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What is Sustaining Agriculture?

 

Around the world, farmers and ranchers are experimenting and practicing a different type of agriculture, a more sustainable way of producing and distributing agricultural products. Sustainable agriculture encompasses broad goals, and farmers and ranchers develop specific strategies for achieving them. Using a variety of farming strategies allows producers to meet their needs. (Exploring Sustainability in Agriculture - SARE Pamphlet).

The word "sustain," from the Latin sustinere (sus-, from below and tenere, to hold), to keep in existence or maintain, implies long-term support or permanence. As it pertains to agriculture, sustainable describes farming systems that are "capable of maintaining their productivity and usefulness to society indefinitely. Such systems... must be resource-conserving, socially supportive, commercially competitive, and environmentally sound." [John Ikerd, as quoted by Richard Duesterhaus in "Sustainability's Promise," Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (Jan.-Feb. 1990) 45(1): p.4. NAL Call # 56.8 J822] (Alternative Farming Systems Information Center web site).

Sustainable Agriculture seeks to identify methods to help all producers fabricate an adequate and safe food supply that can thrive thorough the next millennium. Sustainable Ag integrates all elements of management; pesticides, fertilizers, wastes, energy, and their economic impact.As defined by Congress, sustainable agriculture is "an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term":

• satisfy human food and fiber needs; enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends; make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls; sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
• enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.
  (Alternative Farming Systems Information Center web site)

 

Producing plenty of high-quality food; protecting and enhancing the soil, water, and other natural resources; building a thriving rural economy; giving farm families and communities a good life on the land—sustainable agriculture will do all these things for decades and centuries to come. (Sustainable Agriculture: An Introduction-- ATTRA Summary)

There are thousands of sustainable ways to farm, this site hopes to provide information about sustaining agriculture in Colorado, provide information on funding opportunities, publications and more.