Biodiversity Based Organic Farming A New Paradigm for Food Security and Food Safety

Sustainability in agriculture has two dimensions: a. Natural Resource Sustainability b. Socioeconomic Sustainability Natural Resource Sustainability is based on the stability of the ecology of agricultural ecosystems based on interactions between soil, water and biodiversity. This Sustainability measures the wealth of' nature's economy' and the foundation of all other economies. Nature's economy includes biodiversity, soil fertility and soil and water conservation that provides the ecological capital for agriculture. Socioeconomic sustainability relates to the social ecology of agriculture, including the relationship of society to the environment, the relationship between different social groups engaged in agricultural production and the relationship between producers and consumers, which is invariably mediated by traders, government agencies and corporations. Socioeconomic sustainability measures the health of people's economy' or the economy of sustenance, in which human needs of livelihoods and nutrition are met. People's economy includes the diverse costs and benefits both material and financial, that farming communities derive from agriculture. There are quite clearly two different meanings of sustainability'. The real meaning refers to nature's and people's sustainability. It involves a recovery of the recognition that nature supports our lives and livelihoods, it is the primary source of sustenance. Sustaining nature implies maintaining the integrity of nature's processes, cycles and rythmes. There is a second kind of 'sustainability', which refers to the market. It involves maintaining supplies of raw material for industrial production and long-distance global consumption. In this meaning, markets grow while the soils and rural communities are impoverished. And since industrial raw materials and market commodities have substitutes, sustainability is translated into substitutability of materials, which is further translated into convertibility into profits and cash. Both environmental and social sustainability have been undermined because 'nature's economy' and 'people's economy' have been neglected and hence eroded by the dominant paradigm of economic development which only recognises the market economy, only measures growth in the market economy, even though this growth is often associated with destruction and shrinkage of nature's economy and people's economy. The ecological base of agriculture has been destroyed and farmers are faced by large scale displacement and uprooting. The suicides of farmers are a symptom of this crises. Sustainability in nature involves the regeneration of nature's processes and a 2 W subservience to nature's laws of return. Sustainability of agricultural communities involves the regeneration and revitalization of the culture and local economy of agricultural production. Sustainability in the market place involves ensuring the …