Understanding sustainability is understanding survival, or the path to survival. And that is as much an issue for society as it is for farmers. As a farmer, you are surely conscious of the ever-increasing costs associated with farming. While some of these may relate to the many regulations and obligations with which we must comply, there are many others that relate to the way we farm.

From the inside looking out, we could be forgiven for thinking the rest of society believes we apply fertilisers and pesticides primarily to harm the environment

As primary producers we need to be conscious of these to be increasingly sustainable and to address as many of them as is possible at farm level. The challenge now is to understand that many of the things we are being asked to do have the capacity to improve farm profitability, as well as to provide benefit the environment.

From the inside looking out, we could be forgiven for thinking the rest of society believes we apply fertilisers and pesticides primarily to harm the environment. Part of our job is to explain to others the need for such inputs in farming and our need to be able to compete to survive.

The importance of soil

Our soils are one of the biggest areas where biodiversity can make a big difference to our livelihoods. Soil is not just dirt or ground or square metres; it is a living entity, or at least it should be.

We do not pretend to know the purpose of the trillions of organisms that can live in our soils; indeed, we do not even know a fraction of what actually lives down there.

But we do know that soil is generally far better with them than without them. These organisms help to recycle organic matter, to improve soil structure, to filter air and water as it passes through, and, of course, being living things they contain carbon and account for a very significant proportion of the total store of carbon in the soil, indeed in the world.

We know very little about the potential benefits of increased biodiversity in soil. We know that they are critical for mineralisation and all the various nutrient cycles, but do we know how important these things are?

Another important function of a healthy soil is its physical characteristics or its structure

If we can make more of these nutrient cycles, we may need to invest less and/or increase productivity. Producing more with less is the essence of efficiency and sustainability – a win-win for farmers and the environment.

Another important function of a healthy soil is its physical characteristics or its structure. Texture has an impact here, but it is also heavily influenced by biological activity in the soil. This, in turn, is influenced by the diversity of plants and their roots growing in the soil. We only measure performance by yield – what might we find if we also included impacts on animal and human health as part of the metric for sustainability?

Good wholesome food does not come without a cost

Research on mixed varieties and intercropping has been taking place for decades but we have only recently begun to look at mixed swards. But are we looking beyond their impact on animal performance to assess potential herd and human health benefits? We also need to know if consumers perceive such benefits as important and if they will be willing to reward the effort at producer level?

Good wholesome food does not come without a cost, but will we continue to live in a commodity-driven society where cheapness remains the major priority? If the consumer does not play a part in sustainability, conscientious food producers cannot make a big enough difference.

Losses to the environment

In general, it is losses from farming systems that threaten our environment in different ways. Water, air, birds, and bees are issues from which agriculture comes under attack. When any of these threats are caused by loss of expensive inputs from farms, then we have a vested interest in stopping such losses.

Fertilisers

For a few decades now, we have been made aware of the difficulties being imposed on our freshwater systems by the loss of nutrients. The Water Framework Directive has targeted both nitrogen and phosphorous controls to reverse this situation. These are expensive nutrients – as farmers we must minimise such losses to the environment. A recent EPA report indicated that this loss could be as high as 80,000t of nitrogen per annum.

Nitrogen is also lost to the atmosphere, mainly as ammonia but also as N2O (nitrous oxide). These gasses cause separate threats to the environment as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, respectively.

Greenhouse gasses

Greenhouse gasses trap heat within our atmosphere to cause the warming that is associated with climate change. A major objective of climate change action is to hold more of the world’s carbon in solid form on land and in the sea to help reduce CO2 losses to the atmosphere. Climate change actions are now in-built into demands for change across all of society and the “sustainability” banner is the umbrella term.

We all have a part to play in this scenario. The burning of fossil fuels has long been blamed as a major contributor to climate change through the release of carbon and greenhouse gasses.

While debate will continue about the relative impact of this, the fact remains that such fuels are a limited resource and the world must begin to plan for a different way of life.

So alternative fuel and energy sources are inevitable and apply to all citizens of the globe.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a term frequently targeted at weed-free crop fields, monoculture grasslands and the loss of forests, woodlands, and other little havens of nature. It is important to state that at least some of this loss was driven by EU policy which discarded these areas as being of no use to agriculture or environment and so farmers removed them.

It is important to remember that all aspects of nature are food for something else. More plants can help provide more insects, and they are important for birds, small animals, and many other organisms – the circle of life. Could it be that having more birds could help to control seasonal insects like aphids or midges, which can be serious disease vectors?

Many new hurdles

There will many new hurdles to be crossed as farming and society move to the aspirations of the EU’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity policies. Some of these changes may get economic support and/or give a direct performance benefit to the farmer. Others might be done by farmers just to have more nature around where they live.

Much has already been done by individual farmers and industry. Experience and knowledge from these will help point the way for others. Sustainability must always be about having adequate incomes for primary producers who are doing a good job at producing food and environmental goods.

In some ways, sustainability is about taking a step back and looking afresh at the road we have come. If is not about decreasing performance but rather finding better ways to enhance performance and the quality of life for the farmer.