Page 534 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Chapter 24

Sustainable Agriculture:

The Food Chain

Attilio Coletta
Universita ` degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

Chapter Outline
Introduction 503 Developing New Solutions 511
Social Implications 504 References 512
Economic Implications 505 Further Reading 513
Environmental Implications 508

INTRODUCTION
Sustainability is a polysemic and ubiquitous term: there no longer exists a
sector wherein sustainability is not sought, certified, and too often boasted.
This is why a correct approach requires, prior to any further analysis, a
statement that can be referred to while discussing about the sustainability
concept proposed.
This is even more important in the agricultural sector that deals with the
production of food (both from vegetables and animals) by means of envi-
ronmental factors (water, soil, landscape, etc.) mainly behaving like nonprivate
goods, and other producing factors traditionally considered private goods
(labor, equipment, fertilizers, seeds, fuels, pesticides, etc.).
The shift from the traditional production approach, related to the produc-
tion of commodities, toward a more comprehensive role of agriculture implied
a shift of attention from outputs to inputs. This is particularly true for those
producing factors that induce externalities.
Basically, sustainability could be defined as the level of resource
consumption that allows a natural regeneration of the resource itself
(Godfray et al., 2010). This approach is very close to the point of view
of those who focus on the resilience of the ecosystems in which human
activities take place and where environmental implications of the food

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