World Agriculture

World Agriculture Must Become More Sustainable
By Tim Johnson

Sustainable agriculture is an issue that many environmental scientists started pondering in recent years. The reason it is so vital is because food is something that people need for physical survival on this planet and agriculture directly deals with how to produce it. Nevertheless, there is a misconception that sustainable agriculture deals only with how to feed the expanding population today and how to produce enough food to meet the dietary demands at present. The difference here lies in the core objective of this branch of environmental science. It is a much broader concept which is concerned with meeting the demand for food in the future. It is a fact that some geographic regions that used to have fertile soil have become deserts due to inefficient agricultural practices that are common in the world today. Therefore, the fact of food overproduction at present will not seem so exciting if the future generations starve to death not having enough supplies to feed the ever-growing population. Therefore, sustainable agriculture is concerned with developing an efficient environment-friendly food production system that would eliminate a waste of limited natural resources and prevent land from losing fertility while producing adequate yields year after year. It is still important to produce enough food today but it is imperative that substantial agriculture factor in deterioration in fertility and depletion of natural resources, particularly soil and water. So far we have 3 areas that substantial agriculture is concerned with: meeting the demand for food today, ensuring that the future generations will be able to produce enough food given the ever-present deterioration of soil and water, and taking control of soil and water condition.