Open AccessAn Overview of Development of Sustainable Agriculture in Lithuania
Author(s) -
Pranas Mierauskas
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
ISSN - 2029-7092
DOI - 10.3846/enviro.2020.757
Subject(s) - agriculture , sustainable agriculture innovation network , sustainable development , sustainable agriculture , business , integrated farming , organic farming , sustainability , work (physics) , environmental planning , environmentally friendly , payment , descriptive statistics , environmental resource management , natural resource economics , agricultural economics , environmental economics , economics , engineering , geography , political science , mechanical engineering , ecology , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , finance , law , biology
The purpose of this review paper is to analyse and evaluate the development of sustainable agriculture inLithuania from 1990 to the present and to evaluate possibilities, willingness and motivation of farmers to participate insustainable agriculture. It was established that sustainable agriculture developed from environmentally friendlyagriculture and later from organic agriculture. Initially, organic agriculture prevailed and included compliance withenvironmental requirements; however, later it incorporated social and economic approaches as well. This paper analysesthe organic farming practices that stimulated the development of sustainable agriculture. Agri-environmental agriculturehas been found to be more popular with farmers as it provides compensatory payments and requires basic environmentalknowledge. This work compares farmers’ motivation to participate not only in agri-environmental measures, but also insustainable agriculture. Noteworthy, agri-environmental measures also have elements of sustainable development. Thework compares the results of previous research on farmers’ motivation and willingness to participate in environmentallyfriendly farming measures. The research reveals that participation in voluntary programmes has to be economicallyencouraged. The main findings are as follows: sustainable agriculture developed from organic agriculture gradually byintegrating principles of sustainable development; the results of comparative analysis discovered that farmers withdeeper understanding of environmental protection are more motivated to implement farming that relies on sustainableagriculture approaches. The research is based on analysis and evaluation through such methods as descriptive andcomparative data analysis in previous and recent periods and questionnaire based data collection in order to evaluatenew types of farming.