With 1.7 billion new mouths to feed by 2030 and the ratio of arable land to population declining by 40 to 55%, there has never been greater pressure on global agriculture. CropLife member companies and associations support the aims of sustainable agriculture: to produce sufficient, high-quality, affordable food and fibre, economically and in an environmentally and socially sensitive manner, and maintain the natural resource base.

Sustainable agriculture is a system that aims to:

• satisfy human food, feed and fibre needs.
• improve the environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends.
• make the most efficient use of available technologies, non-renewable resources and on-farm resources, and integrate natural biological cycles and controls.
• sustain the economic viability of farming across the world
• enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.

The plant science industry’s efforts focus on protecting and improving yields, and preserving natural resources such as soil and water, using a wide range of technologies including chemical crop protection and biotechnology and novel techniques such as conservation agriculture.

By making agriculture more productive and efficient on existing arable land, we are helping prevent the conversion of further virgin land and its precious biodiversity to farmland. Since the 1950s, new technologies, crop protection products, hybrid seeds, and biotech crops have, for example, allowed maize crop yields in developing countries to rise more than 160 percent and almost 130 percent in developed countries. Without improvements in yields and better protection against harvest losses, it is estimated that to produce the same amount of food today with the yield levels of 1961, an additional 970 million hectares would be needed, the equivalent to the total surface of the USA*.

The industry also supports integrated farming techniques through Integrated Crop Management (ICM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) training and capacity building. CropLife and its member companies invest extensively in stewardship programmes to ensure the safe and effective use of their products and technologies and work in partnership with relevant stakeholders to find solutions and maximise impact.  

Visit www.farmingfirst.org to see a holistic approach to sustainable agriculture.

* Goklany, I.M. “Meeting global food needs: The Environmental trade-offs between increasing land conversion and land productivity”. Technology. 6, 107-130.1999.