Editors' Summary: Agriculture has always been one of the engines that drive U.S. economics and society. The concept of sustainable agriculture is becoming a central issue in the development of U.S. agricultural policy. It involves a difficult balance among production, profitability, and conservation.

In this Article, the author explores the sustainable agriculture concept and the potential it holds generally for the nation, and particularly for lawyers. He exposes the differences between conventional and sustainable agriculture, and the biases built into modern U.S. agricultural production that create institutional barriers to sustainable agriculture in favor of conventional farming. The author notes how federal and state governments have begun to incorporate sustainable agricultural principles into practice and how they may be used to achieve environmental protection. He explains how opportunities for creative lawyering exist in the area of sustainable agriculture and will grow as U.S. agriculture prepares to enter the 1990s.