Sustainable Agriculture

A combination of environmental and economic pressures caused by increased global competition and the escalating price of agrichemicals has spurred the federal government, farmers, and the agriculture industry to seek more globally competitive, profitable, and ecologically sound ways to produce food and fiber. This movement to alternative farming methods is called sustainable agriculture. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has several programs to encourage sustainable agriculture, the responsibility for these programs is fragmented among various USDA officials, with no single entity overseeing and coordinating these activities. Because USDA lacks a policy that would provide direction on sustainable agriculture, program goals often conflict with one another and program coordination varies. In addition to discussing sustainable agriculture efforts in general, GAO specifically examines USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and makes recommendations to improve these programs.

GAO found that: (1) nine USDA agencies manage numerous programs and activities that address various aspects of sustainable agriculture, but management is fragmented, and non-USDA agencies participate in some of the activities; (2) the USDA sustainable agriculture policy expired in 1989, and activities are operating without a departmental policy to guide their efforts or resource use; (3) some SARE goals conflict with the goals of other agriculture programs; and (4) the legislatively mandated National Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Council has not yet met, and the Agricultural Council on Environmental Quality has met primarily on organizational issues. GAO also found that: (1) SARE has funded 183 projects with about $39 million in combined federal and public and private matching funds through 1991; (2) USDA was slow to request SARE funding, and its funding requests have continually been lower than the amount Congress allocates; (3) SARE has successfully involved farmers, nonprofit organizations, agribusiness, and public and private research and extension institutions in project review and selection activities, and has increased interest in and acceptance of sustainable agriculture; (4) there is effective information dissemination at the local, but not the regional or national, level for SARE projects, but USDA is establishing a uniform system for reporting SARE program activities; and (5) SARE grant and audit procedures for funds control may not be sufficient to ensure that SARE funds are used as intended.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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