What Defines Sustainability
You hear the word all the time but what does it really mean? I’m Jeff Keane and I will be back after the break with a definition that might surprise you. Sustainability when used in the same breath as agriculture has a tendency to make the most radical activist all warm and fuzzy. But Susan Allen’s got a different take on who really defines the practice. Jeff, the “S” word appears everyday in headlines and celebrities like Bono or Prince Charles love to pepper their conversation with it but who is truly practicing it? Webster’s defines sustainability “as a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged, Hum, sounds like cattle ranchers I know. Yet I doubt “Bono” will ever use the word “sustainability” in the same breath as a large cattle operation. Think about it though, who better fits the definition? The five year old, ten acre organic farm or ranchers that have nourished our nation off the same ground generation after generation. Susan you have made a good point. Like many of our neighbors we have been growing wheat and cattle on our land for over hundred years and it will be handed down to the next generation to do the same. Our operation has provided habitat for countless wildlife and birds. Now odds are your small organic farmer near the suburbs will sell out in a decade or two to some developer who will build a shopping mall taking the land out of production forever. You tell me who is sustainable! I’m Jeff Keane
