Agricultural sustainability depends on conserving soil, nutrients, water, biodiversity, and carbon while maintaining food production over repeated harvests and seasons.
Coverage 2017–2024 · Updated 16 Jul 2026
Sustainable agriculture maintains food production without reducing the soil, water, biodiversity and climate conditions needed by future production.
| Factor | Sustainability question |
|---|---|
| Soil erosion | Is fertile topsoil being lost faster than it forms? |
| Nutrient leaching | Are soluble nitrates/phosphates leaving soil and polluting water? |
| Fertilizers and other inputs | Can nutrient supply and yield be maintained without growing external dependence? |
| Agrochemical pollution | Are pesticides or fertilizers harming non-target organisms and ecosystems? |
| Carbon footprint | What emissions arise from machinery, fertilizers, livestock, transport and land-use change? |
Crop rotation, soil cover and nutrient matching may reduce erosion, fertilizer demand and leaching, but yield and labour trade-offs must still be measured.
No single practice proves a farm sustainable; assessment must include outputs, inputs, pollution and long-term soil condition.
This objective is assessed through essay response, commonly using Discuss / Distinguish.
Discuss / Distinguish
Build the answer around this relationship: Harvesting crops removes nutrients, so agricultural systems need replacement or recycling to maintain production.
Treating fertilizer use as only beneficial, without considering phosphate depletion, leaching, and eutrophication.
Representative question
Discuss the risks and benefits associated with the use of phosphate fertilizers in agriculture.
Core D4.2 is secure when students can judge whether a system is being stabilized or pushed toward change. The route is: identify the stability support or disturbance, explain the mechanism, and state the ecosystem consequence using evidence.
Core transfer questions ask students to explain why an ecosystem remains stable or why a disturbance pushes it toward change. Strong answers do not list threats; they explain mechanisms such as lost rainfall recycling, trophic cascade, overharvest, nutrient enrichment, toxin biomagnification, plastic movement, or restoration through rewilding.
