The project sought to use multiple methods both to document bird
use and to better understand how each farmer and/or farm family framed the concept of
sustainability.
There is no single or uniform definition of sustainability or sustainable agriculture. It has been used to describe (and justify) everything from reduced input costs and greater farm profitability, to improved on-farm soil and nutrient management to a basic paradigm shift away from industrial agriculture and its dependence on marketplace-efficiencies and a reductionist science (Harwood, Allen, Bues and Dunlap).
More recently, sustainable agriculture has also been conceptualized as a process rather than a set of techniques or a specific end point. As such, it is considered by many to describe a new way of thinking or problem solving, one that must continually balance three essential elements: economic viability, enviromental soundness and social equity (Ikerd).
This research project assumes that sustainable ag is multidimensional, that it is material, social and ideological in its construction, and that as a 'living process' it contains many decisions and contradictions. The project's purpose was to reflect the variations that exist 'on the ground' and explore their relationship to farm management, bird use especially. An allied purpose was to identify the variables that define sustainable agriculture on each farm and to consider the manner in which they cluster and whether larger patterns emerge from this clustering.
Given these assumptions and objectives, it was felt that multiple research methods, utilizing a diversity of view points and forms of expression, would provide a less partial sense of agricultural sustainability, both in a theory and in practice. Site visits, farm journals, photographic elicitation, a values survey, and a controlled orchard study were the major methods used.