ORGANIC AGRICULTURE AND ECOLOGICAL ECONOMY: A WAY FORWARD IN AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY Dragiša Milošev, Srđan Šeremešić, Milorad Živanov, Bosiljka Todić

INTRODUCTION The beginning of the 21. century brought some significant changes in the approach to agriculture and technology of the crop production. Scientific foundlings which have been integrated into the modern agriculture have reaffirmed the systems of the crop production which favor the sustainability (integral agriculture, organic agriculture, good agriculture practice, etc.) Organic agriculture and ecological economy are drawing more and more attention in the last two decades because individually and together they have a significant potential for protecting the living environment, and achieving economic and social goals. Special attention was put for the consideration of the state of the ecological economy and organic food production in Serbia and potential of sustainable development of food production. Greek words “Economy” ο ἰ κονόμος "one who manages a household", a composite word derived from ο ἴ κος ("house") and νέμω ("manage; distribute") Greek word “Ecology“ (from Greek: ο ἶ κος, "house"; -λογία, "study of"

However, in the 21th century Conventional agriculture still represents the most dominant approach in the agricultural production. Conventional agriculture is based on the principle of high external input, i.e. it is the result of the green revolution, which is based on the intensive application of modern technical and technological achievements in agriculture: mechanization, monocultures, application of chemicals in pest and improving the quality of the agricultural soil, application of the non-renewable energy sources in the economy in order to reduce the production cost

On the other hand, the primary aim of the organic agriculture is food production without any artificial substances and pesticides, with higher nutritional value than the conventional production, and preservation of the environment and balanced rural development. With special enphasis on natural systems and cycles and to sustain and enhance the helath of soil water, plants and animals and the balance between them.

The ecological problems have gained in importance in the last two decades, which affected the appearance of different approaches to their solving. The existing concept of the sustainable has certain limits so recently there has been an idea of forming new discipline called ecological economy, which represents and interdisciplinary approach to solving ecological problems. Its aim is to examine the relation between the ecosystem and the economical activities in it in a comprehensive way. Ecological economy is attempting to coordinate the development of the biological systems which require time, space and the presence of the vegetation factors with the economical development.

The economy system which does not value natural goods in an adequate way, which is based on maximizing of the economic gain by depletion of natural resources and destroying the environment and which uses the mechanisms for stimulating the unlimited economic growth with limited resources is the long-term unsustainable economy. The solution to this problem has been offered in the form of the concept of the permanently sustainable economy which is based on a long-term coordinated economic growth which is called the concept of the ecological economy. Apart from the economic principles, this concept includes the transformation of the political, legal, moral and other principles. Ecological economy is focused on the area where the economic activities come into conflict with the well-being of the ecological and social system. The three most important systems on which the ecological economy is based are: Ecological System, Economic System and Social System. ECOLOGICAL ECONOMY

ECONOMY AND (AGRO)ECOLOGY The ecological economy is emphasizing the relation between these systems on many levels and scales, from the local to the global. It treats people as an integral component and active participants in the ecological system which supports them and not as an external part of these systems. The process of globalization has adverse effects on the agricultural production, commerce and it leaves permanent consequences on the sustainability of the conventional and the organic agriculture. A large number of pollutants across the world have led to global changes: ozone depletion, climate changes, the disturbance of the biological balance, extinction of many species of flora and fauna. Such alarming state has influenced the creating of numerous projects and strategies in all areas of human activity, agriculture as well, which will help environment pollution reduce to normal.

The basic aim of economy in relation to the environment is to reduces to finding such procedures and methods which will ensure, through production process, the most efficient ‘processing’ of natural resources into goods and the services to satisfy some of human basic needs. Contrary to that, the basic ‘interest’ in ecology, also having satisfying certain human needs as its aim, is to keep the environment with all its resources intact. Therefore, the aim of ecology is not to maximize the profit. One could say that the aim of ecology is to minimize the loss, which occurs due to exponential expansion of human economic activity. Disagreement ?

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia provides the right to a healthy environment as one of the basic rights and freedoms of all citizens. However, the reality is significantly different on this issue. A large number of different factors has affected the degradation of the environment in Serbia: industrial growth, the consequences of war, modern consumer habits, insufficient application of the legal measures for the environmental protection, certain socio-economic factors, inability to use cleaner technologies and insufficient knowledge and information in the area of environmental protection. Current status and future prospect.....

The aim of the economic instruments used in the environmental protection is to achieve ecological improvement. The basic economic and ecological instruments in Serbia are: Using natural resources fee, Pollution - environment fee, Special funds budget, Means of international financial assistance The application of these instruments has not produced the results expected because the fees for polluting are not high enough to affect the behavior of the pollutants

Ecological economics primarily differs from traditional neoclassical economics by being a trans-disciplinary field of study, which examines the interactions between economic and ecological systems from a number of related viewpoints. For achieving the sustainability in ecological agriculture ecological economy can be suggested as one of the approaches for decision making and organic agriculture planning. CONCLUSION

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