The industry's behavior challenges farmers to examine carefully both their own and the public's best interest, and to think about how those intrests differ from those of the fertilizer and chemical industry. Low-input sustainable agriculture has its origins with environmental groups and will impose regulations on farmers. This is a fundamentally dishonest charge. Unlike most farm technology, the development of sustainable agriculture systems has come largely from farmers experimenting on their own farms. These organizations are not part of the traditional environmental lobby.
Sustainable agriculture means increased regulations for farmers.
This is a misleading charge. Sustainable agriculture organizations have stressed reforming public policies to remove penalties for practices such as crop rotation and to reward protection of natural resources. When the Sustainable Agriculture Working Group met to develop policy recommendations for the 1990 Farm Bill, it proposed no mandatory restrictions on chemical use. If, however, problems related to chemical use by farmers continue to grow, so will the possibility of increased regulation. Sustainable agriculture presents the opportunity for farmers to head off burdensome regulations by addressing environmental problems in ways that work for them.