Abstract
Sustainable agriculture has evolved from an alternative approach to farming aimed at niche markets into a sine qua non for agricultural businesses and policies worldwide. This mainstreaming has brought its own challenges, not least the inflation of the term “sustainability,” and associated risks of greenwashing in its wake. In response, new, more specific approaches to sustainable agriculture have emerged that are vying for attention from farmers, consumers, businesses, and governmental institutes. Examples include circular agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and organic farming. But how do each of these approaches relate to sustainability? Do they overlap or are they complementary? In this chapter, we review these five approaches to sustainability from the perspective of individual farms, because it is at the farm level where standards for sustainability need to be translated into daily and seasonal decision-making on management practices. We review the strengths and limitations of each of these five “shades of green,” as well as the generic lessons that can be extracted for context-specific transitions toward a more sustainable future for farming and food.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Future Food Systems |
Subtitle of host publication | Exploring Global Production, Processing, Distribution and Consumption |
Editors | R.Y. Yada, R. Van Acker, M. Scanlon, D. Gray |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Chapter | 2 |
Pages | 17-30 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780443156908 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 14 Jun 2024 |