1. Agriculture
For the last 10,000 years humans have been practicing agriculture, or simply put, farming.
Farming has allowed us to feed many people and have food year round
Today’s farming is very different than it was in the past
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2. Traditional Agriculture
Traditional, or conventional, agriculture is how most of our food is made.
It is large scale, industrial and designed to make the most amount of food with the smallest amount of space
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

3. What you think it looks like..
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

4. What it really looks like…
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

5. What you think it looks like…
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

6. What it really looks like…
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

7. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Monocultures
A monoculture is an area of land that only grows a large amount of one crop.
This makes it very easy for pests to destroy the crops.
As a result, pesticides are used.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

8. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Pesticides
Pesticides damage soil and can run off into the surrounding area
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

9. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Pesticides
If a small amount of the pests survives and are resistant to the pesticide, then they will repopulate and a stronger, more toxic pesticide must be used.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

10. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Fertilizers
Since the soil gets degraded quickly, fertilizers must be added to the soil.
Fertilizer runoff causes “eutrophication” which means “too much of a good thing” because the added nutrients cause algae to flourish and choke out aquatic ecosystems
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

11. Where are we? Strengths Weaknesses What are the and
of our current agricultural system?
You can use this slide and the next two as a classroom activity. Have the students list the strengths and weaknesses of our agricultural system. Then compare their answers to the lists on the next two slides
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

12. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Successes
abundant food supply in the developed world
fresh fruits and vegetables available year-round
cheap food
luxury foods such as coffee, tea, chocolate, and spices easily available around the world
effective food preservation technologies (refrigeration, freezing, canning, packaging)
convenience foods
mechanization produces high labor efficiency
improvements in soil conservation
availability of agricultural inputs for quick solutions to production problems
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

13. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Problems
continuing soil loss
food safety concerns (mad cow disease, food poisoning outbreaks, antibiotic resistance, toxins and pesticides)
water pollution, air pollution (& odors), habitat loss, water depletion
continuing hunger – and rise of obesity
failing farms, economic uncertainty and stress
declining communities
farm accidents, chronic diseases linked to agricultural chemicals
reliance on fossil fuels, global warming
farmland loss to development, ugly countryside
difficulty of starting in farming
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

14. What is Sustainable Agriculture?
“…a journey, not a destination”
Iowa Farmer
No one has figured out the perfect way to farm, and probably no one ever will. So sustainable agriculture involves a continuing search for better ways to produce, process, and distribute food and fiber. Sustainable farmers are always asking what could be improved.
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15. Sustainable Agriculture
“…an integrated system of plant and animal production practices…that will
satisfy human food and fiber needs
enhance environmental quality
make the most efficient use of
nonrenewable resources
sustain economic viability
enhance quality of life.”
1990 Farm Bill
This is how sustainable agriculture is defined in the 1990 Farm Bill. It does a good job of capturing the main elements of sustainable agriculture, but it is a little hard to remember the exact wording. See next slide.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

16. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
The three-legged stool of sustainability
The definition of sustainable agriculture that is most widely used is the metaphor of a 3-legged stool. If one of the legs breaks, the whole stool will fall over. This metaphor tells us sustainable agriculture has to address three major areas: economics, the environment, and social factors or community.
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17. Economically sustainable
Provides a secure living for farm families
Provides a secure living to other workers in the food system
Provides access to good food for all
What do we mean when we say sustainable agriculture has to be economically sustainable? At a minimum, individual farms have to be profitable, or they will not last long. But agriculture encompasses more than just farms. Economic sustainability also suggests that agriculture must provide and deliver food and fiber to the public.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

18. Environmentally Sound
Preserves
the
quality of
soil,
water,
and air
At a minimum, environmental sustainability means the preservation of the natural resources upon which agriculture depends.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

19. Environmentally Sound
Cooperates
with and
is modeled
on natural
systems
Rather than trying to patch pollution problems one by one, sustainable agriculture tries to design a system that avoids polluting and depleting natural resources to begin with.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

20. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Socially sustainable
Good for families
Supports communities
Fair to all involved
A sustainable agriculture has to be good for people as well as the land and business.
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Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

21. How to farm sustainably
Farmers plant many different crops near each other so that a pest can’t destroy an entire crop
Waste products are composted and used to replace nutrients in the soil.
Crops are rotated to preserve the nutrients in the soil.
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22. How to farm sustainably
Animals are treated fairly and given the freedom to move.
Animals are not given unnecessary antibiotics.
Animals are fed properly
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23. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Conclusion
Agriculture has accomplished much
There are still many problems to solve, both old and new
Sustainable agriculture is about trying to solve these problems – without creating new ones.
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24. How much is 2 billion bushels?
Iowa’s annual corn harvest is usually around 2 billion bushels. If you loaded semi trucks with 2 billion bushels and lined them up bumper to bumper, how far would they stretch?
According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, a large semi holds around 910 bushels, and 879 large semis lined up bumper to bumper would stretch around 11.5 miles
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25. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Answer:
The line of trucks would stretch 29,206 miles, or more than the circumference of the earth (which is a little under 25,000 miles). Luckily, most grain is transported much more efficiently in railroad cars and on barges.
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