: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (1989: 224). Leopold long ago suggested that “we abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us” (1989: viii). His "land ethic" is meant to invoke ethical responsibilities to the natural environment (i.e., in order for stewardship rather than despoliation to be the bequest we leave to future generations, we need to live within the constraints and possibilities
that nature provides). Taking Leopold's land ethic to heart, sustainable agriculture practitioners advocate:
- Crop rotation to interrupt pests and add soil nutrients,
- Use of cover crops to minimize erosion and improve soil health,
- Biomimicry, or copying ecosystems by planting a wide variety of crops,
- No-till and low-till farming to minimize soil disturbances,
- No synthetic pesticides or fertilizers,
- Buying local through farmers' markets, community supported agriculture programs, and other venues to support local farmers and minimize the distance food travels.
When combined with on-farm energy production such as wind turbines for electricity or biodiesel for liquid fuel, sustainable agriculture provides a model for long-term food and energy security.
Photo credit: All images in the banner courtesy of the Intervale.
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