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In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.
Our nation's grandest enterprise is our agricultural industry. It is second to none in terms of assets, workers, and exports. Agricultural success has be come an accepted fact and is taken for granted by the majority of the American public. Few believe or are even willing to consider that the con tinued future success of this industry is threatened. Yet threatened it is. The resource base of agriculture is becoming dimin ished through overuse and environmental misuse. A further complication is the competition for agricultural resources by other users. The energy, soil, and water resources cannot sustain agriculture into the far future at their present rate of use. Something must be done to bring about public awareness and support for the changes needed to move our nation toward a sustainable agriculture. More research and funding must be directed toward this end. Our agriculture educators and other information disseminators must make sure that the farmers, politicians, and the public receive the message. Farmers must be willing to make the necessary changes. Something is being done. Our agricultural system is in a transitional stage. Traditional agriculturists are changing some practices and their attitudes.
Since the 1960s, the world's population has more than doubled and agricultural production per person has increased by a third. Yet this growth in production has masked enormous hidden costs arising from widespread pesticide use - massive ecological damage and high incidences of farmer poisoning and chronic health effects. Whereas once the risks involved with pesticide use were judged to be outweighed by the potential benefits, increasingly the external costs of pesticides, to environments and human health, are being seen as unacceptable. In response to this trend, recent years have seen millions of farmers in communities around the world reduce their use of harmful pesticides and develop cheaper and safer alternatives. The Pesticide Detox explores the potential for the phasing-out of hazardous pesticides and the phasing-in of cost effective alternatives already available on the market. This book makes clear that it is time to start the pesticide detox and to move towards a more sustainable agriculture.
"This is a story of resistance against all odds, of Cuba's remarkable recovery from a food crisis brought on by the collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. Unable to import either food or the farm chemicals and machines needed to grow it via conventional agriculture, Cuba turned inward toward self-reliance. Sustainable agriculture, organic farming, urban gardens, smaller farms, animal traction and biological pest control are part of the successful paradigm shift underway in the Cuban countryside. In this book Cuban authors offer details-for the first time in English-of these remarkable achievements, which may serve as guideposts toward healthier, more environmentally friendly and self-reliant farming in countries both North and South."--Publisher's description
Modern industrial agriculture is not sustainable because of its heavy reliance on petroleum, a non-renewable source of the energy used in farming, and because of pollution caused by petroleum products such as fertilizers and pesticides. A systems analysis of farming suggests that agriculture will be more sustainable when services of nature, such as nutrient recycling by soil micro-organisms and natural controls of insects, replace the services now provided by energy from petroleum. Examples are drawn from the Southeastern USA, but lessons learned can be applied worldwide.
Interest is growing in sustainable agriculture, which involves the use of productive and profitable farming practices that take advantage of natural biological processes to conserve resources, reduce inputs, protect the environment, and enhance public health. Continuing research is helping to demonstrate the ways that many factorsâ€"economics, biology, policy, and traditionâ€"interact in sustainable agriculture systems. This book contains the proceedings of a workshop on the findings of a broad range of research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The areas of study, such as integrated pest management, alternative cropping and tillage systems, and comparisons with more conventional approaches, are essential to developing and adopting profitable and sustainable farming systems.
This book describes initiatives and concrete examples on sustainable food production worldwide. In the current world scenario, where nations all over the world are struggling to accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and to ensure sustainable patterns for all, this book provides a contribution towards a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of the cross-cutting issues related to Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. This interdisciplinary book supports the efforts to engage a commitment from all fields of science, to work together to provide knowledge that could help to address SDG2 (No hunger) and lead to the promotion of quality of life, by means of a more sustainable food production, and improved food security. This book is expected to fill the gap of publications in this field. It gives a special emphasis to a state-of-the-art descriptions of approaches, methods, initiatives and projects from universities, stakeholders, organizations and civil society across the world, regarding cross-cutting issues in sustainable food production. It includes examples of policies and practices case studies, examples of projects, institutional policies, innovative methods and tools and research outputs, which highlight the interdependence between sustainable agriculture and food security issues. It is expected that the “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security” will make the many benefits of sustainable food production clearer and, inter alia, lead to an increase in the emphasis provided to this central theme.
Advisor to President Kennedy, consultant for foreign governments, and spokesman for family farmers everywhere, Willard W. Cochrane has been a leading expert on agriculture and its problems in the United States since the 1940s. In his straightforward style Cochrane analyzes the propensity for American agriculture to produce too much and the inability of our social and economic system to make effective use of that unending abundance. He then offers his vision for American agriculture in the twenty-first century. Cochrane looks at two periods in agricultural history: 195366 and 19972002. Structurally, technologically, and organizationally the two periods are as different as night and day, but in terms of the big economic picture--too much production pressing on a limited commercial demand with resulting low farm prices and incomes--they are mirror images of each other. With this understanding, Cochrane argues that Americans no longer need to farm fragile ecosystems with intensive chemical methods, make huge payments that result in fewer farms and higher farming costs, nor bear the environmental consequences of all-out production. Instead, he outlines a bold new strategy in which we can enjoy our abundance and focus our efforts on quality of life and protecting the environment in our rural areas. Willard W. Cochrane is the author of numerous books, including The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis, and coauthor of Reforming Farm Policy: Toward a National Agenda. Richard A. Levins is a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota and the author of Willard Cochrane and the American Family Farm (Nebraska 2003).