Sustainable Agriculture
Monty’s Mexico is committed to providing sustainable solutions to Mexico’s agricultural development needs. Sustainable agricultural development can be defined as: “the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment of continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Such development, conserves water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmental nondegrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.” 1
The challenges of sustainable agriculture “include soil degradation, inefficient use and pollution of water and loss of biodiversity. In addition, lack of proper infrastructure, and insufficient education, advisory services and research in developing countries, prevent wider adoption of practices which address these problems.” 2 A report that is jointly written by the International Fertilizer Industry Association and United Nations suggests that at least two billion farmers throughout the world use fertilizers on any given day. The report suggests that the fertilizer industry can support sustainable development goals in developing countries by:
• Contributing to food security on a local level, thus contributing to poverty alleviation and human development
• Helping prevent and correct soil degradation to meet global environmental objectives such as combating desertification; and
• Ensuring that negative environmental impacts of fertilizer production and use are eliminated where possible and otherwise minimized.
However, traditional fertilizers sustainability is constrained by the fact that nutrients escape into the environment and can lead to the proliferation of plant organisms whose presence in excess is harmful, quite apart form the wasteful economic loss. The “development of new products with greater nutrient efficiency are necessary to improve sustainability.” Other reports written by the World Food and Agriculture Organization suggest that nutrient depletion in developing countries is a “real and immediate threat to food security and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.” 3
The effective management of plant nutrients is a major component of agricultural development. Products and services such as those provided by MM can play a key role in increasing the sustainability of Mexico’s and other countries agricultural and fertilizer industries.
The above definition of Sustainable Agriculture is a very technical interpretation generated by agricultural scientists. In short, it simply means that the growing practices that have been employed worldwide since the early 1950’s, namely the extremely wide spread use of granular, petroleum based fertilizers, has left literally hundreds of thousands of acres of previously fertile ground in a ruined state. Growers have been forced to add ever more fertilizer to the soil at an escalating cost that is startling just to maintain existing production levels. Growers desiring to leave their land to their children’s children are facing a very real scenario of not having land that will be productive.
Additionally, while that has been taking place, the world’s water aquifers have been and are being polluted with the runoff produced by those fertilizers. Today, the single most pressing problem facing world leaders is feeding the people.
The concept of producing food through the use of “Sustainable Agricultural “ practices (i.e. instead of depleting the soil of every nutrient necessary to produce crops as has been the practice, is the only alternative to pursue in order to insure the capability of feeding the world population, both now and in the years to come, necessarily “must” incorporate a change in the growing practices and mentality of every grower in every country to that of doing what replenishes the soil. The more it is replenished, the more easily the world can breath relative to availability of food. This means that the growers of today will pass along to their heirs of generations to come land that will be fertile and healthy while, at the same time reducing their costs and increasing their profits.
1 Loftas, Tony “Dimensions of Need: An Atlas of Food and Agriculture,” FOA Rome (1995)
2 “Industry as a Partner for Sustainable Development” The International Fertilizer Association and United Nations Environmental Program (2002)
3 FAO 1990, Press Release, Rome.
Humics: What Are Humics, What Do They Do, and How Does That Benefit Me On The Farm?
The Fertilizer Market in Mexico
Report Date 12/28/2005 :: pdf 176KB