permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

http://www.ibiblio.org/london/orgfarm/issues-and-news/issues/sustainable-agriculture-defined/definition.J.Haskett

>From sustag@BETA.TRICITY.WSU.EDUTue Jan 31 23:01:29 1995
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 11:46:26 -0800
From: "Tom Hodges (moderated newsgroup)" <sustag@BETA.TRICITY.WSU.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list SUSTAG-L
     <SUSTAG-L%WSUVM1.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Another definition of sustainable agriculture (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 10:05:00 -0500 (EST)
From: jhaskett@asrr.arsusda.gov
To: "Tom Hodges (moderated newsgroup)" <sustag@beta.tricity.wsu.edu>
Subject: Another definition of sustainable agriculture


Here is a definition of sustainable agriculture I worked on
some years ago.

Cheers,
Jonathan Haskett

**********************************************************

Defining Sustainable Agriculture
Jonathan Haskett

The definition of sustainability can be broken down into
several related constituent parts:

1) Sustainability narrowly defined in terms of a
physical/biological system.

2) Sustainability with the additional layer of social and cultural
feasibility.

3) Achieving sustainability in the context of what might be
consideredsocially and ethically desirable.

Each of these is necessary but not sufficient for achieving the
next part.

In terms of physical/biological sustainability a system has
two parts: the balance between input and output, and the
continued integrity of the system's constituent parts. A
bioreactor can be used as a simple example. The system can be
maintained if inputs of nutrients keep pace with consumption.
If the demands of the bacterial population are allowed to
exceed the inputs of nutrient the population will crash and the
system collapses. Similarly if a bacteriophage proliferates in
the reactor lysing the cells, the system also collapses, despite
the presence of abundantinputs. These then are the basic
physical requirements of sustainability; input/output balance,
and constituent integrity.

The second part impacts sustainability because not
everything which is physically or biologically possible is
culturally or socially tenable. It would have been physically
possible for the societies in Mesopotamia to change from
ultimately destructive irrigation agriculture to some other form
of agriculture, but it was not socially possible. It is not
currently socially possible to stop the over-exploitation of
groundwaters in certain regions of the country, despite the fact
that aquifer levels have decreased yearly and agriculture is
dependent on this water for production. Thus since the entire
world is now under the influence of human beings, it is not
possible to consider issues of sustainability independantly,
outside of a human social context. In order for system to be
considered sustainable, it must include a sustainable social
response.

Finally, not all systems which meet the first two tests of
sustainability, can be considered desirable. China, for example,
has had a highly sustainable agriculture, extending back almost
4000 years before the present. This system, based on the
cultivation of paddy rice, has involved extreme hardship,
backbreaking, eye-popping hand labor, and vast disparities in
wealth and power. It has resulted in the virtual elimination of
what we would consider "wilderness" with an attendant
diminution in the number of plant and animal species. It has,
however, been notably successful as a sustainable agricultural
system. Judgments of desirability are necessarily ethical rather
than scientific; to avoid them on that basis however, is
irresponsible. Whatever is finally implemented will have
ethical characteristics in any case, which should be addressed
explicitly.

A research program focused on sustainable agriculture should
not only follow these three divisions, but should also make
clear which layer of sustainability is being investigated. The
first layer is the one which demands the most immediate
attention since both succeeding layers depend on it. Research at
the first layer would involve determinations of the required
inputs of the current agricultural system, and estimates as to
when/if demand for these inputs would be exceeded. Similarly
an examination of the infrastructure of the system with respect
to its ability to persist would be undertaken. This might include
rates of soil erosion, diversity in existing germplasm stocks,
and installed machinery base. Finally, the ouputs of the system
would be evaluated to see if they were toxifying the
environment in which the agricultural system was embedded.
Research could then be focused where discrepancies are found.
For example, the current dependence on fossil fuels is clearly
untenable since current calculations indicate that they will be
exhausted early in the next century. Documenting this problem
should then lead to research into ways to reduce the
consumption of energy in general, and fossil fuels  in particular,
as a way of prolonging their availability, as well as research
into alternative energy sources.

Research at the second layer might involve an evaluation of
the methods developed at the first layer in terms of their social

acceptability. A perfectly sustainable substitute technology
which causes significant off-farm pollution may be socially
untenable and essentially non-sustainable for that reason.

Finally once it has been established that a particular
methodology is both physically and socially possible, then the
discussion should turn to whether its adoption is in fact
desirable. This broader discussion could include long-term and
international consequences.

Following this research strategy explicitly would clear up a lot
of the confusion which has surrounded the term "sustainable
agriculture". One has only to look at the Congressionaly-
mandated definition to see physical possibility mixed with
social desirability with no attempt to untangle the two and
clearly state when one or the other is being mandated. In
addition, by specifying and separating the different layers of
the definition potential conflicts between one layer and another
could be detected and addressed. This is vital since there are
numerous well documented instances  (Easter Island, Ur)
where cultural imperatives have collided with physical realities
resulting in a collapse of a social system and population.

A system can then be said to be sustainable "overall" when it
can be demonstrated that it can be maintained indefinitely
within its physical/biological parameters, that it is within the
range of possible behaviors of the society in which it occurs,
and that its persistence in its current state is in fact desirable.

Outside of this state several important sub-definitions can be
specified; physically but not socially sustainable, physically
sustainable but not desirable, et cetera. With these working
definitions, research and discussion can proceed.