The need for sustainable agriculture has never been greater. Climate change is placing increasing pressure on the natural environment across the world, threatening agricultural production systems, biodiversity and natural resource use. These changes in turn create pressure on food security and living conditions for millions of people, with poor communities in commodity producing countries often the worst affected. Almost a quarter of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are generated from agriculture, forestry and other land use, mainly from deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil and nutrient management. Indeed, agriculture is responsible for around 75 percent of global deforestation.

Simply put, sustainable agriculture is farming that can be sustained over time. In practice that means farming in ways that don’t damage the land (and eventually make it infertile), while also letting farmers make a decent living, now and into the future. At the Rainforest Alliance, we view sustainable agriculture as a journey—a harm-reduction approach that prepares the ground (pun intended) for regenerative agriculture, a holistic farm design that restores, replenishes, and even adds to nature’s richness.