Concepts and Initiatives for Sustainable Agriculture

Increase food production in order to mitigate poverty and hunger in the long term are great international challenges for agriculture in the near future. This must be done by promoting sustainable agriculture. The economic social and environmental aspects should be taken into account; this is not easy in all circumstances. In fact, even though intimately related, economy social and environmental interactions are sometimes conflicting, also for the agricultural sector. Consumers, producers and all the involved satkeholders should be made aware of the impact of their acrivity on food sustainabilty through clear and non misleading information. One step in this direciton was taken by the SALSA project, which assessed the sustainaility of three cases on different beef production systems: specialized beef system based on pasture, integrated crop- livestock system and organic beef system, in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The sustainability indicators provided by the FAO-SAFA approach showed that a representative livestock farming integrated system, adopted in the Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil, performed bettter in relation to land use and global warming, when compared to the other two beef production systems. The Brazilian integrated farming system represents an excellent case showing how sustainability is not related to a single production protocol or standard, but can be reached in different ways according to different natural, social and economic contexts. The complexity of assessing sustainability and interpreting the results also emerged, showing still existing limitations in objective quantitative measurements, making it necessary to integrate the debate on sustainability implementation with political, social and economic feasibility considerations.