Sustainable Agriculture for Food; It stands defined in various ways and terms; the FAO (2000) defines it as the admin and conservation of the natural resource base; and, the orientation of technological and institutional bend in such a ventilate as to ensure the taking back more; and the continued satisfaction of human needs for expertise and well ahead generations. The Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultative Group in sham to International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) defined sustainable agriculture as the proficiently-to-get sticking to of government of resources for agriculture to satisfy changing human needs even though maintaining or enhancing the vibes of the environment and conserving natural resources.
Here are the articles to explain, What is Sustainable Agriculture for Food Environmental Sciences Essay?
Agriculture remains the backbone of the economy in many developing countries; it is necessary to auspices occurring lift people out of poverty and hunger by creating a stable pension source; especially in rural areas, that can contribute to the progress of a green or sustainable economy, not single-handedly at the national but as well as globally. Shortly, the population, water, and food security will be omnipotent issues, the global population would probably achieve 9 billion. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates; that 60% more food will need to preserve all these people in 2050.
Sustainable agriculture is agricultural products that need to meet the needs of current and remote generations; and, it needs to define not unaccompanied in terms of their long-term economic potential; but as well as in terms of their environmental and social promotion and costs. The effect of gardening practices on the social structure of rural communities and auxiliary populations needs to evaluate in terms of sustainability; sustainable agriculture is any suite of agronomic practices that should be economically doable, environmentally safe, and socially enjoyable.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO);
The FAO in 1995, specifically defined sustainable agriculture and rural build happening as a process that should meet these criteria; Firstly, ensuring that the basic nutritional needs of the assigned minister and in the disaffect ahead generations stand met both qualitatively and quantitatively, supplying a variety of accumulation agricultural products; Secondly provides sustainable employment, times-privileged pension and decent vivacious and on the go conditions for all those engaged in farm production; Thirdly, Maintains and strengthens the production execution of the natural resource base as a sum and the regenerative finishing of renewable resources wherever reachable; fourthly, reduces agricultural sector aeration to adverse environmental and socio-economic factors and counter threats, and strengthens self-reliance.
Sustainable agriculture is the answerability of every one of the program stakeholders, including producers, staff, policy-makers, academics, retailers, and customers; every part of the share of the group has its role to produce a result; and its unique contribution to the extension of the sustainable farming community. This essay will go into detail and introduce the main components of sustainability in the agricultural sector; the concept and the components of Sustainable Agriculture, the regulation and policies; why it is important for us, why we compulsion Sustainable Agriculture; and some examples of delightful practices of sustainability in agriculture; and the money program for Sustainable Agriculture in EU and the global level.
Common sustainable agricultural policy in the EU and USA;
The European Union is moving towards sustainable agriculture, which plays a key role in internal and external policies. The common agricultural policy (CAP) of the EU stood developed in 1962; as a collaboration between agriculture and society and between all EU countries; and their farmers, the main goals are to help farmers and increase agricultural productivity, climate change; and sustainable natural resource management, to maintain rural areas and ecosystems throughout; the EU and to maintain the rural economy by supporting employment in agriculture, agri-food, and related sectors.
For all EU countries, the CAP is a common policy, farmers should operate in a sustainable; and environmentally friendly way, and protect our soil and biodiversity. The CAP takes action with income support through direct payments ensuring income stability and remunerating farmers for environmentally friendly cultivation, policy interventions to cope with challenging market conditions, and rural development measures through national and regional programs to address the specific needs and problems facing rural areas.
The CAP helps farmers satisfy their social functions in the following ways: producing food, developing rural communities, and sustainable agriculture. In US farm policy, the Farm Bill has included provisions promoting more organic farming, making it easier for fruit and vegetable farmers to apply for crop insurance, and encouraging farmers to adopt more sustainable practices in their working fields.
Components of Sustainable Agriculture;
Soil management, crop management, water management, disease or pest management; and waste management are the main components of sustainable agriculture, Future sustainability can determine by the most limiting element and these elements may change over time including population density, water, fossil fuel energy, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, salinity, economy, and agricultural land quantities.
Good soil management practices need to achieve the sustainability principle, including spreading fertilizer, implementing composts, planting cover crops, and decreasing tillage. Best crop management practices include pinching, chopping, hilling, and suckering. The Best practices for water management include drip irrigation, rotational grazing, crop covering, dry farming, water capture and storage, and irrigation scheduling.
Concept and evaluation of Sustainable Agriculture;
Sustainable agriculture must be sensitive to all economic social and environmental challenges; and these three factors play an important role in achieving sustainable agriculture or any sustainable challenges, environmental issues contribute to the growth of contemporary social economics, and the key socioeconomic issues to tackle are poverty alleviation, changes in consumption, population dynamics, protection of the environment and human health. Sustainable development, according to the World Conservation Union (1991); improves the quality of life by living within the capacity to maintain ecosystems.
It is a complex issue related to food production; while preserving our natural resources including soil and water without any negative impact on the natural ecosystem. In general, the concept of sustainable agriculture should be to maintain today’s and tomorrow’s human needs with food quality, maintain natural resources, economically viable farming practices for productivity improvement, maintain or improve soil fertility, minimal impact on the wide environment, and social acceptability.
The Response-Inducing Sustainability Assessment (RISE) approach has stood developed by the Swiss School of Agriculture; Forest and Food Sciences in Bern to evaluate sustainability in as objective and systematic a way as possible. RISE has been in use since 2000, helping to make farm activities sustainable measurable, and communicable. It studies a single farm operation using surveys to collect information on 10 sustainability indicators across economic ecological and social dimensions, such as soil use and livestock production. In addition, RISE provides valuable insights for policy advice; since some shortcomings in sustainability are the result of the structural framework rather than of farm management.
Why is sustainable agriculture important to us?
Important because it means human food, fuel, and fiber needs while maintaining habitat conservation and biodiversity protection. Sustainable agriculture is essential in our lives and plays an important role in the future; because it is related directly and indirectly to our food security and connected with other economic, social, and environmental factors. The main priority is to ensure that the agricultural supply of goods, food, water, air, and soil meets present; and future needs by building and maintaining healthy soil, managing water use, reducing air, water, and climate pollution, and promoting biodiversity.
Examples of good practices of sustainable agriculture;
There is many good and successful practice of sustainable agriculture such as organic farming; which is a good food production and farm management system with best environmental practices which provide high-quality public goods. Biogas production from manure and agricultural waste is a source of renewable energy and provides farmers with additional income. By providing ecosystems that are an important component of agricultural landscapes; biodiversity can increase through grazing practices, and permanent pastures play a significant role in carbon storage.
Applying Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by using mechanical and biological controls; can routinely implemented to maintain the control of pest species while reducing the use of chemical pesticides. Integrating livestock and crops by managing the feed process and fertilizers process, Planting cover crops. cover crops preserve and create soil health by preventing erosion, replenishing soil nutrients, and keeping weeds under control, reducing herbicide requirements.
How can we promote sustainable agriculture?
Education, awareness, agricultural advice, resource accessibility, land, and water are important for sustainable agriculture, particularly for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Sustainable growth-oriented farming requires infrastructure for production and access to working markets, in some countries, the small-scale farmers stand still often excluded from the formal credit market and other services as they cannot give any collateral to banks and this must solve to help the small farmers to sustain the quantity and the quality of farming production.
Communication technologies play an increasingly important role in the agricultural and downstream industries; such as mobile and internet services used in the agricultural services, such as market price sharing and consulting, and others services.
Support Programs for Sustainable Agriculture;
Many programs are working to develop sustainable agriculture in the EU and Globally. In the EU, the European Foundations for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (EFSAF) network has a medium- to long-term emphasis aimed at promoting a more sustainable, integrated European food policy covering agricultural, rural, food, and health policies. The EU program known as NSPIA stands also intended to demonstrate sustainable; productive agriculture through the implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs) and progress measurement through a set of key indicators.
The new EU work program Horizon 2020 was launched on 27 October 2017, including a € 1 billion investment in information and development in agriculture, food, and rural development, to make agriculture more sustainable, safer, and much more diverse, and rural areas a better place to live and work, strongly connected also with current and future objectives of the common agricultural policy, this includes helping to make the agriculture sector smarter, more strong and more environmentally sustainable.
In developing countries, the sustainability of agriculture facing many challenges is a matter of concern for various stakeholders; for example, in India, the challenges are due to agro-climatic or environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Overall, many of the issues facing sustainable agriculture programs in developing countries include, population pressure, subsistence farming, rural poverty, degradation of natural resources such as deforestation, land degradation, decreasing productivity, unclear and strong regulations, and policies, and gender disparities.
Conclusions;
Sustainable agriculture is most important and contributes in a certain mannerism to the group, the mood, and the economy; and it is the best unconventional now and in the well along to save and construct our world; The concept of the sustainable loan in agriculture has played a significant ecological role in the sustainability debate; the scale of sustainability, whether regarding the farm local or regional level, all impacts concerning the global aspect as the earth forms one large ecosystem. The global aspect of sustainability is, in general, a fundamental principle of sustainable agriculture encroachment.
Using tidy technology and renewable simulation can be the best practices and tactics in sustainability, cunning crop growing through the exponentially increasing use of recommendation and communication technology (ICT) in agriculture decreases farming’s environmental footprint by preventing leaching issues as swiftly as greenhouse gas emissions, and by controlling and reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and reducing water losses in irrigation. Developing countries crave more attentiveness, more research, and insist on programs to save water and food and guard the setting and produce their communities and economies.
