An open letter to the agricultural community on defining sustainability

Excerpt

AT this time we must carefully refine our definitions of agricultural sustainability and a host of related terms. The necessity stems from a generally imprecise conceptualization of what sustainability can possibly be. It also grows out of deficient consideration of appropriate time scales on which to judge this property of ecological permanence.

Any attempt to define the properties of complex systems, such as agricultural field, farm, market, or ecosystem, falls short of the reality of those things. Sustainability grows best from a fertile imagination and a well-planted education. Sustainability becomes adaptive as a human way of living, physically and spiritually. It cannot be defined only in measurable parameters.

Clarifying perspectives

In identifying limits to potential sustainability of agricultural systems, the most critical variables are not those definable in economic terms but rather those arising from ecological entities and relationships. I should note here the derivations of the words economy and ecology because these are the suppositions from which views of sustainability necessarily arise. Economy is formed from Greek roots, oikos and nomos, meaning “management of the household.” Ecology is also a combination from the Greek, oikos and logos, denoting “rationale of the household.” Thus, my …