What can young people do to ensure the sustainability of agriculture?

What can young people do to ensure the sustainability of agriculture?
- by Trygve Lien

What can young people do to ensure the sustainability of agriculture? In simplest terms, sustainable agriculture according to Webster’s Dictionary is the production of food, fiber, or other plant or animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare. Sustainable agriculture also means that we have to care for the soil. We have lost so many vital nutrients and organic matter from farming methods which are now considered by many to be obsolete. Sustainable agriculture does not always mean using the biggest and newest equipment, but instead using equipment that gets the job done in a safe and timely manner while conserving our natural resources. For example, on my own acreage, I was using equipment from the 1960s and 1970s until I upgraded from a moldboard plow to a disk ripper to conserve soil and help prevent erosion.

The current population of young adults must educate themselves about modern agriculture and its impacts on others. Young adults should also educate others who are not knowledgeable on the subject so there is a universal understanding of how agriculture works. We should also work with professionals in the industry to help learn about complex topics which can be often distorted in the media. As an FFA member, I believe the FFA can help educate and promote sustainable agriculture and helps its members to obtain the skills necessary to work in the agricultural industry and promote sustainability. Through the works of various organizations, retiring farmers can pass on their farms to young adults and help teach them about sustainability and what must be done to ensure healthy crops and animals produced for consumption. I believe we young producers should talk with consumers, listen to what they want for a product, and try and deliver that product to them as best we can. Simultaneously, we also must educate the consumers about our efforts to be sustainable and what they can do to help. If we learn from our past mistakes, we can figure out the next step towards more sustainable techniques. I have learned a tremendous amount about conservation by talking with older farmers who have gone through tough times – times that many members of today’s youth have never experienced.

The United States Department of Agriculture states that it is estimated that by 2050, farmers will have to produce enough food for over 9 billion people. Many young people like myself have never experienced true hunger, let alone starvation, but every day people die from a lack of food. By the year 2050, many of today’s farmers will not be actively farming, so it is up to the future generations to become more sustainable and conservative than ever. Farmers in other countries are regulated on what they can apply for nutrients because of past incidents, so if we are not proactive, we Americans will find ourselves in the same regulated situation! It is important that we become conservative in all areas of sustainable agriculture and teach young adults everything they need to know to continue growing food and producing agricultural goods and while developing new forms of sustainable agriculture. Even though I am only 18, I am trying to do my part. I have a test plot and a blog which I use to help inform and educate the public as one of my FFA projects. On this test plot, I am trying different products to see what works and what does not. We need to change our farming practices so we farm smarter, not harder. I want to prove that one person can make a difference, and that difference can help change the future one person at a time.