Sustainable agriculture
is farming in sustainable ways based on an understanding of ecosystem services,
the study of relationships between organisms and their environment.
Sustainable agriculture
can be understood as an ecosystem approach to agriculture.[5] Practices that
can cause long-term damage to soil include excessive tilling of the soil
(leading to erosion) and irrigation without adequate drainage (leading to
salinization). Long-term experiments have provided some of the best data on how
various practices affect soil properties essential to sustainability. In the
United States a federal agency, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service,
specializes in providing technical and financial assistance for those
interested in pursuing natural resource conservation and production agriculture
as compatible goals.
The most important
factors for an individual site are sun, air, soil, nutrients, and water. Of the
five, water and soil quality and quantity are most amenable to human intervention
through time and labor.
Socioeconomic aspects
of sustainability are also partly understood. Regarding less concentrated
farming, the best known analysis is Netting's study on smallholder systems
through history.[16] The Oxford Sustainable Group defines sustainability in
this context in a much broader form, considering effect on all stakeholders in
a 360 degree approach
Given the finite supply
of natural resources at any specific cost and location, agriculture that is
inefficient or damaging to needed resources may eventually exhaust the
available resources or the ability to afford and acquire them. It may also
generate negative externality, such as pollution as well as financial and
production costs. There are several studies incooperating these negative
externalities in an economic analysis concerning ecosystem services,
biodiversity, land degradation and sustainable land management. These include
the The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study led by Pavan
Sukhdev and the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative which seeks to
establish an economic cost benefit analysis on the practice of sustainable land
management and sustainable agriculture.
The way that crops are
sold must be accounted for in the sustainability equation. Food sold locally
does not require additional energy for transportation (including consumers).
Food sold at a remote location, whether at a farmers' market or the
supermarket, incurs a different set of energy cost for materials, labour, and
transport.
Pursuing sustainable
agriculture results in many localized benefits. Having the opportunities to
sell products directly to consumers, rather than at wholesale or commodity
prices, allows farmers to bring in optimal profit.
