Profitability and productivity are key factors in determining the sustainability of agricultural businesses, Norfolk farmers were told.
The environmental and economic challenges facing the industry were discussed at Frontier Agriculture's "3D Thinking" open day at its trials site in Honingham, outside Norwich.
National agronomy specialists from the company outlined the latest developments in precision farming, nutrient management and how to optimise the use of costly nitrogen fertilisers.
There was also a chance to look at trial plots comparing the performance of more than 30 varieties of wheat and barley.
Jim Stotzka, Frontier's lead on sustainability, said all these variables could help reach the goal of "creating a long-term viable farming system" - but it had to be profitable.
"It is about looking after what we have got and making the most of what we have got - but it is also about profitability and productivity," he said.
"If you don't have a profitable business, it doesn't matter how wonderful you think your low impact on the environment is, because you are not going to farm if you are not profitable.
"So for a system to be viable long-term, it has to be profitable.
"The other thing is, for a system to be truly sustainable, it has to produce food, because otherwise we are just going to be shipping in food from overseas - and the carbon footprint of that is going to be diabolical."
Mr Stotzka said profitability and productivity were two of the "five Ps" of sustainable farming, with the others being "planet, people and partnerships".
He said individual factors included choosing the right crop varieties, making the most efficient use of inputs such as sprays and fertilisers, monitoring data, using new technologies and, crucially, looking after the soil.
He encouraged farmers to carry out their own worm counts and VESS (visual evaluation of soil structure) scores to evaluate the physical and biological impact of their cultivations.
Mr Stotzka also urged farmers to explore elements of holistic, soil-friendly "regenerative agriculture" systems.
"When we look at regenerative agriculture it does a pretty good job of making sense of a lot of these different things," he said.
"So we try to understand the principles of regenerative agriculture and apply them to more conventional systems, so we can come up with flexible hybrid systems for anybody who wants to move into a more sustainable field.
"We can also support people who want to move completely into 'regen ag'. If that is where you are headed, that's great - but a lot of people are somewhere in the middle and it is important to understand what is going on on both sides of the fence."
Andrew Melton, Frontier's regional agronomy manager, added: "I suspect that everyone here, in one way or another, is in regenerative agriculture.
"You've all got some really sustainable businesses for the last three or four generations, so you have had to look after the soil.
"Perhaps you have not measured it as much as we would all like, and perhaps not considered it as a whole. But I think as farmers, and agronomists and businesses we must not think about being "regen or not regen". I think we are all in it together."
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