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Barriers

The barriers to sustainable agriculture can be broken down and understood through three different dimensions. These three dimensions are seen as the core pillars to sustainability: social, environmental, and economic pillars. The social pillar addresses issues related to the conditions in which societies are born into, growing in, and learning from. It deals with shifting away from traditional practices of agricultural and moving into new sustainable practices that will create better societies and conditions. The environmental pillar addresses climate change and focuses on agricultural practices that protect the environment for future generations. The economic pillar discovers ways in which sustainable agriculture can be practiced while fostering economic growth and stability, with minimal disruptions to livelihoods. All three pillars must be addressed to determine and overcome the barriers preventing sustainable agricultural practices.

Social barriers to sustainable agriculture include cultural shifts, the need for collaboration, incentives, and new legislation. The move from conventional to sustainable agriculture will require significant behavioural changes from both farmers and consumers. Cooperation and collaboration between farmers is necessary to successfully transition to sustainable practices with minimal complications. This can be seen as a challenge for farmers who care about competition and profitability. There must also be an incentive for farmers to change their methods of agriculture. The use of public policy, advertisements, and laws that make sustainable agriculture mandatory or desirable can be utilized to overcome these social barriers.

Environmental barriers prevent the ability to protect and conserve the natural ecosystem. Examples of these barriers include the use of pesticides and the effects of climate change. Pesticides are widely used to combat pests that can devastate production and plays a significant role in keeping food prices and production costs low. To move toward sustainable agriculture, farmers are encouraged to utilize green pesticides, which cause less harm to both human health and habitats, but would entail a higher production cost. Climate change is also a rapidly growing barrier, one that farmers have little control over, which can be seen through place-based barriers. These place-based barriers include factors such as weather conditions, topography, and soil quality which can cause losses in production, resulting in the reluctance to switch from conventional practices. Many environmental benefits are also not visible or immediately evident. Significant changes such as lower rates of soil and nutrient loss, improved soil structure, and higher levels of beneficial microorganisms take time. In conventional agriculture, the benefits are easily visible with no weeds, pests, etc..., but the long term costs to the soil and surrounding ecosystems are hidden and "externalized". Conventional agricultural practices since the evolution of technology have caused significant damage to the environment through biodiversity loss, disrupted ecosystems, poor water quality, among other harms.

The economic obstacles to implementing sustainable agricultural practices include low financial return/profitability, lack of financial incentives, and negligible capital investments. Financial incentives and circumstances play a large role in whether sustainable practices will be adopted. The human and material capital required to shift to sustainable methods of agriculture requires training of the workforce and making investments in new technology and products, which comes at a high cost. In addition to this, farmers practicing conventional agriculture can mass produce their crops, and therefore maximize their profitability. This would be difficult to do in sustainable agriculture which encourages low production capacity.

The author James Howard Kunstler claims almost all modern technology is bad and that there cannot be sustainability unless agriculture is done in ancient traditional ways. Efforts toward more sustainable agriculture are supported in the sustainability community, however, these are often viewed only as incremental steps and not as an end. One promising method of encouraging sustainable agriculture is through local farming and community gardens. Incorporating local produce and agricultural education into schools, communities, and institutions can promote the consumption of freshly grown produce which will drive consumer demand.

Some foresee a true sustainable steady state economy that may be very different from today's: greatly reduced energy usage, minimal ecological footprint, fewer consumer packaged goods, local purchasing with short food supply chains, little processed foods, more home and community gardens, etc.