From sustag@BETA.TRICITY.WSU.EDUTue Jan 31 23:01:29 1995 Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 11:46:26 -0800 From: "Tom Hodges (moderated newsgroup)" To: Multiple recipients of list SUSTAG-L Subject: Another definition of sustainable agriculture (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 10:05:00 -0500 (EST) From: jhaskett@asrr.arsusda.gov To: "Tom Hodges (moderated newsgroup)" Subject: Another definition of sustainable agriculture Here is a definition of sustainable agriculture I worked on some years ago. Cheers, Jonathan Haskett ********************************************************** Defining Sustainable Agriculture Jonathan Haskett The definition of sustainability can be broken down into several related constituent parts: 1) Sustainability narrowly defined in terms of a physical/biological system. 2) Sustainability with the additional layer of social and cultural feasibility. 3) Achieving sustainability in the context of what might be consideredsocially and ethically desirable. Each of these is necessary but not sufficient for achieving the next part. In terms of physical/biological sustainability a system has two parts: the balance between input and output, and the continued integrity of the system's constituent parts. A bioreactor can be used as a simple example. The system can be maintained if inputs of nutrients keep pace with consumption. If the demands of the bacterial population are allowed to exceed the inputs of nutrient the population will crash and the system collapses. Similarly if a bacteriophage proliferates in the reactor lysing the cells, the system also collapses, despite the presence of abundantinputs. These then are the basic physical requirements of sustainability; input/output balance, and constituent integrity. The second part impacts sustainability because not everything which is physically or biologically possible is culturally or socially tenable. It would have been physically possible for the societies in Mesopotamia to change from ultimately destructive irrigation agriculture to some other form of agriculture, but it was not socially possible. It is not currently socially possible to stop the over-exploitation of groundwaters in certain regions of the country, despite the fact that aquifer levels have decreased yearly and agriculture is dependent on this water for production. Thus since the entire world is now under the influence of human beings, it is not possible to consider issues of sustainability independantly, outside of a human social context. In order for system to be considered sustainable, it must include a sustainable social response. Finally, not all systems which meet the first two tests of sustainability, can be considered desirable. China, for example, has had a highly sustainable agriculture, extending back almost 4000 years before the present. This system, based on the cultivation of paddy rice, has involved extreme hardship, backbreaking, eye-popping hand labor, and vast disparities in wealth and power. It has resulted in the virtual elimination of what we would consider "wilderness" with an attendant diminution in the number of plant and animal species. It has, however, been notably successful as a sustainable agricultural system. Judgments of desirability are necessarily ethical rather than scientific; to avoid them on that basis however, is irresponsible. Whatever is finally implemented will have ethical characteristics in any case, which should be addressed explicitly. A research program focused on sustainable agriculture should not only follow these three divisions, but should also make clear which layer of sustainability is being investigated. The first layer is the one which demands the most immediate attention since both succeeding layers depend on it. Research at the first layer would involve determinations of the required inputs of the current agricultural system, and estimates as to when/if demand for these inputs would be exceeded. Similarly an examination of the infrastructure of the system with respect to its ability to persist would be undertaken. This might include rates of soil erosion, diversity in existing germplasm stocks, and installed machinery base. Finally, the ouputs of the system would be evaluated to see if they were toxifying the environment in which the agricultural system was embedded. Research could then be focused where discrepancies are found. For example, the current dependence on fossil fuels is clearly untenable since current calculations indicate that they will be exhausted early in the next century. Documenting this problem should then lead to research into ways to reduce the consumption of energy in general, and fossil fuels in particular, as a way of prolonging their availability, as well as research into alternative energy sources. Research at the second layer might involve an evaluation of the methods developed at the first layer in terms of their social acceptability. A perfectly sustainable substitute technology which causes significant off-farm pollution may be socially untenable and essentially non-sustainable for that reason. Finally once it has been established that a particular methodology is both physically and socially possible, then the discussion should turn to whether its adoption is in fact desirable. This broader discussion could include long-term and international consequences. Following this research strategy explicitly would clear up a lot of the confusion which has surrounded the term "sustainable agriculture". One has only to look at the Congressionaly- mandated definition to see physical possibility mixed with social desirability with no attempt to untangle the two and clearly state when one or the other is being mandated. In addition, by specifying and separating the different layers of the definition potential conflicts between one layer and another could be detected and addressed. This is vital since there are numerous well documented instances (Easter Island, Ur) where cultural imperatives have collided with physical realities resulting in a collapse of a social system and population. A system can then be said to be sustainable "overall" when it can be demonstrated that it can be maintained indefinitely within its physical/biological parameters, that it is within the range of possible behaviors of the society in which it occurs, and that its persistence in its current state is in fact desirable. Outside of this state several important sub-definitions can be specified; physically butnot socially sustainable, physically sustainable but not desirable, et cetera. With these working definitions, research and discussion can proceed.