The poverty of sustainability: An analysis of current positions

A short time ago the idea of sustainable agriculture was accepted only at the extreme margins of the U. S. agricultural systems. Although sustainability has now become a major theme of many U. S. agricultural groups, there remains much under-explored terrain in the meaning of sustainable agriculture. A thorough examination of who and what we want to sustain and how we can sustain them is critical if sustainable agriculture is to be a practical improvement over conventional agriculture. In order to begin this effort, this article analyzes contemporary sustainable agriculture discourse and suggests alternatives for reconceptualizing sustainable agriculture. In particular we look at three arenas of sustainable discourse—family farm/rural community preservation, food safety, and agricultural science—and address issues of class, race/ethnicity, and gender found in current sustainability positions. We find that while advocates of sustainability have succeeded in pushing agricultural researchers and policy makers to address environmental issues, we need to go much farther both in theory and practice in order to deal with equally important issues of social equity.Patricia Allen is senior analyst with the Agroecology Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work concentrates on the political economic aspects of sustainability issues in food and agricultural systems. Her edited book,Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of Sustainability, will be published this spring by John Wiley & Sons.     

Social change and the adoption and adaptation of knowledge claims: Whose truth do you trust in regard to sustainable agriculture?

This paper examines sustainable agriculture’s steady rise as a legitimate farm management system. In doing this, it offers an account of social change that centers on trust and its intersection with networks of knowledge. The argument to follow is informed by the works of Foucault and Latour but moves beyond this literature in important ways. Guided by and building upon earlier conceptual framework first forwarded by Carolan and Bell (2003, Environmental Values 12: 225–245), sustainable agriculture is examined through the lens of a “phenomenological challenge.” In doing this, analytic emphasis centers on the interpretative resources of everyday life and the artful act of practice – in other words, on “the local.” Research data involving Iowa farmers and agriculture professionals are examined to understand how social relations of trust and knowledge are contested and shaped within and between agricultural social networks and organizational configurations. All of this is meant to further our understanding of what “sustainable agriculture” is and is not, who it is, and how these boundaries change over time. Michael S. Carolan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University. His areas of specialization included environmental sociology, sociology of science and knowledge, sociology of food systems and agriculture, and the sociology of risk. Some of his recent writings have focused on the theorizing of nature–society relations, epistemological issues related to agriculture (and sustainable agriculture in particular), and the processes by which knowledge claims are constructed and contested in response to environmental threats.     

Social and environmental attributes of food products in an emerging mass market: Challenges of signaling and consumer perception, with European illustrations

This paper focuses on the environmental and ethical attributes of food products and their production processes. These two aspects have been recently recognized and are becoming increasingly important in terms of signaling and of consumer perception. There are two relevant thematic domains: environmental and social. Within each domain there are two movements. Hence the paper first presents the four movements that have brought to the fore new aspects of food product quality, to wit: (1) aspects of environmental ethics (organic agriculture and integrated agriculture), and (2) social ethics (fair trade and ethical trade). Next, it describes how the actors in the movements (producers, retailers, NGOs, and governments) are organized and how consumers perceive each of the movements. From the perspective of the actors in the movements themselves, the movements are grouped into two “actors’ philosophies.” The first is a “radical” philosophy (the organic production and fair trade movements that arose in radical opposition to conventional agriculture or unfair trade relations), and the second is a “reformist” philosophy (the integrated agriculture and ethical trade movements that arose as efforts to modify but not radically change conventional agriculture). From the point of view of consumers, the classification of the movements is based on perceptions of the “domain” of the movements. That is, consumers tend to perceive the organic production movement and the integrated agricultural movement as a single group because they both deal with the environment. By contrast, consumers tend to group the fair trade movement and the ethical trade movement together because they both deal essentially with social ethics. Recently, key players such as large retailers and agribusinesses have adopted as part of their overall quality assurance programs both environmental and ethical attributes. Their involvement in and adoption of the goals of the movements have, however, generated tensions and conflicts. This is particularly true within the radical movements, because of concerns of cooptation. Finally, the paper identifies challenges faced by those promoting food products with environmental and social/ethical attributes as they attempt to communicate coherent signals to consumers at this crucial moment in the emergence of a mass market for these products. Jean -Marie Codron is a Senior Researcher at INRA and co-director of MOISA, a public joint research laboratory involved in the social sciences. His research interests focus on three main lines of research: economics of contracts, economics of the firm, and economics of market institutions, with applications to “complex” food sectors, where product quality is difficult to measure and/or to signal to the consumer. Lucie Sirieix is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at SupAgro Montpellier, France, a national higher education establishment under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Within the MOISA research unit, her main research topics are variety seeking, risk and trust, environmental and ethical consumer concerns, and sustainable consumption. Her specific research areas include organic products, fair trade, and regional products. Thomas Reardon is Professor of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. His work focuses on globalization, consolidation in the retail and processing sectors, and their effects on agrifood systems and trade as well as on the economics of private quality and safety standards.     

Value Wars in the New Periphery: Sustainability,Rural Communities and Agriculture

Sustainability has been the subject of prolonged debate within both academic and mainstream literature, rendered all the more heated because many of the disagreements come down to deep differences in values. These "value wars' play out in decisions made about issues ranging from development and investment to livelihoods and agriculture. Using rural communities as the context for discussion, this article proposes new directions for this contested concept, based on the life code of values. These life values ground sustainability in a multi-scalar web of everyday acts of human community. From this life-values perspective, compound terms such as sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural communities gain new meaning and offer the potential for the basis of a rural renaissance. Jennifer Sumner is an Assistant Professor in the Adult Education and Community Development Program at OISE/University of Toronto, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research interests include sustainability, globalization, rural communities, and the civil commons as well as adult education and critical pedagogy. She is currently researching the links between organic agriculture and sustainability.     

Commentary social justice and sustainable agriculture: Moving beyond theory

One of the ongoing debates in the sustainable agriculture community is whether its platform should include social justice issues like farmworker rights, economic concentration, and hunger. The commentary describes the evolution of this controversy, and places it in the context of competing and complicated moral theories that turn out to be of somewhat limited use in political arguments. The essay also outlines ways in which the present political climate is presenting a challenge to sustainable agriculture proponents, who, in response, are building new linkages with urban interests, including anti-hunger organization. Despite abstract philosophical and more real political problems, a community food security agenda is being crafted, joining the interests of small farms, family farm, and sustainability advocates, and anti-hunger groups. Their focus is community and economic development as a way to improve the quality and availability of inner city food supplies, and to develop new markets and political allies for farmers.     

Transgenic crops: Engineering a more sustainable agriculture?

Transgenic crops currently available foruse potentially provide environmental benefits, suchas reduction in insecticide use and substitution ofless toxic for more toxic herbicides. These benefitsare contingent on a host of factors, such as thepotential for development of resistant pests,out-crossing to weedy relatives, and transgenic cropmanagement regimes. Three scenarios are used toexamine the potential sustainability of transgeniccrop technologies. These scenarios demonstrate thatexisting transgenic varieties, while potentiallyimproving the sustainability of agriculture relativeto existing chemical based production systems, fail inenabling a fully sustainable agriculture. Genetictraits that have a higher potential for promoting asustainable agriculture have been precluded fromdevelopment for a number of reasons. These include thelack of EPA and USDA regulatory policies thatexplicitly promote sustainable traits; the structureof the agricultural biotechnology industry, which isdominated by agricultural chemical companies; andpatent law and industry policies that proscribe farmhouseholds from saving transgenic seed and tailoringtransgenic crops to their local environmentalconditions – ecological, social, and economic.     

From value to values: sustainable consumption at farmers markets

Advocates of environmental sustainability and social justice increasingly pursue their goals through the promotion of so-called “green” products such as locally grown organic produce. While many scholars support this strategy, others criticize it harshly, arguing that environmental degradation and social injustice are inherent results of capitalism and that positive social change must be achieved through collective action. This study draws upon 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork at two farmers markets located in demographically different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area to examine how market managers, vendors, and regular customers negotiate tensions between their economic strategies and environmental sustainability and social justice goals. Managers, vendors, and customers emphasize the ethical rather than financial motivations of their markets through comparisons to capitalist, industrial agriculture and through attention to perceived economic sacrifices made by market vendors. They also portray economic strategies as a pragmatic choice, pointing to failed efforts to achieve justice and sustainability through policy change as well as difficulties funding and sustaining non-profit organizations. While market managers, vendors, and customers deny any difficulties pursuing justice and sustainability through local economics, the need for vendors to sustain their livelihoods does sometimes interfere with their social justice goals. This has consequences for the function of each market.

The very idea of sustainability

Discussions of the desirability and ethical justifiability of sustainable agriculture are frequently impeded, if not derailed by the variety of meanings attached to the term sustainable. This paper suggests a taxonomy of different notions of sustainability distinguishing between agricultural product and process sustainability, in both static and dynamic forms, pursued by reductive (extractive), compensatory, regenerative, and induced homeostasis strategies. The discussion then goes on to argue that ethics demand sustainable agriculture. Finally the paper tries to identify just which types of sustainable agriculture will meet the ethical demands. I conclude with reasons for living sustainably in the present, as opposed to trying to orient agriculture by reference to the rights of future generations.Charles V. Blatz is Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at The University of Toledo (Ohio). He is a founding member of the International Development Ethics Association, and is editor ofEthics and Agriculture: An Anthology on Current Issues in World Context (University of Idaho Press, 1991).     

21世纪中国农业可持续发展面临的严峻形势及对策取向

中国农业的可持续发展在21世纪面临着严峻的形势。本文从经济、生态和社会3个方面分析了对中国至关重要的“可持续的食物安全保障”问题。指出农民生产积极性的保持和不断有所提高至关重要;而通过提高资源利用率及实现可再生资源对农用资源的部分替代,以及打破农业的集约化与环境退化之间的连锁,则是可持续发展的关键。为此,须开展有中国特色的“多重绿色革命”。     

Designing sustainable agriculture education: Academics’ suggestions for an undergraduate curriculum at a land grant university

Historically, land grant universities and their colleges of agriculture have been discipline driven in both their curricula and research agendas. Critics call for interdisciplinary approaches to undergraduate curriculum. Concomitantly, sustainable agriculture (SA) education is beginning to emerge as a way to address many complex social and environmental problems. University of California at Davis faculty, staff, and students are developing an undergraduate SA major. To inform this process, a web-based Delphi survey of academics working in fields related to SA was conducted. Faculty from colleges and universities across the US were surveyed. Participants suggested that students needed knowledge of natural and social science disciplines relating to the agri-food system. In addition, stakeholders suggested students learn through experiences that link the classroom to field work, engaging a broad range of actors within applied settings. Stakeholders also emphasized the need for interdisciplinary and applied scholarship. Additionally, they proposed a range of teaching and learning approaches, including many practical experiences. Given the diverse suggestions of content knowledge and means of producing knowledge, the survey presented unique challenges and called into question the epistemological and pedagogical norms currently found in land grant colleges of agriculture. This study has implications for land grant universities seeking to develop undergraduate curriculum appropriate to the field of SA. Damian M. Parr is a doctoral student of Agricultural and Environmental Education, in the School of Education at the University of California at Davis. His professional interests include organic farming, sustainable agriculture, experiential and transformational learning, critical pedagogy, and participatory action research. He is currently working on linking on-campus student initiated sustainable farm and food systems projects to curricula at land grant universities Cary J. Trexler is an assistant professor of Agricultural and Environmental Education at the University of California at Davis where he teaches courses in the history of agricultural education, experiential learning, and research methods for practicing teachers. His research focuses on experiential learning, sustainable agriculture education, and needs of teachers and informal educators within the context of the agri-food system Navina R. Khanna is a graduate student pursuing an MS in International Agricultural Development at the University of California at Davis. She is committed to facilitating community dialogue and education about sustainability issues. Her work at the university focuses on the process and goal of sustainability in agricultural education and campus food system sustainability. Her primary professional interests include democratic participatory process in agri-food system sustainability and urban revitalization Bryce T. Battisti is a doctoral student of Agricultural and Environmental Education, in the School of Education at the University of California at Davis. His research interests include the development of alternative models for university education that are founded on student-centered experiential learning. Specifically, he studies models of permaculture education that lead toward accredited degrees and relates these models to sustainable agriculture degree programs     

可持续发展视角下我国森林法的修正

分析了我国森林法修正的可持续发展价值理念,认为可持续发展是森林法立法理念的革新,符合国际主流,也是解决当今国内环境问题的要求。从可持续发展的经济可持续、生态可持续、社会可持续三大方面出发,对《修正案》中关于林业资源的保护、林权制度的改革和科技兴林有关规定的修改进行剖析。强调生态可持续视角下的林业资源保护应实现由重视数量向重视质量转变,完善森林资源的分类保护体系,构建多部门联动的森林保护机制;经济可持续视角下的林权流转制度改革应统一对于林权流转形式的规定,建立森林资产资源评估制度,以分类经营思路发展林业经济;社会可持续视角下的森林服务和科技兴林要求发挥森林游憩的社会功能,以科技兴林和林业科技反哺社会。     

浙江农业可持续发展水平与区域差异综合评价——基于高质量发展视角

基于高质量发展背景,围绕农业生产、经济发展、资源环境和社会人口4个维度构建农业可持续发展综合评价指标体系,并评价浙江省和省内不同地域的农业可持续发展水平。采用灰色关联分析法,结合宏观统计数据,从动态视角评价了2013—2017年浙江省农业可持续发展状况,并静态比较2017年浙江省山区、半山区、平原区和海岛区等不同地形县域的农业可持续发展状况。结果显示,2013—2017年,浙江省农业可持续发展水平持续提高,但不同地形县域之间存在差异:半山区和平原区县域的农业可持续发展水平最高,山区县域的农业可持续发展水平最低。基于此,认为高水平构建农业体系、高水平推进绿色生产、高水平打造产业平台和高水平培育农业品牌是推进浙江农业可持续发展的关键。     

Transitions to sustainability: a change in thinking about food systems change?

In the present context of intertwined and intensifying economic, environmental and climate challenges and crisis, we need to enlarge our thinking about food systems change. One way to do so is by considering intersections between our longstanding interdisciplinary interest in food and agriculture and new scholarship and practice centered on transitions to sustainability. The general idea of transition references change in a wide range of fields and contexts, and has gained prominence most recently as a way to discuss and address sustainability challenges. To explore connections to food systems change, I highlight two broad approaches in the sustainability transitions research field. First is a multi-level perspective that examines sustainability innovation pathways and second is a social practices approach that illuminates the possibilities (or not) for shifts in normal everyday routines and practices. Taken together, these approaches offer different and useful ways to think about the dynamics, durability and significance of innovations in food and agriculture, and the part they play in transitions to sustainability. Numerous opportunities exist to forge more productive links between work on food systems change and the broad and growing sustainability transitions field. First, our research and practice insights about the importance of politics, governance, values and ethics in food and agriculture could help to strengthen the sustainability transitions field, which initially underplayed such questions. Second, the sustainability transitions field’s implicit systems sensibility and its futures orientation could help to widen the scope of inquiry and the contribution to policy and planning of research and practice on food systems change.     

Social sustainability, farm labor, and organic agriculture: Findings from an exploratory analysis

Much of the attention by social scientists to the rapidly growing organic agriculture sector focuses on the benefits it provides to consumers (in the form of pesticide-free foods) and to farmers (in the form of price premiums). By contrast, there has been little discussion or research about the implications of the boom in organic agriculture for farmworkers on organic farms. In this paper, we ask the question: From the perspective of organic farmers, does “certified organic” agriculture encompass a commitment to “sustainability” that prioritizes social goals? Specifically, we aim to broaden our understanding of the relationship between social sustainability and organic agriculture by drawing attention to issues affecting farmworkers, whose labor and contribution tends to elude most discussions of organic agriculture. We present findings from a survey of organic farmers in California about the possible incorporation of social standards into organic certification criteria. Our findings suggest that, at best, lukewarm support for social certification within organic agriculture exists among certified organic farmers in California. They also question expectations that organic agriculture necessarily fosters social or even economic sustainability for most of the farmers and farmworkers involved. However, we also find exceptions to the patterns evidenced in our survey. In-depth interviews with select organic farmers demonstrate that there are individuals whose practices are atypical and demonstrate that, under some circumstances, an organic production system can be at once environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable.     

Innovations of phosphorus sustainability: implications for the whole chain

Phosphorus (P) is a non-renewable resource, therefore ensuring global food and environmental security depends upon sustainable P management. To achieve this goal, sustainable P management in the upstream and downstream sectors of agriculture from mineral extraction to food consumption must be addressed systematically. The innovation and feasibility of P sustainability are highlighted from the perspective of the whole P-based chain, including the mining and processing of P rock, production of P fertilizers, soil and rhizosphere processes involving P, absorption and utilization of P by plants, P in livestock production, as well as flow and management of P at the catchment scale. The paper also emphasizes the importance of recycling P and the current challenges of P recovery. Finally, sustainable solutions of holistic P management are proposed from the perspective of technology improvement with policy support.     

Farmer-Community Connections and the Future of Ecological Agriculture in California

While questions about the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and the socioeconomic viability of rural communities are attracting increasing attention throughout the US, these two issues are rarely considered together. This paper explores the current and potential connections between these two aspects of sustainability, using data on community members’ and farmers’ views of agricultural issues in California’s Central Valley. These views were collected from a series of individual and group interviews with biologically oriented and conventional farmers as well as community stakeholders. Local marketing, farmland preservation, and perceptions of sustainable agriculture comprised the primary topics of discussion. The mixed results indicate that, while many farmers and community members have a strong interest in these topics, sustainable community development and the use of sustainable farming practices are seldom explicitly linked. On the other hand, many separate efforts around the Valley to increase local marketing and agritourism, improve public education about agriculture, and organize grassroots farmland preservation initiatives were documented. We conclude that linking these efforts more explicitly to sustainable agriculture and promoting more engagement between ecologically oriented farmers and their communities could engender more economic and political support for these farmers, helping them and their communities to achieve greater sustainability in the long run. Sonja Brodt is a former program evaluation specialist with the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program. Her current research focuses on extension and adoption of integrated pest management strategies by California growers and the impacts of pesticide safety training programs on farmworkers. Gail Feenstra is a food systems analyst at the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP). She coordinates SAREP’s Community Development and Public Policy grants program and conducts outreach and education to academic and community-based groups to build their capacity and leadership skills for developing sustainable community food systems. Robin Kozloff is a social science researcher and consultant in agricultural and land use policy. Karen Klonsky is an extension specialist at the University of California at Davis in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Her research focuses on the economic viability of organic and sustainable farming systems as well as the evolution of the organic market. Laura Tourte is county director and farm advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Santa Cruz County. Her research and extension activities currently focus on farm management and marketing for small-scale growers.     

生态脆弱带生态农业可持续发展模式与机制研究——以重庆三峡库区为例

在总结和吸收国内外关于生态脆弱带发展可持续生态农业理论成果的基础上,针对重庆三峡库区生态脆弱性和人口、资源、环境、经济等特征,提出了库区生态农业可持续发展的原则和目标,构建出生态环境和经济发展相协调的生态农业可持续发展模式,并就重庆三峡库区生态农业可持续发展机制进行了探讨.     

贵州省大方县农业生产系统可持续性分析

“可持续发展”虽然不再是一个新的概念,但在如何更好地保护和利用自然资源这个问题上,它依然是人们生活中所关注的一个热点。自从“可持续农业”概念的提出并成为社会的焦点以来．就存在着如何定义和衡量可持续农业的争论。目前广泛认同的一个观点就是农业的可持续发展包含着生态、经济、社会3方面的协调发展。根据大方县各生态区域的自然、社会和经济条件的不同,分别将小屯、竹园、六龙3个乡镇选为代表中低海拔、中海拔、中高海拔地区的生产状况,对大方县的农业生产的可持续性进行分析。根据所选的指标体系进行第一手资料和第二手资料搜集;农户调查通过面谈、田间观察和小组讨论进行。研究表明,从总体上来说,六龙镇的农业生产系统的可持续性在经济和社会方面稍好,3个乡镇的农业生产系统可持续性都属于中等水平;     

基于能值的农业生态经济系统动态分析——以河北省武安市为例

采用能值分析的方法,对农业生态经济系统的投入产出进行分析,并选取了净能值产出率、能值投资率、环境负载率、可持续发展指数、系统生产优势度5个指标进行评价。结果表明:武安市能值投入与产出均处于上升态势,能值投资率不断上升,但净能值产出率降低,农产品的价格竞争优势逐步丧失;同时随着不可更新工业辅助能的加大,环境压力也在日益增加。在未来的农业发展中,要更加注重农业发展与生态环境的协调,实现农业可持续发展。     

Agriculture,livelihoods, and globalization: The analysis of new trajectories (and avoidance of just-so stories) of human-environment change and conservation

Globalization offers a mix of new trajectories for agriculture, livelihoods, resource use, and environmental conservation. The papers in this issue share elements that advance our understanding of these new trajectories. The shared elements suggest an approach that places stress on: (i) the common ground of theoretical concepts (local-global interactions), methodologies (case study design), and analytical frameworks (spatio-temporal emphasis); (ii) farm-level economic diversification and the dynamics of agricultural intensification-disintensification; (iii) the pervasive role of agricultural as well as environmental institutions, organizations, and governance issues; (iv) the ‹agency of nature’ that blends the roles of non-human organisms and the cultural and social practices of people both at the local scale and beyond; (v) the framing of sustainability initiatives and outcomes through the perspective of historical change; (vi)␣spatial environmental dynamics of the ‹new geographics of environmental conservation’ that impact agriculture, food production, and resource management; and (vii) successful and promising policies, projects, and developments mapping out possible spaces of hope for agricultural sustainability, aquitable development, and food security. The adoption and application of these elements is successful also in avoiding the tendency toward just-so accounts or overly simplified stories of agrarian and environment successes amid the often grim realities of globalization and its impacts. Karl Zimmerer is a geographer and environmental scientist researching and teaching on the topics of globalization and human-environment change (with emphasis on agriculture, conservation and rural livelihoods); the dynamics of agrobiodiversity in tropical mountains (currently focused on irrigation and the relations of new water resource management to agrobiodiversity change); and the development and experience of spatial-environmental models, environmental science, and conservation planning. Karl is the author of numerous articles and his books and monographs include four publications, most recently Globalization and New Geographies of Conservation (2006, University of Chicago). He is active in various organizations involved with agricultural, environmental, conservation, and globalization policies and also edits the Nature-Society section of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.