The promise of low-input agriculture
Excerpt
SWCS's conference “The Promise of S Low-Input Agriculture: A Search for Sustainability and Profitability,” held March 8-10 in Omaha, Nebraska, is history. With 360 registrants, attendance exceeded expectations. Support from several U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and 30 cosponsors enabled SWCS to bring together a diversity of interests. Our aim was to examine ways of reducing farm input costs while enhancing the long-term productivity of the land.
Throughout North America, questions are being raised about agriculture's sustainability. Economic hardship among farmers, media criticism, and consumer concern about the safety of farm products and environmental quality are pressuring agriculture to reassess the viability of current production practices.
Conventional systems rely on expensive chemical inputs that often leave residues and pollute surface and groundwater. Reduced use of soil-building crops and animal wastes increases soil erodibility and lowers soil productivity. Increased runoff causes higher pollution loadings from sediment and nutrients.
Concern about degraded soils and negative side effects has led more producers and researchers to develop and test alternate production systems. It was evident from many conference speakers that much of the leadership in developing these …
Footnotes
- Copyright 1989 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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