Agriculture may or may not be sustainable.?

Question

Agriculture may or may not be sustainable.?

Answer 1

True.  Many efforts are made to make it sustainable..reducing erosion, fallow periods, reduction of pesticides/herbicides, avoiding use of water with salts.  But through out history there are examples of great agricultural societies that have eventually become desert (The fertile crescent) ..non-sustainable agriculture. Generally agriculture is referred to as a renewable resource (as opposed to non-renewable oil and mineral mining...it won't grow back when we take it from the earth).

Don't confuse sustainable with subsistence.  Many farmers in Africa or SE Asia are subsistence farmers, this means they grow what they need for their family.  In the U.S. generally monoculture (growing of a single crop), and crops for sale is the rule.  This is somewhat less sustainable because the same crop (corn for example) takes the same nutrients from the soil year after year, while mixed crops each take something a little different and leave something a little different in their waste stubble which returns to the soil.  But the agro-business couldn't survive this way.  It wouldn't support our large population and would be labor intensive, taking workers from other industries, .and this is where most of us get our food (in the U.S.)

Answer 2

Sustainable agriculture simply means the farm sustains the family without them having to obtain income from outside the farm.  The farm supplies the farm family with everything they need plus enough income to buy whatever the farm doesn't supply.  Non sustainable agriculture is where the farm supplies some of the family needs but the farmer or his wife has to seek work to help the family meet it's needs.

Answer 3

What i know is that the sustainability of agriculture is closely related to the farming practices applied by the farmer. We always hear about organic farming produces in the market which organic practices is one of the sustainable farming practices used in agriculture. But there are also lots more of similar practices which is considered sustainable which usually rely on biologically natural ingredients in their stages of farming for example chicken manure fertiliser and neem oil(Azadirachta indica (Meliaceae)) as insecticides and also apply crop rotation system and land fallow period to allow the soil nutrient build up after a certain cycle of plantation. But not all of these practices are fully sustainable and it should be categorized from less sustainable to highly sustainable practices.

It would be a bonus for the farmer, i think, if they apply all the highly sustainable practices because although the yield may not seem as high as the chemical infused farms, but surely their soils and land will be alive and perform at their best for a long long time compared to short lived chemical based farm which usually perform in their best in 3-5 years max.

Answer 4

Please elaborate,

mankind has been using agriculture for thousands of years, that seems pretty sustainable.

Answer 5

It can be both but farmers are encouraged to practice sustainable farming with methods like crop rotation.