Sustainability in UW Specialty Crop Production
2017
- University of Wisconsin Madison, Agricultural and Applied Economics
Project Media
Agricultural sustainability means different things to different people. In reality, it is only in hindsight that we can know what is actually sustainable. How can anyone really know how we should farm today to ensure that we will be able to still be farming 100 or more years from now? Differences in strategies for dealing with this uncertainty are at the root of much of the debate and disagreement surrounding agricultural sustainability. Here we are not going to overview or summarize this debate and some of the main strategies, but rather focus on results – what have we accomplished at UW and in Wisconsin for research and related activities. First, we briefly describe the conceptual framework we use for agricultural sustainability assessment. Second, we present specific results for Wisconsin potato growers and Midwestern processing green bean and sweet corn growers. Finally, we overview some research in progress.