This week I was wondering how some countries are dealing with sustainable agriculture and managing their other resources.
I found an article that comes out of Ireland that focuses on the fact that they can not compromise food production with sustainability in regards to forestry. They are worried if they focus too much on the forestry, then they will run out of land for practicing sustainable agriculture (Hennessy, 2016). This is a very important thing to think about because if you are preserving and protecting one thing, it takes away that land from doing other things. I think that they are smart to try and have sustainable ag while at the same time having sustainable forestry. The forestry people made a good point in the fact that they talked about the economic, environmental and social issues of the forests. If there are more forests, they can provide biomass to mitigate other pollution, provide economic benefits for the value of the harvested wood, and provide land to integrate solar and wind into the society (Hennessy, 2016).
One the other hand, they farmers and other policy makers are worried about what would happen to certain aspects of he economy if they have less land for agriculture. They pointed out the fact that Germany now has to import food because they increased their forest cover (Hennessy, 2016). I think that they make a good point because food security and independence is very important for a country to develop and continue to be developed, and if they lose that it will make them rely on other countries.
I think that it is possible for sustainable ag and sustainable forestry to coexist with each other in a country, but I think that people need to think about both the pros and cons of what will happen when you implement a policy.
Hennessy, Aine. “Sustainable Forestry Strategies Cannot Threaten Ireland’s Food Production.” Sustainable Forestry Strategies Cannot Threaten Ireland’s Food Production. Irish Farmers Journal, 26 Feb. 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2016.