SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE – ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

An attempt is made in this paper is to analyse the sustainable agriculture issues and challenges. Agriculture is back on the international agenda. The need to feed a growing world population has been one of the major reasons behind this development. But intensive industrial agriculture, and especially animal production, makes a large contribution to climate change – basically because of the production of methane, deforestation for large-scale fodder production, and the global transportation of agricultural products. The current agricultural practices also result in loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, pollution and overuse of water. Population growth and economic development are expected to contribute substantially to an increase in demand for food (especially animal products) and energy. These factors will lead to further price increases on world markets and increased hunger. A further intensification and expansion of industrial agriculture is often presented as the only option to offset these problems. Agriculture plays an important role in the economic growth and development and has therefore remained the largest platform