Thursday, April 15, 2010

Resistance to Sustainable Agriculture

One of the main resistances to sustainable agriculture is the cost. It costs money for farmers to change over to sustainable ways of farming, including equipment, various crops, and a person's way of life. To change over to sustainable farming involves more regulation including erosion control and organic crop production. Another resistance are farmers attitudes towards changing their farming practices that have been in their families for years. It's tough to convince and old time farmer to change over to a new type of farming. It's especially hard to explain the long term benefits of sustainable agriculture. To solve this, the idea of sustainability must be presented to people of resistance in a straight-forward an honest manner. If it doesn't stick to the old timers, perhaps the younger generations can get on board.

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Lastly, sustainable agriculture can jeopardize the availability of year round produce and other goods. Sustainability coincides with "natural" and it's not "natural": to have fresh oranges in Pullman in January. Perhaps with the development of hydroponics, out of season crops can be grown locally. This will then benefit not only consumers, but the farmers in the long run.

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