ABSTRACT
The low input "movement" in US agriculture originated in the organic philosophy and has been spurred by pressures for reduction of adverse environmental impact and by the high cost of inputs relative to product price. Input-substitution technologies are technologies that are utilized, to an extent, by all farmers, but some of which, such as biological nitrogen fixation, tend to be used more by farmers whose systems are structured for low inputs. The terms low input and sustainable represent characteristics of farming systems that tend to become all-inclusive as they gain popularity. Farmland preservation and soil conservation are examples of the distant horizons, while farm ownership transfer from parents to children and groundwater contamination are aspects of near-term sustainability. Integration efficiencies of systems are both complex and sensitive to the socioeconomic environment. In developing countries, many of the integration efficiencies are built into traditional systems.
