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June 15, 2007: Let’s face it, the
United States and her inhabitants are extremely wasteful.
From plastic bags and packaging materials, to fuel-inefficient
automobiles to oversized food portions, we are a nation and
people who (shamefully) pride ourselves in the foolish motto
that “bigger and more is better.”
In your daily activities, stop and take notice to all the
wastefulness being exhibited around you: lights being left
on in empty rooms, easily recyclable products being discarded
in the trash, food scraps being thrown into plastic garbage
bags instead of in a compost pile. The list goes on and on.
In 2005, residents, businesses and institutions in the United
States produced more than 245 million tons of municipal solid
waste. This is approximately 4.5 pounds of waste per person
per day! And believe it or not, all of this waste doesn’t
just vanish into thin air once it gets loaded onto your local
municipality garbage truck. The majority of this waste will
get disposed of in a landfill, while little will get recovered/recycled
or composted, and some will be burned at combustion facilities
(adding to our air-pollution problems). These waste-management
practices find a “suitable” home for all this
garbage, but the remnants will linger on for many moons to
come in our air, soil, and water.
If one was to be truly honest in these perilous times on
planet Earth (global warming, loss of biodiversity, dependency
on foreign energy sources, war, etc.), they would realize
that a drastic shift in policy (regarding both production
and consumption) and the socially accepted ways of consuming
are necessary.
Throughout time, most beneficial and worthwhile change has
occurred from the bottom and worked its way up through the
ranks. It is widely believed and accepted that agriculture
is the root of civilization. To quote my
fellow intern’s previous journal entry, “Farming
is the root of everything.” So why not start at the
root of everything and civilization, which is agriculture?
If more farmers implemented sustainable practices on their
farms, I believe that this would have a positive snowball
effect and branch outward to all different sectors of society,
hopefully in time transforming it from its current polluting,
wasteful state to a more environmentally sound and sustainable
one that will be around for generations to come.
In order for sustainable practices to work, whether they
are in agriculture or business, they must meet three critical
objectives, also known as the triple bottom line: economic
profitability, social benefits to the community and environmental
conservation. All three of these goals can be met with proper
planning and implementation.
Sustainable agriculture, contrary to popular belief, is not
necessarily organic, and organic agriculture is not necessarily
sustainable. Sustainable agriculture is, however, a whole-system
approach which aims to maintain the overall health and well-being
of the land and the people that land supports. Sustainable
agriculture strives to simultaneously meet the goals laid
out by the triple bottom line. With regard to environmental
conservation, sustainable farming aims to integrate soil,
water, plants, animals, climate and people into a successful
production system that is symbiotic with the environment,
the people and the economy. Sustainable farms mimick the natural
systems and healthy ecosystems found in nature. Nature has
a special knack for balancing herself out and finding equilibrium
(this despite our best efforts to upset that balance). Why,
then, should we treat a farm—which is a natural system
and works in cycles—like a factory, which is not a natural
system and requires vast amounts of energy inputs resulting
in rampant air, soil and water pollution?
Economic and social sustainability in agriculture (and in
all of society) can be achieved through proper planning and
sound management. When these two objectives are met, farms
and farmers remain in business, achieve annual profitability,
decrease their reliance on government payments, decrease their
reliance on off-farm inputs such as feed and fertilizer (thanks
to composting and cover crops), support other local businesses
and families and also boost the local economy.
Society as a whole can learn valuable lessons from the cycles
found in nature and the sustainable practices found in agriculture.
By assimilating sustainable practices into the norm of society,
the nation as a whole would be less dependent on foreign sources
of energy, local economies would receive a boost, the quality
of life for many would be elevated and, most importantly,
planet Earth and nature would stop receiving the detrimental
onslaught that has been going on uninhibited for much too
long. 
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