SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Sustainable agriculture is the act of farming based on an understanding of ecosystem services, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment. It has been defined as "an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will last over the long term".

Sustainable agriculture is very important for us to maintain it's sustainability because it does not deplete the earth's resources, does not pollute the environment, profitable and so on. There are three main goals that can help to maintain the sustainability and they are as follows :

• Socio-political benefits ~ where benefits are provided for the farm family and the community. Having good and proper marketing strategies involving direct marketing, making economic decisions that can give both side the benefits and so on.
• Economic development ~ where farmers can explore more income opportunities. There must be a comprehensive financial planning in an enterprise, learn many different ways of marketing such as considering organic supplies, GMO-free output and other "GREEN" markets.
• Environmental conservation ~ where where farmers should help to maintain the natural ecosystem to function well in the cycles and the input of a certain field should be an output and advantage to the other field and  it also involves keeping the 4 ecosystem in good condition ( Energy flow, water cycles, mineral cycles and ecosystem dynamics )

                                
                              Water Cycle
                 
                                Energy flow

                     
                             Mineral cycles

     
                           Economic system
                                   

Practices that can be done to maintain agriculture 
sustainability:
Inter cropping
cultivate more than one crop at a time and increase the sunlight capture. Example is coffee inter cropped with pepper.

Crop rotation 
provides complementary fertilization among the crops in sequence with each other. Example, forage crops in the rotation will reduce soil erosion and increase soil quality.  
Zero burning 
acknowledged by the world as an environment - friendly that is sustainable. Example is when old oil palm and rubber trunks are  not burned, but sliced thin and left to decompose.

Pest management 
consists of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) which is a basic framework to decide when and how pests are controlled. Helps to monitor and survey, record keeping and life-cycle information about the pests and their natural enemies.

Planning and Decision Making to Maintain Agriculture Sustainability

To manage the three objectives, economics, environment and society by providing tools for farmers such as for goal setting, decision making, monitoring, and many more in order to make sure their goals can be achieve .

That's all for now and till we meet again for the next topic next week. Bye and thank you for viewing our blog. Have a great day ahead (=