What is sustainable Agriculture? -Conservation!

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What is sustainable Agriculture? What are some ways that it is used and new ideas that are coming?

But I digress. Ideally, a sustainable agriculture would be a system of locally grown crops, grown in rotation (using a legume such as alfalfa to %26#039;fix%26#039; the nitrogen) on relatively small fields, with conservation features such as buffer strips, shelterbelts or hedges. There would probably be a small ratio of livestock to fruit, vegetables and crops, with the livestock feeding primarily on bi-products. The manure from the livestock would be used to fertilize crops in the main part (with care taken to either spread by hand or with a specially adapted spreader (low ramp or, even better, trailing hoses and shallow incorporation). Energy would be provided, or at least supplemented by solar, wind, geothermal (depending on location).

There would also be consideration of local wildlife in retaining wetland and mature woodlots, and retaining a wide field buffer strip that can serve as habitat and as green corridors, connecting wild areas.

To read up on sustainable agriculture, you could try the following sources:

http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/concept.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable...

you can also search conservation farming, which will tell you about ways producers are trying to reduce their ecological footprints through green farming initiatives (including Beneficial Management Practices - BMPs) such as fencing off cattle from riparian areas, testing soils prior to apply fertilizer to ensure only the minimum amount is applied, the trailing hoses described above for spreading manure, buffer zones, strip cropping, zero-till and others. See below.

http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/land/practices...
http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/water/practice...
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/are...

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