Selection for Sustained Production in Water‐Deficit Environments

During the First International Crop Science Congress, authors have witnessed global elite of crop scientists discussing the issues of moment in their respective disciplines. Sustainable agriculture should be viewed as strategic planning for the future, an approach that focuses on the long-term physical and social effects of technologies in addition to their immediate implications for productivity and economy. Most ideas expressed by crop scientists who participated in Working Group F open hearings represented one of three general views: the contextual view, the dynamic view, the conceptual view. The contextual view regards the context of sustainability as central to the way it would be formulated and applied. The dynamic view regards sustainability as a continuous mechanism for adaptation and adjustment. The conceptual view regards sustainability as an attainable stable situation where long-term agroecological balance is the primary concern of agricultural research and development, as well as of farming policy and practice.