Why Sustainable Agriculture?

NEED considers sustainable agriculture as a vehicle for positive social and environmental change. Current mainstream industrial agricultural practices around the world, especially in Burma, are destructive, destroying forests, top soil and polluting the air and water.

Heavy use of agro-chemicals such as nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides combined with antibiotics used in livestock breeding poisons the environment and living creatures. It creates an endless cycle of economic dependence for poor farmers, causing them to go into massive amounts of debt. Without a stable economic system in Burma, farmers take out loans at exorbitant rates on the black market to purchase more inputs for monoculture. With high unemployment rates in Burma, younger generations recognize and experience the effects of poverty at the rural level, and many quit farming and leave their families to migrate to nearby cities or countries to find employment.

To combat this never-ending cycle of poverty, NEED-Burma practices and promotes sustainable agriculture and agro-ecology as a means of leading a productive, healthy and sustainable way of living for communities in Burma. We believe that agriculture can be sustainable when it is “ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate and based on a holistic scientific approach.” (1)

At NEED-Burma, we use locally available, renewable resources as much as possible, along with appropriate technology that minimizes the use of external inputs. We train youth at the Model Farm Initiative School to work with their local communities towards self-sufficiency and earning a stable source of income for their families and rural communities.

Sustainable farming practices at NEED’s Model Farm commonly include:

Organic farming which does not use any chemical inputs;
Crop rotations in order to reduce weeds, diseases, insects and other pest problems;
Soil conservation strategies that provide alternative sources of soil nitrogen; reduce soil erosion; and reduce risk of water contamination by agricultural chemicals;
Pest control strategies which are not harmful to natural systems, farmers, their neighbors, or consumers. This includes integrated pest management (IPM) techniques that reduce the need for pesticides through practices such as scouting, the use of resistant cultivars, the right timing for planting, and biological pest controls
Increased manual/biological weed control; more soil and water conservation practices; and strategic use of animal and green manures

1 These excerpts are from: NGO Sustainable Agriculture Treaty, Global Forum at Rio de Janeiro, June 1-15, 1992. Available at: http://habitat.igc.org/treaties/at-20.htm