ABSTRACT
Food production connects us to each other and to the natural environment. In the 2006 bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes, “Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world-and what is to become of it” (Pollan, 2006). In discussions of agriculture and the environment, a commonly stated goal is agricultural sustainability. In its original literal meaning, sustainability requires maintaining the resource base on which agriculture depends. More broadly, agricultural sustainability has become a shorthand term for a bundle of environmental, economic and social objectives (National Research Council, 2010):
• satisfying human food, feed and fiber needs, and contributing to biofuel needs, • enhancing environmental quality and the resource base, • sustaining the economic viability of agriculture and • improving the quality of life for farmers, farm workers and society as a whole.
