A Working Definition of "Sustainable" Agriculture

When I start to wonder about something, I tend to go to "google." (Silly I know. There are other search engines but I am used to this work horse.) I was astounded to learn that the adjective "sustainable" is attached to just about every concept you can possibly imagine. But when coupled with Alaska, I stumbled onto Alaska's SARE Program and thus the USDA's Western Regional SARE. SARE stands for Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education.

I began to be concerned about the definition of sustainable when someone warned me that "sustainable" can be a "hot button" term. Gosh, thought I, how can that be? Doesn't "sustainable" just mean that the practice can go on and on and on without doing harm or using up non-renewable resources? What's so objectionable about that?

"Sustainable," I've come to learn, might push buttons because it is an adjective that turns out to have rather significant social connotations. An activity doesn't qualify as sustainable until it can be said to promise a good quality of life. Nice. The way I look at it, this means that people can expect to work for liveable wages.

Sustainability implies more than jobs, profits, environmental and resource stewardship. To be sustainable, it seems an activity has to pro-actively look to the future and see that what is done in the present will in all probability promise a good future for the group as well as for the individual. It is not "all about me;" it is not even necessarily about now except that the definition implies that growing a system that is sustainable will not be done on the backs of slaves or underpaid labor.

The Alaska SARE website states that the US Congress has defined sustainable agriculture as plant and animal production practices that will, over the long term:

1. satisfy human food and fiber needs;
2. enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agriculture economy depends;
3. make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources;
4. sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
5. enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.

Then they simplify it.

Sustainable Agriculture is economically viable: if it is not profitable, it is not sustainable; socially supportive: The quality of life of farmers, farm families and farm communities is important; and ecologically sound: we must preserve the resource base that sustains us all.

So, if these are buttons you would like to push, go to Alaska's SARE program where you can find information on sustainable production; you can download the Alaska Sustainable Agriculture Newsletter; you can find out about attending the annual statewide sustainable agriculture conference that takes place in Fairbanks; and best of all, you can apply for grants.

And if you want face to face contact with Alaska's SARE representative, try to catch up with Michele Hebert she comes to Haines May 18 to conduct the week long Alaska Master Gardener's class. Maybe I'll see you then!