The Transitional Funnel Model of Farm Sustainability

Abstract

Achieving sustainability in agriculture is a complex, dynamic, and ideal state that may never be fully achieved and a progressive process where the influential factors are also changing. In a dynamic environment there is a state of equilibrium reference point to which the sector can analyze its status in relation to that reference. A change in one variable among several will affect a change in the equilibrium status that is always in a state of constant change. An individual farm enterprise is, by far, less complex and dynamic than the agriculture sector and can be defined in more specific terms with achievable measures. However, it remains an ideal but not as elusive. This chapter shows how such an ideal diversified farm model from initial start up to mature sustainability may be represented with a theoretical model based on the actual practice of diversified-integrated farming.