SUSTAINABILTY 

WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?

Sustainability can be defined as the ability to maintain healthy environmental, social, political and economic systems in balance, indefinitely, on a global and local scale. - James Cook University, Australia 

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A method that is used to assess sustainability and for managing projects for socially sustainable outcomes.

It is intended to handle seemingly intractable problems. We live in a world with increasing pressures of: 

• global climate change

• globalisation

• urbanization

and intensifying social change.

In response, we need more sophisticated and subtle approaches for acting upon sustainability issues. It seems that the more complex the problem, the less that contemporary approaches are useful.

‘Sustainability’ is in danger of becoming an empty phrase. Circles of Sustainability provides a possible way out of these limitations.

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So what's the difference between the difference sustainabilities:

•  Economic Sustainability:  practices that support long-term economic growth without negatively impacting social, environmental, and cultural aspects of the community

• Ecological Sustainability: where ecosystems maintain their essential functions and process and retain their full measure over the long term

• Political Sustainability: to maintain the ethics and social needs  as well abide by laws set by the government

• Cultural Sustainability:  has to do with maintaining  the development of cultural beliefs, cultural practices, heritage conservation, culture as its own entity

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SO HOW ARE FARMERS MANAGING AND BALANCING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE? 

Agriculture has changed dramatically since the end of World War II. Food and fiber productivity has soared due to new technologies, mechanization, increased chemical use, specialization, and government policies that favoured maximizing production and reducing food prices. These changes have allowed fewer farmers to produce more food and fibre at lower prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although these developments have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming, they also have significant costs. Prominent among these are topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, the decline of family farms, neglect of the living and working conditions of farm laborers, new threats to human health and safety due to the spread of new pathogens, economic concentration in food and agricultural industries, and disintegration of rural communities, a sign of political, economic, ecological sustainability!

A growing movement has emerged during the past four decades to question the necessity of these high costs and to offer innovative alternatives. And it's amazing to see the process that the agricultural industry has gone through, the rise of social demand in plan based diets are pushing farmers to be more ecologically aware of their footprint on the environment. And the government is stepping up to set restrictions in order to maintain the sustainabilities. 

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However, their struggles that farmers are facing in order to meet these standards, the money and finance required to have access to this equipment, is extremely expensive. For e.g. Vertical Farming is a sustainable way that benefits ecologically and economically, providing farms that are closer to home within a small area.

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Here's a 5-minute documentary from Kyouko Nagatsuka on the pros and cons of sustainable vertical farming 

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So what are the struggles that farmers face by keeping the balance between the sustainabilities:

• Lack of special infrastructure

Most large organic farms still operate in an industrialized agriculture style, including industrial transportation of the food from field to plate. Unfortunately, this involves the adoption of the same environmentally harmful practices as those of factory farms which are however hidden under the cover of being organic.

• More work is involved

In general, organic farming requires more manual and physical control of weeds than other cultivation techniques. However, with ecological farming methods such as permaculture or bio intensive farming, good and effective design dramatically reduces the labor that is required over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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