Sustainable Agriculture: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity

Abstract

It has been projected that by the year 2050, the global population will reach 9.3 billion. By implication, this means that food production has to increase from 8.4 billion tonnes to 13.4 billion tonnes in order to keep pace with this increase (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2014), and also, that the already existing land, water, and energy crisis will possibly get further intensified. The crucial question is: Are we ready to deal with this? Clearly, we are amidst an agricultural crisis, wherein the ability of agriculture to fulfil human needs is threatened by factors such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation through soil erosion, compaction, salinization and pollution, depletion and pollution of water resources, rising production costs, poverty and a decrease of the rural population (Velten et al., 2015).