What is ecoagriculture?

“Ecoagriculture” is a term coined in 2000 by Sara Scherr and Jeffrey McNeely, authors of the Future Harvest-commissioned report Common Ground, Common Future: How Ecoagriculture Can Help Feed the World and Save Wild Biodiversity.

Ecoagriculture conveys a vision of rural communities managing their resources to jointly achieve three broad goals at a landscape scale — what we refer to as the “three pillars” of ecoagriculture:

• Enhance rural livelihoods;
• Conserve or enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services; and
• Develop more sustainable and productive agricultural systems.

Ecoagriculture is both a conservation strategy and a rural development strategy. Ecoagriculture recognizes agricultural producers and communities as key stewards of ecosystems and biodiversity and enables them to play those roles effectively. Ecoagriculture applies an integrated ecosystem approach to agricultural landscapes to address all three pillars, drawing on diverse elements of production and conservation management systems. Meeting the goals of ecoagriculture usually requires collaboration or coordination between diverse stakeholders who are collectively responsible for managing key components of a landscape.

Source: Ecoagriculture

Sustainable agriculture also encompasses water conservation practices and careful energy use.  Water is essential for most agricultural operations and it comes as no surprise that agriculture is one of the biggest water users. Likewise, agriculture also use large amounts of energy inputs including, fertilizer, feeds and electricity.  It is important to look at the ratio of energy input to the energy output- sustainable agriculture ensures that energy inputs are not excessive or wasted.  Renewable energy such as solar energy can be used for solar pumps, solar panels for livestock electric fences and for heating.

Water Rhapsody Water Conservation Systems and Yes Solar Mpumalanga offer eco-friendly rainwater collection systems, rainwater tanks, grey water recycling, swimming pool backwash recycling, water-saving toilet flush mechanisms and high quality Solsquare solar geyers.

Contact us for a FREE QUOTE on a solar water geyser, rainwater harvesting system, gray water system or water tank (we are authorised JoJo Tanks dealers and supply and install the full range of JoJo water tanks and JoJo tank stands).  Our water tank prices are hard to beat in the Mpumalanga & Limpopo Lowveld (we also supply high quality Atlas Plastics water tanks and other Atlas Plastics products on request).