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A systematic approach to
farming intended to reduce agricultural pollution, enhance sustainability, and
improve efficiency and profitability. Overall, alternative agriculture
emphasizes management practices that take advantage of natural processes (such
as nutrient cycles, nitrogen fixation, and pest-predator relationships), improve
the match between cropping patterns and agronomic practices on the one hand and
the productive potential and physical characteristics of the land on the other,
and make selective use of commercial fertilizer and pesticides to ensure
production efficiency and conservation of soil, water, energy, and biological
resources. Examples of alternative agricultural practices include use of crop
rotation, animal and green manures, soil and water conserving tillage systems,
such as no-till planting methods,
integrated pest management, and use of genetically improved
crops and animals. Consonant with sustainable agriculture,
alternative agriculture focuses on those farming practices that go beyond
traditional or conventional agriculture, though it
does not exclude conventional practices that are consistent with the overall
system.
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