SARE’s new “Social Sustainability” animation addresses the importance of human resilience, success and fulfillment in sustainable agriculture. The fourth episode in SARE’s “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” series introduces key components of social sustainability in agriculture and illustrates strategies that can help farmers and ranchers succeed.
Agriculture is a dangerous and demanding way of life, and farmers and ranchers often make the health of the farm their top priority. But access to affordable, high quality health care and mental health services for producers, their families and farm workers is crucial to the long-term vitality of agriculture. Equitable access to land, financing and technical assistance improve the strength of the food system nationwide.
Producers can use a variety of social strategies to help sustain their own operations:
- Using a business plan to define and pursue goals
- Communicating effectively with family members
- Networking with community and civic organizations
- Sharing farming or marketing strategies with other producers
- Providing workers with fair wages and good working conditions
- Mentoring new beginning farmers or hosting field days
“Social Sustainability” is now available for viewing and sharing at www.sare.org and on YouTube. It is intended to introduce or to complement more detailed training materials. Farmers, ranchers, educators and other agricultural professionals may download the video and/or embed it without modification into websites or other fair use educational presentations. This video series was produced through a collaboration of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and Pixeldust Studios.
This content was originally published by SARE. SARE is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award No. 2019-38640-29881. SARE Outreach operates under cooperative agreements with the University of Maryland (link is external)to develop and disseminate information about sustainable agriculture.