Description

Practitioners of sustainable agriculture seek to integrate three main objectives into their work: a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. Every person involved in the food systemógrowers, food processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, and waste managersócan play a role in ensuring a sustainable agricultural system. Although these developments have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming, they also have significant costs. Prominent among these are topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, the decline of family farms, neglect of the living and working conditions of farm laborers, new threats to human health and safety due to the spread of new pathogens, economic concentration in food and agricultural industries, and disintegration of rural communities. The concept of agricultural sustainability does not lend itself to precise definition, partly because it implies a way of thinking as well as of using farming practices, and because the latter cannot be specified as final answers. Consequently, people's beliefs and values will continue to mold public understanding of the concept. Environmental conservation is a practice that paves the way for protecting the environment and natural resources on the individual, organisational as well as governmental levels. A key challenge for the agriculture sector is to feed an increasing global population, while at the same time reducing the environmental impact and preserving natural resources for future generations. It is expected that the book would serve the interests of the students as a source of information for understanding and appreciating the finer aspects of Ecology, Environmental Development and Conservation in Agriculture.