Sustainable Farming

In 1988, Masanobu Fukuoka received the Ramon Magsaysay award*. The Magsaysay award website has an informative biography of Fukuoka that is certainly worth reading.
From the award citation:

"When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary," says FUKUOKA. He does not plow his fields, nor weed them by tillage or herbicides. He does not plant seeds in tidy rows but casts them randomly upon the ground. He uses no machines, no insecticides, and no chemical fertilizers or prepared compost; he strews his rice and barley fields with straw instead.

In FUKUOKA's rice and barley fields, sturdy grains share their habitat with white clover, insects, birds, and small animals. In his orchards, unpruned orange trees rise prolifically above a profusion of grasses, herbs, and vegetables. They all thrive together naturally.

FUKUOKA points out that his "do nothing" farming completely contradicts modern agricultural techniques. Yet his untidy farm yields grain and fruits just as abundantly as high-technology farms, often more so, and a rich mix of hearty vegetables besides. His method offers farmers extra leisure. It requires no expensive inputs. It creates no pollution. Moreover, it is profitable: FUKUOKA's chemical-free produce is highly prized by health-conscious consumers.

P. Sainath has been a clear and rational voice for India's rural poor, farmers, and lower cast population, . He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (considered Asia's Nobel Prize) for Journalism in 2007 (as well as many other awards). His numerous articles (including a series of articles on farmer's suicides) provide an illuminating and sobering overview of issues including small and medium farming, inequities in global trade, government corruption and inaction, etc.

For a quick overview of the issues he has covered, read this interview conducted after he won the Magsaysay award:

...
Q: One hears a lot of people arguing that small and medium farms are simply unviable in the global agricultural scenario. Do you agree? Is there really a model that can work for the small farmer in India, or are we going to see family farms go the way they did in the US?

A: First off, I think they're wrong to question viability in such simplistic terms. If you consciously develop something, and nurture it, then it becomes viable. What we have is a situation where agriculture in India is being made unviable by imposition. Is American agriculture really viable? You have a situation where cotton crop worth 3.9 billion dollars receives 4.7 billion in subsidies. The Europeans are throwing billions of euros worth of crops into the sea. Whose farming is really unviable? In reality, developed world farming is hugely wasteful, not to forget destructive of soils. And yet, the question is asked if Third World farming, especially small and medium farms, can last in the long run.
...