Sustainable agriculture means addressing environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity in farming. We'll look at some practices in this gallery. Here's the first-ever pig race at the Surrey County Show in England.
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In Europe, working farmland is also used for recreation, partially due to agriculture policy and also to practices like grass-based farms that make them aesthetically pleasing. Here, cattle graze freely in the Austrian Alps.
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The USDA defines "free-range" chickens, as those who have access to the outside, not necessarily to pasture. In practice most sustainable farmers allow their chickens to roam pasture, finding that these chickens produce better-tasting eggs and meat.
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A mini-goat on an organic farm. To receive organic certification, the livestock must have access to light and air; must be fed organic feed or grass; must have their manure managed so it does not contaminate their quarters; must not take preventative antibiotics and must meet some other requirements
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Don Bustos saved his family's farm in part by using a solar-heated greenhouse, allowing him to produce salad greens in winter, cut annual greenhouse heating costs from $2,000 to nothing and increase yields 30-40 percent beyond the standard cold frame.
Image Credit: Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), USDA
Syrphid flies resemble bees and are voracious predators of aphids and other insects that feed on vegetable crops. Organic farmers grow plants like chamomile and parsley to attract these flies, thus ensuring a natural "insecticide."
Image Credit: Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), USDA
Rex Spray is a regional winner of a sustainability award presented by the USDA. An organic farmer since the 1970s, Spray rotates soybeans, corn, wheat, and hay with alternating grasses and legumes to improve fertility and even build soil.
Image Credit: Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), USDA
Sustainability is a world-wide effort. Here, workers in Indonesia weigh seeds from palm oil plants. The business of palm oil is causing widespread deforestation, making Indonesia the world's third largest carbon emitter. Norway has pledged $1 billion for Indonesia to stop cutting down its forests.
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This fair-trade farmer harvests coffee on a farm in Kenya. Fair trade means that she receives a base price for her goods that is enough for a living wage, thus ensuring her own sustainability.
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Living wages are not just a Third-World problem. Migrant labor in the U.S. has generally been subject to below minimum-wage salaries. At the organic Grant Family Farms, the owner says he starts his workers at $7.25, the minimum wage in Colorado.
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A customer harvests her own basil at a local "u-pick" farm in Oregon. Consumers play a strong role in creating a sustainable food system, through their purchases.
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Organic farming has made it to the White House. Here, First Lady Michelle Obama talks with wives of world leaders and school kids at the Stone Barns Center, a nonprofit farm and education center in New York as part of her healthy eating program.
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Here we see the tanks of a shrimp farm in a most unlikely place -- Las Vegas. The Aqua Ganix farm grows algae in tanks and then feeds it to pathogen-free shrimp larvae, which are grown in recycled shipping containers. Once harvested, the shrimp can be sent to local restaurants. The sustainable process produces no wastewater and lets the shrimp grow without the help of chemicals.
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In Cameroon, workers carry out sustainable logging of the forest in the Kika region. Sustainable loggers aim to preserve areas where logging occurs so that there are always trees present and growing (and needing to be cut) versus clearing an area entirely and rendering it treeless for years on end.
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Kelp has many properties that proponents of sustainable farming find attractive. It can be a food source, a biofuel and a remover of water pollutants -- all the while sucking up carbon dioxide that would otherwise trap heat.
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Sustainable agriculture uses only minimal pesticides and only when absolutely necessary. The overriding goal is not to use any. Here an employee restocks freshly harvested vegetables, fruits and flowers at a private farm stand. The farm is a first-generation family farm that uses no-sprays or low-spray for its fruits and vegetables.
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Supporters of sustainable agriculture suggest that people plant their own gardens and make their own fertilizer using compost bins. This compost bin in a backyard garden certainly fits the bill.
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Cover crops are one of the techniques used in sustainable farming to control things like weeds and pests and to promote healthy soil and control erosion. Here we see a field of mustard being used as an organic cover crop grown between vineyard rows in California.
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Supporting local farmers markets is another piece of the sustainable agriculture puzzle. They give consumers a chance to get foods closer to the source and also to better know where their food is coming from. In our next picture, we'll learn about the government's effort to help consumers get a handle on the source of their food.
Image Credit: Jade Brookbank
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative in 2009. The effort coordinates staff from various parts of the USDA in order to share resources and help get the word out about local and regional food systems and sources -- and how consumers can be better informed about them.
Image Credit: USDA
Here we see rows of hydroponic vegetables. Hydroponic means they're growing in water and not soil. There's even a movement to broaden this concept by combining it with aquaculture (fish farming), which is called aquaponics. In an aquaponic system, fresh water fish multiply in a tank and then plants are grown on the surface of the water. Waste from the fish fertilizes the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish. Both fish and plant are in a sustainable system.
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An organic farm in California boasts rows of irrigation lines. While many farms, particularly industrial concerns, tend to be wasteful about water use, sustainable farms try to conserve it and use it responsibly.
Image Credit: Walter B. McKenzie
They might not seem like it, but ladybugs that are tolerated by smart sustainable farmers become additional weapons in the fight against crop pests. Ladybugs feed on aphids, which are quite the little agricultural menaces.
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A big part of sustainable farming is the encouragement of diversity on the grounds. Planting trees on farmland is a great way to get both natural windbreaks and also provide places to live for birds that like to dine on insects that destroy crops.
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Agricultural runoff waste carries the risk of water pollution if and when it seeps into other water systems. Sustainable farms seek to minimize the impact of their water use and avoid the problems associated with runoff waste.
Now that you've seen our sustainable farming pictures, do you wonder how foods gain organic status? Take our organic foods quiz and find out!
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