Feeding the future – sustainable agriculture
Useful sites
Can Australia save the world? (The Slab, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Summarises the problems of overpopulation and resource depletion, and discusses how Australia could become a world leader in sustainable food, land, water and ecological systems.
Chapter 2: Food and agriculture (Institute of Land and Food Resources, University of Melbourne, Australia)
From the book Agricultural Education in Natural Resource Management by Lindsay J. Falvey, this chapter covers modern agriculture – its history, the need for increased food production, the impacts of agriculture on the environment, and considerations for natural resource management. The subsections are listed at the beginning of the page and you can go directly to the topic of interest.
The development of ecological performance indicators for sustainable systems (Proceedings of the 10th Australian Agronomy Conference, 2001)
Discusses an approach to determining ecological performance indicators that can be used to manage farming systems more sustainably.
Chapter 24: Environmental indicators and sustainable agriculture (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research)
From a book on managing sustainable agriculture. This chapter looks at how indicators can be used to assess agricultural sustainability.
Sustainable agriculture: A question of ecology, equity, economic efficiency or expedience? (University of Western Australia)
Suggests that the core elements of sustainability fall within three categories: value of the environment, intergenerational equity, and economic efficiency. Also discusses the need for suitable sustainability indicators.
What is sustainable agriculture? (University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, USA)
Covers the goals of sustainable agriculture, and presents strategies for them based on the situation in California.
Cooperative Research Centre for Australian Weed Management
An interesting example of a program that worked to develop weed management systems that increased the sustainability of agriculture. This program worked through community involvement and implemented training and education strategies.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (transcripts)
Landcare farming report (Earthbeat, 16 August 2003)
A new report recommends ways for Australia to develop systems for sustainable agriculture.
Landcare farmer (Earthbeat, 16 August 2003)
A case study of a farm employing conservation farming.
Eureka native grass winner (Earthbeat, 16 August 2003)
Describes a native grass that could be grown as a commercial food crop.
Agricultural organisations
These are examples of organisations that promote collaboration with scientists and provide practical advice to farmers.
Birchip Agronomy Online (Birchip Cropping Group, Australia)
Conservation Farmers Inc. (Australia)
Kondinin Group (Australia)
Mallee Sustainable Farming Project (Australia)
Related Nova topics
Monitoring the white death – soil salinity
Integrated pest management – the good, the bad and the genetically modified
More food, cleaner food – gene technology and plants
Page updated September 2009.