Alternative agriculture can be viewed as an alternative belief system to that underlying conventional agriculture. However, alternative agriculture can also be viewed from a technological perspective—that is, as a set of substitute technologies to conventional agriculture from which a farmer can selectively choose. Definitional distinctions between low-input, organic, sustainable, and conventional agriculture become important with this second perspective. Different policy and research implications are generated from these competing perspectives.

Consumer cooperatives in Japan, which is by far the United States' largest overseas market for agricultural commodities, expanded rapidly in the 1980s. Their recent success, according to Japanese reports, has been due to their responsiveness to increasing consumer demand for foods produced with minimal use of petrochemical inputs. I present data that confirm this claim by showing that the high level of concern that Japanese consumer cooperative members have about food safety is the main reason they give for joining cooperatives. I then discuss the significance of this trend for American agriculture, in particular whether Japanese consumer cooperatives could become a marketing channel for Americans who specialize in producing food with less intensive use of agricultural chemicals.

Phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) fertilization costs, yields, and economic returns associated with various P and K fertilization levels were evaluated on corn and soybeans in rotation in northeastern Iowa from 1979 to 1989. The treatments were 0, 20, and 40 lb P/acre and 0, 60, and 120 lb K/acre, in all nine combinations, plus the high rate (40+120) applied on alternate years. (The latter treatment applied, respectively, in odd or even years was averaged into one treatment.) The initial soil test levels averaged 57 pounds of P and 355 pounds ofK. The P-K treatments did not significantly explain the variation in corn or soybean yields. Net returns were found directly related to the cost of the treatment, so that the control treatment (0+0) achieved the highest returns. The cost of using the 20+60 treatment to maintain soil test levels in the high to very high range was $24/acre per year. Annual application of 40+120 cost $45/acre. A sufficiency approach to applying P and K could drastically reduce fertilizer costs for high-testing soils. Further research is needed to determine if recommendations from this approach can be lowered in some cases. Extension workers must continue to develop ways to aid farmers in realizing the usefulness of soil testing. Farmers must carefully evaluate their fertilization needs in conjunction with soil test results. Together, a more sustainable approach to P and K fertilization for corn and soybeans may be attained.

In the past several years, researchers, educators, policymakers, and activists have initiated sustainable agriculture programs and efforts the world over. This development has sometimes been accompanied by a sense that it is time to stop discussing sustainability at a conceptual level and get on with the work of making agriculture sustainable. Our perspective is that it is critical to pursue a comprehensive definition of sustainability in order to set sustainable agriculture priorities and ensure that sustainable agriculture takes a path that does not reproduce problems of conventional agriculture. In this paper we briefly review some popular definitions of sustainable agriculture and find that their focus is primarily on farm-level resource conservation and profitability as the main components of sustainability. Others have challenged this approach for either not examining the social aspects of sustainability or for containing an implicit assumption that working on the environmental, production, and microeconomic aspects of sustainability will automatically take care of its social aspects. We propose an expanded conceptualization of sustainability—one that focuses on the entire food and agriculture system at a global level and includes not only environmental soundness and economic viability, but social equity as well. In this perspective, issues such as poverty and hunger are as central to achieving agricultural sustainability as those of soil erosion and adequate farm returns.

Three hypersensitive resistant, six partially resistant (slow rusting), and one susceptible spring bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars were evaluated for grain yield, test weight, and kernel weight under artificially created epiphytotics of leaf rust disease (caused by Puccinia recondita f. sp. tritici) with and without fungicide protection for three years. Rusted plot yields were 4 percent lower compared to fungicide-protected plot yields for cultivars with hypersensitive resistance. In rusted plots, grain yield and kernel weight averaged 8 percent less for cultivars with partial resistance but varied from 2 to 20 percent less depending on cultivar. The susceptible check cultivar, Yecora 70, averaged 27 percent lower grain yield, 22 percent lower kernel weight, and 6 percent lower test weight in rusted plots. Slight reduction in test weight was also observed for each cultivar. Losses in grain yield could, therefore, be reduced to levels similar to those of hypersensitive resistant cultivars by the use of partial resistance. We discuss the sustainability of partial genetic resistance to leaf rust. Since partial resistance is expected to be durable, and since rust levels and effects on yield in farmers' fields are likely to be less than in this experimental plot study, partial resistance should give long-lasting resistance at a negligible cost in yield that is insufficient to justify the use of fungicides.

This paper discusses data on plant-nutrient conservation in Sweden between 1950 and 1980 and on plant-nutrient balances in conventional and alternative farming. The amounts of plant nutrients supplied in the form of artificial fertilizer in Sweden increased severalfold between 1950 and 1980. The amounts of N and P applied were four times higher than those recovered in agricultural products. This difference not only represents a loss to farmers but also a burden on the environment. This problem is a consequence of the increased separation of crop management from animal husbandry in Sweden. The flow of plant nutrients through the agroecosystem can be represented as follows: Artificial Fertilizers- > Crop Production-> Animal Husbandry- > Losses (air, water, or immobilization).

This paper suggests that all farms in Sweden can operate effectively without relying on applications of highly soluble plant nutrients. By recirculating plant nutrients in manure and cultivating nitrogen-fixing species, the need for artificial fertilizers can be eliminated while minimizing nutrient losses and their associated adverse effects on the environment. Successful alternative farms provide practical examples of how a farming system can eliminate its dependence on applications of highly soluble plant nutrients by stressing effective nutrient economy and biological activity. The strategies they use include: matching animal management practices to the farm's own production of feed, thereby reducing net removal of plant nutrients per unit area (in Sweden 0.6–0.8 animal units per ha); minimizing nutrient losses through careful manure management and by using cover crops; and supplying N by nitrogen-fixing ley species, and P and K by soil weathering and by applying supplementary soil improvement materials.