Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on ecosystem management and attempts to reduce or eliminate external agricultural inputs, especially synthetic ones. It is a holistic production management system that promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity.

There has been considerable debate about which form of human residential habitat may be a better social form for sustainable agriculture. Generally, it is thought that village communities can improve sustainability in that such communities tend to provide a cooperative environment that supports farming.

What if a farm is able to "produce perpetually", yet has negative effects on environmental quality elsewhere? Most people concerned with sustainability take a global view, so they try to avoid negative off-farm impacts. For example, over-application of synthetic fertilizer or animal manures can pollute nearby rivers and coastal waters.

Monoculture, a method of growing one crop in a field annually, is generally considered to be unsustainable due to the outside resources required to maintain annual growth. Such resources include the use of chemical pesticides and synthesized fertilizers. Monocultural farming methods can also deplete the land of other natural resources and increase the salinity of the soil, rendering a field unfit for further farming.

Given the finite supply of natural resources, agriculture that is inefficient will eventually exhaust the available resources or the ability to afford and acquire them. It will also generate negative externality, such as pollution as well as financial and production costs. Agriculture that relies mainly on inputs that are extracted from the Earth's crust or produced by society, contributes to the depletion and degradation of the environment. Despite this continuing practice, unsustainable agriculture continues because it is financially more cost-effective than sustainable agriculture.