What is Sustainable Development

I remember so distinctly standing in the middle of the “bullpen” shortly after our annual sales meeting and thinking the company’s new “growth targets” were ridiculous. Their targeted 15% annual growth in a mature market was unrealistic. It dawned on me then that, on a larger scale, the idea of growth year over year over year to infinity was impossible. We live in a finite world. Why couldn’t businesses be structured in a way that was sustainable instead of running on some illusory perpetual growth model? What would a sustainable model look like and how could it be applied?

In his February, 2019 post at IDEAS For Us Akari Giraldo takes on the issue of sustainable growth. He notes that ” One of the longest ongoing debates in the world of economic trade, politics, and human growth involves the evolution of sustainable development.” 

In 2005, the World Summit on Social Development identified the three cores areas of sustainable development, called The Three Pillars of Sustainability. The pillars are economic development, environmental development, and social development, also informally known as profit, planet, and people. These three cores vary in basis, but, are similar in collective goal and place each other into consideration.

 

Zimbabwe Adopts Plan to Protect Rights of Small Farmers

Jeffrey Gogo’s latest piece in The Herald outlines how the Plan for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) “aims to ‘catalogue, protect and promote’ cultivated indigenous crops as well as wild plants and fruits” in Zimbababwe.

The National Strategy and Action Plan for Plant Genetic Resources For Food and Agriculture is based on protection of farmers’ rights…“This (national strategic and action plan) will create an enabling legal and institutional environment that promotes research and capacity development for conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Zimbabwe,” Mudzindiko told The Herald Business.

Through Zimbabwe’s National Strategy and Action Plan on Plant Genetic Resources,  however, corporate monopoly might find it difficult to steamroll smallholder farmers’ seed rights.

That’s because the plan considers farmer seed independence as crucial to avoiding food losses that are linked to climate change.

By breeding their own seed, farmers are able to create varieties that are suitable for their specific regions and climates, helping them cope better with the increasing shifts, say scientists.

“Climate change is one of the reasons why as a nation we are now seeking to promote these traditional/ indigenous varieties,” Mudzindiko opined.

Image of the Day

Elaborate art applied to the conservation of native plants.