Sustainable Agriculture (SA) means growing and producing goods from the land that are environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically feasible (the “Three E’s”). This means being aware of, and responsive to the current and future needs of the planet, society, and family respectively. In general, sustainable practices emphasise natural, organic, low-energy, inputs and methods. Sustainable Agriculture is a practice and philosophy that has arisen from the organic farming movement, itself a movement that arose from the modern (industrial) farming movement.
Modern farming is a response to the problem of providing food for a rapidly growing population, and is enabled by technology advances and modern industrial production techniques. Modern farming emphasises genetically enhanced plants, synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, as well as high-energy mechanisation. Interestingly, all of these techniques are fuelled (literally) by the oil industry.
Organic farming arose in response to concerns about damage to the environment (and ourselves) resulting from modern farming. Organic farming does not allow any synthetic inputs, and tries to build up natural systems (e.g. beneficial insects and micro-organisms).
Sustainable farming was a response to both the organic and modern farming movements. Sustainability means we need to satisfy our family and society’s current requirements in a way that does not compromise the planet, or future generations’ capability to satisfy their own requirements. As is often remarked, this is a model of stewardship rather than ownership. It is a model that acknowledges economic reality – that a business must be productive and viable both in the short term as well as the long term.
It is important to note that sustainable and organic farming are not necessarily the same thing. Some practices can be sustainable but not organic, and vice versa. One area where this is particularly true is weed management. In areas of higher weed pressure organic practices require a lot of energy and therefore produce a lot of greenhouse gases, either because many passes of mechanical treatment are used, or steam or flame methods must be used. In comparison, the use of a synthetic herbicide may result in much less energy use, and thus be a more sustainable practice when the bigger picture is looked at.
While sustainable farming is based heavily upon organic inputs and methods, it does not disregard or disallow modern inputs and techniques purely on principle. For example, some modern pesticides have been developed that target specific insect populations while not affecting the beneficial insects that co-habit the same farm environment. The use of such products within an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy is allowed within the Sustainable Agriculture model.
Sustainable Viticulture (SV) defines how the general principles of sustainability affect the daily decision-making in a vineyard, and how they translate into specific winegrowing and winemaking practices. If you are interested, and want to know more about Sustainable Viticulture there are many good resources to be found on the Internet.