Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Starving people in poor nations, obesity in rich nations, increasing food prices, on-going climate changes, increasing fuel and transportation costs, flaws of the global market, worldwide pesticide pollution, pest adaptation and resistance, loss of soil fertility and organic carbon, soil erosion, decreasing biodiversity, desertification, and so on. Despite unprecedented advances in sciences allowing us to visit planets and disclose subatomic particles, serious terrestrial issues about food show clearly that conventional agriculture is no longer suited to feeding humans and preserving ecosystems. Sustainable agriculture is an alternative for solving fundamental and applied issues related to food production in an ecological way (Lal (2008) Agron. Sustain. Dev. 28, 57–64.). While conventional agriculture is driven almost solely by productivity and profit, sustainable agriculture integrates biological, chemical, physical, ecological, economic and social sciences in a comprehensive way to develop new farming practices that are safe and do not degrade our environment. To address current agronomical issues and to promote worldwide discussions and cooperation we implemented sharp changes at the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development from 2003 to 2006. Here we report (1) the results of the renovation of the journal and (2) a short overview of current concepts of agronomical research for sustainable agriculture. Considered for a long time as a soft, side science, agronomy is rising fast as a central science because current issues are about food, and humans eat food. This report is the introductory article of the book Sustainable Agriculture, volume 1, published by EDP Sciences and Springer (Lichtfouse et al. (2009) Sustainable Agriculture, Vol. 1, Springer, EDP Sciences, in press).

中文翻译：

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可持续农业农学。回顾

可持续发展基于以下原则：我们必须满足当前的需求，而不损害子孙后代满足其自身需求的能力。贫穷国家的人民挨饿，富裕国家的肥胖，食品价格上涨，持续的气候变化，燃料和运输成本增加，全球市场的缺陷，全世界的农药污染，害虫适应性和抵抗力，土壤肥力和有机碳的丧失，土壤侵蚀，生物多样性减少，荒漠化等。尽管科学上空前的进步使我们能够访问行星并揭示亚原子粒子，但有关食物的严重陆地问题清楚地表明，常规农业已不再适合人类的饮食和生态系统的养护。可持续农业是一种以生态方式解决与粮食生产有关的基本和应用问题的替代方法（Lal（2008）Agron。Sustain。Dev。28，57-64。）。传统农业几乎完全由生产力和利润驱动，而可持续农业以综合方式整合了生物，化学，物理，生态，经济和社会科学，以开发安全且不会破坏我们环境的新农业实践。为了解决当前的农学问题并促进全球讨论与合作，我们在2003年至2006年的《可持续发展农学》杂志上进行了重大更改。在这里，我们报告（1）该杂志的更新结果，以及（2）该杂志的简要概述可持续农业的农业研究的当前概念。长期以来，农学被认为是一门软性的副科学，由于其当前的问题是关于食物的问题，而人类正在食用食物，因此它作为一门中心科学正在迅速发展。