VMBO Year 3 · Sustainable living · Section 7.3
Sustainable agriculture
What is sustainable agriculture?
Sustainable agriculture aims to produce food while maintaining soil, water, biodiversity and other resources for the future. It also considers animal welfare, energy use and the livelihoods of farmers. Conventional intensive farming can produce high yields, but large monocultures and high livestock densities can create pressures involving pests, disease, nutrient losses and pollution. Different methods have different benefits and trade-offs.
Pesticides and their effects
Pesticides control crop pests and diseases, but can have unwanted effects.
- Non-selective substances can affect many organisms, including useful or harmless species.
- Selective substances target a narrower group, although they are not necessarily harmless to all other organisms.
- Some persistent substances bioaccumulate, building up in organisms. Their concentrations may also increase along a food chain: biomagnification.
- Resistance can evolve when inherited variants survive treatment and leave offspring, reducing a pesticide's effectiveness.
Alternatives include using natural enemies and disrupting pest behaviour with signals such as scents. Their effects also need careful assessment.
Biological control and crop rotation
Biological control uses living organisms to control pests, such as predators that eat crop-damaging insects. Crop rotation grows different crops in sequence on the same land, helping interrupt pest and disease cycles and manage soil fertility.
Approaches to more sustainable farming
- Organic farming: follows standards restricting many synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and including requirements for animal welfare and management.
- Circular agriculture: reuses materials and nutrients, reducing waste and dependence on new inputs.
- Precision agriculture: adjusts water, fertiliser and crop protection to the needs of particular places or plants, reducing unnecessary use.
- Vertical farming: grows crops in stacked layers, often indoors under controlled conditions. It can save land and water but may use substantial energy for lighting and climate control.
These approaches can reduce particular environmental impacts. None automatically removes every impact; results depend on how the system is managed.
Glossary
- Bioaccumulation
- The build-up of a substance in an organism when intake exceeds removal or breakdown; some accumulated substances can also become more concentrated along food chains.
- Organic farming
- Farming according to standards that restrict many synthetic inputs and include environmental and animal-welfare requirements.
- Circular agriculture
- Farming that keeps materials and nutrients in use through reuse and recycling, limiting waste.
- Non-selective
- Affecting a broad range of organisms, including species that are not the intended target.
- Pesticides
- Substances used to control pests and diseases affecting crops.
- Precision agriculture
- Targeting farm inputs such as water and nutrients according to local needs.
- Resistance
- An inherited reduction in sensitivity, allowing organisms to survive a treatment that previously controlled them.
- Selective
- Acting mainly against a particular organism or group rather than a broad range of species.
- Vertical farming
- Growing crops in stacked layers, often in a controlled indoor environment.
- Crop rotation
- Growing different crops in sequence on the same land to manage fertility, pests and diseases.