Low‐Input/Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education—Challenges to the Agricultural Economics Profession

Abstract

Over the past decade, a number of different terms have been used to describe agricultural technologies that seek to substitute management and scientific knowledge for synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers-terms such as organic, regenerative, alternative, sustainable, and reduced-input have become widely used in various contexts (Wagstaff; Lowrance, Hendrix, and Odum). The term is used in California and other states to describe their new research and education programs. The term low-input has become the latest entry in the vocabulary of agricultural technology because this term is used in the FY 1988 federal appropriations legislation. Low-input/sustainable agriculture encompasses a wide array of approaches to farming that reduce the farmer's dependence on certain kinds of purchased inputs in ways that increase profits, reduce environmental hazards, and ensure a more sustainable agriculture for generations to come. Low-input farming methods range from release of exotic natural enemies to rather commonplace methods such as controlling weeds by mechanical cultivation and crop rotations. Also included in this category are various integrated pest management strategies such as biological control of pests through enhancement of natural enemies, use of legume crops in place of some purchased fertilizers, and application of livestock manures and compost. A low-input/sustainable farming system is a combination and sequence of low-input farming methods or technologies integrated into a whole-farm managerial plan. While many of the concepts underlying low-input farming methods have been known for decades or even centuries, the essence of this approach is not a reversion to the technologies of previous decades or centuries but a combination of the best of modern agricultural science and technology with the practical experience of farmers who are profitably substituting management for most or all of their purchased inputs of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertiliz-