Thanks for sharing these thoughts.
You really "hit the nail on the head" when you closed by asking how
far would we be if we had just spent time working on the sustainable
systems!
There are so many people out their working hard to develop
sustainable systems. We need to spend less time in arguments
over components of definitions, purity of thought, organinc, partial
organic, intensive, extensive...etc... and get on with the task at
hand. That task is working directly with farmers and ranchers to
help them make informed decisions.
I was at a meeting the other day and I said we in Extension USDA want
to work toward achieving (simultaneously) progress in 4 primary
catagories in our work with agriculture. These four areas are
"performance" in the elements of: financial and economic,
environmental, food safety and quality and social acceptability. I
added that the performance criteria are first those set by the farmer,
the family and community...plus those performance elements/critieria
required by laws such as the clean water act...etc.. A person
interrupted me to say I had just described what sustainable
agriculture is all about...without saying it directly. To me that is
what we need to do...and get on with helping farmers and ranchers
work toward these four key performance areas....with them in the
primary goal setting role.
Thanks again for the comments.
************************************
Gary M. Weber Phone 720-2677 *
Program Leader Fax 720-7714 *
Animal Science *
"Knowledge is one of the few things *
you can give away and still keep" *
************************************
******************************************
Gary M. Weber Phone (202) 720-2677 *
Program Leader Fax (202) 720-7714 *
Animal Science GWEBER@ESUSDA.GOV *
"Knowledge is one of the few things you *
can give away and still keep" *
******************************************