The practice of sustainable agriculture

Gunin Borah

(The writer is from the Faculty of Geography, Biswanath College, Chariali and can be reached at Email ID: borah.gunin@gmail.com)

The production of plant and animal products, including foods in a way that utilizes farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, communities, and animal welfare is known as sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture offers a much-needed alternative to traditional input-intensive agriculture, with long-term effects, including degrading topsoil, depletion of groundwater level, and loss of biodiversity.

Sustainability in agriculture means that the land and resources that are being used for agriculture today are passed on to future generations in a sustainable way so that they can continue farming and have food security. This means that we have to use land, water, other resources etc., in such a way that future generations can also develop sustainability.

Earth's population is rapidly expanding and with that expansion comes the need for more resources. According to population estimates, 'the global population is going to reach 9 billion people by 2050 with the need for food production to increase by 70 per cent to meet the demands of a booming population'. Today more than one billion people will depend on farming for their means of income. Although farming is essential for the production of human food, the expansion of the earth's population has become a growing concern for the possibility of producing much food with limited natural resources left. In addition to this concern, food waste is a huge problem in several countries with 30 to 40 per cent of food waste from the transition from agricultural farm to table. These unsustainable practices create a stronger need for innovation within the agricultural industry.

Sustainable agriculture is designed with the intention of preserving the environment and expanding the earth's natural resources, all while creating a quality of life for animals and humans. Sustainable agriculture allows for the desires of society's food and textile needs to be met without the fear of inhibiting the earth's natural resources for future generations. In addition to preserving the earth's natural resources, sustainable agriculture benefits the environment by helping maintain soil quality, reducing erosion, and preserving water. In order to maintain a sustainable lifestyle, agriculturalists focus on certain criteria in order to compete with current sustainability practices. The criteria consist of creating a healthy environment while ensuring economic profitability in addition to maintaining social and economic equity. Every member of the food system can manage a sustainable lifestyle by remaining consistent within this criterion.

There are many advantages to practising a more agricultural sustainable lifestyle. One advantage of sustainable agriculture is the elimination of typical farming practices which often takes up large amounts of fertile land through a single crop approach. This typical form of farming is an example of unsustainable agricultural practices. This oftentimes ruins landscapes and requires farmers to spend an unnecessary amount of money on acquiring more land. Through sustainable farming practices, single cropping agriculture is eliminated by placing multiple crops on the same plot of land by combining tall, sun-loving plants with shorter shades-loving plants. This approach enables farmers to grow more crops using less land while also preserving the environment. Although with this approach, one of the biggest advantages to sustainable agriculture is that you are unable to grow as many crops at a single time considering a more sustainable approach typically leads to fewer crops in one plot so plants don't leach nutrients out of the soil. For farmers who want to continue to produce mass agriculture, sustainable farming practices are often hard to abide by.

Another advantage of sustainable agriculture is eliminating the cruelty behind factory farming by decreasing the brutal treatment of farm animals. Before the wave of sustainable agriculture, typical farming practices consisted of packing large quantities of animals into tiny cages in order to preserve the farm space. This practice not only contributes to the horrific mistreatment of animals but also contributes to the spreading of diseases, which often result in infection and deaths on the farms. Sustainable agriculture creates a human environment for farm animals by limiting the quantities of animals per farm while also implementing a healthy plant-based diet with sufficient room for animals to roam.

Lastly, sustainable agriculture has the ability to significantly reduce water pollution by eliminating harmful fertilizers that seep into run-off water and ruin the natural environment. Methane production pollution is a potent greenhouse gas that is harmful to the earth's water and atmosphere. Unfortunately, most of this methane comes from the practice of industrial cattle farming. Through sustainable agricultural practices of crop rotation, the use of natural fertilizer and minimizing animals per farm pollution can be significantly reduced. This reduction not only benefits air quality, but it preserves the earth's natural resources that could be greatly harmed through methane.

The agriculture sector in India stands at the crossroads of transformation. The Green Revolution- characterized by intensive modern farming techniques, High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds and fertilizers remains the most distinctive phase in the Indian agriculture sector. However, with rising consciousness for food safety and sustainable farming in India and around the world, it is imperative to reimagine the future course of India's agri sector.

Only less than 5 per cent of Indian farms have adopted sustainable agricultural practices and systems, according to a study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). The study found that Scaling up Sustainable Agriculture would be critical to improving farm income and bolstering India's nutrition security in a climate-constrained future. The states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Sikkim have already taken a lead in sustainable agriculture in the country.

In regards to the future of sustainable agriculture, many believe by the time earth's population reaches 9 billion. We will be fully depleted of many natural resources that will require alternative sustainable solutions. This gives us several years to make a change toward sustainable lifestyles in preserving our agriculture and food sources. Sustainable farming is important because it offers a solution to the problem caused by the way most of our food is grown today. Sustainable agriculture is not the only step in the wave of preserving our planet, but it is an important building block in taking preventative measures in order to maintain the resources we have left.