Introduction to Agriculture and Environment

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Introduction to Agriculture and Environment
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Sustain - to keep in existence - to keep
supplied with necessities
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Sustainable agriculture A system that can
indefinitely meet the demands for food at
socially acceptable economic and environmental
costs.
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Name Section Quiz 4 Friday, February 16,
2000 Q. What do you as a citizen of the U.S. and
of the world, want to be the nature and role of
agriculture in the community?
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Learning is an active process of making changes
in the mind's representation of reality by
reasoning about the world not just taking it as
it comes. Learning means breaking, making, and
remolding connections in our brains. Spence 2001
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Grainland productivity increased by more than 2
a year from 1950 to 1990, but dropped to scarcely
1 a year from 1990 to 1995 well below the
growth in demand This unsettling slowdown in
food output is partly attributable to
environmental degradation. L. Brown (1998)
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Environmental Degradation Reducing Crop
Production 1. Soil erosion and
degradation 2. Irrigation, groundwater depletion
and salinization 3. Air pollution and crop
yields 4. Global environmental change climate,
ozone layer
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FAO Statistics on World Hunger (2002)
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The underlying cause of agricultural
mismanagement seems to emanate at least in part
from the hierarchical nature of complex
societies. Whereas in a small-scale society the
primary producers make the major decisions and
are guided by a conservative, risk minimization
strategy in complex societies the elite appear
to have a very different strategy that may not
act to minimize risks for the majority of the
population and may in fact pose a serious risk to
them. The elite often act to increase surplus
production to support themselves, frequent
military activity, major construction, and the
crafting of specialized prestige goods. Redman,
C. 1999. Human Impact on Ancient Environments
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Sustainable agriculture A system that can
indefinitely meet the demands for food at
socially acceptable economic and environmental
costs.
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GREEN REVOLUTION 1. Crop breeding 2. Catalysts
-- irrigation -- fertilizer -- chemical
pesticides 3. Mechanization 4. Infrastructure 5. E
ducation of farmers
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To halt extinction the first step would be to
cease developing any more relatively
undisturbed land even so, ending direct human
incursions into remaining undisturbed habitats
would be only a startthe indispensable strategy
for saving our fellow creatures and ourselves in
the long run is to reduce the scale of human
activities. E.O. Wilson and P. R. Ehrlich
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The subsistence farmer who is risking famine
regards as successful a technology that produces
some yield in the worst year rather than high
yield in good years. P. Harrison in The Greening
of Africa
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The man who farms as his forefathers did cannot
produce much food no matter how rich the land or
how hard he works. The farmer who as access to
and knows how to use what science knows about
soils, plants, animals, and machines can produce
an abundance of food though the land be poorHow
to transform traditional agriculture, into a
highly productive sector of the economy is the
central problem. Once there are investment
opportunities and efficient incentives, farmers
will turn sand into gold. Schultz, 1983
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It is our current faith that the ways of the West
are the ways that are the best for the rest of he
world. The road we are laying out is paved with
good intentions, but do we know where it
leads? Carl Sauer
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USDA DEFINITION OF A CSA CSA consists of a
community of individuals who pledge support to a
farm operation so that the farmland becomes,
either legally or spiritually, the communitys
farm. The growers and consumers provide mutual
support and share the risks and benefits of food
production.
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No politician will speak against growth and
expansion on the contrary, of course. But
through the course of this century we have done
more than we know to slow the course of change,
to hang on to the past. I dont mean this in the
sense of creating Historic Fort This or Colonial
Village That. I mean that/there has been a ride
of environmental conservation amazing
proportions. It has rarely been advanced by
people speaking against progress mostly it has
been advanced by people who would have insisted
that they were only interested in preserving an
environment which economic expansion could
continue indefinitely. Yet though they have said
this and generally believed it their actions
have revealed something very different.
Conservation has been our way of doing what
cannot be done. It has been our way of saying
what must not be said. It has been the way for us
to resist. B. Wallach At Odds with Progress
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The great conflict between tradition and
progress. On the one side there are farmers of
the most conservative sort, wanting more than
anything else to farm and live in a place they
love on the other there is corporate compression
everything in profit's way pushed aside.
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I know which of the two I respect more how can
there be any question there yet it seems
quixotic to oppose progress. Americans are
inclined toward fatalism on this point above all
others that progress is inevitable, that
technology has a life of its own and develops
without regard for our opinions.
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Locomotive Breath In the shuffling madness of
the locomotive breath Runs the all-time loser
headlong to his death. He hears the pistons
screaming, sweat breaking on his brow. Charlie
stole the handle, and the train it wont stop
going. No way to slow down. ...He picks up
Gideons Bible open at page one. It says God, He
stole the handle, and the train it wont stop
going. No way to slow down! Jethro Tull, 1973
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