Are Modern Fruit Production Systems Sustainable?

作者：Ian A. Merwin, Marvin P. Pritts · 发表于：HortTechnology · 年份：1993 · DOI：10.21273/horttech.3.2.128 · 被引用次数：16 · 研究领域：Agriculture and Rural Development Research

he quality, diversity, and availability of fruits is greater today than at any time in recorded history.Relative wholesale values of most fruits have been stable or declining for decades, higher crop yields are produced on decreasing acreage, and postharvest storage and quality have improved as new technologies have been developed (NRC, 1989).Americans now spend only 12% of their personal income on food-the lowest proportional expenditure of any industrialized nation.Contemporary fruit growers are more likely to worry about excess production and consequent depression of wholesale prices than crop failures or insufficient supply.Surprisingly, amidst these achievements, there are also increasing doubts about our ability to sustain current production and availability of fruits and other crops."Sustainability" has emerged as a new paradigm by which fruit production systems and practices are judged (York, 1991).Federal and private funding agencies are reallocating millions of dollars from traditional research into new programs assessing environmental impacts, food safety, and other aspects of agricultural sustainability Are these recent trends an over-reaction to subjective and misinformed public attitudes toward a successful and sustainable agriculture, or are modern fruit production systems flawed and nonsustainable?We try to answer these questions here by discussing sustainability in the context of perennial crops, estimating the present and future availability of essential res...