Sustainable agricultural productivity over the long term was not a major issue in the 1960s and 1970s, as food resources did not appear to be threatened. The attention was on producing enough food to overcome the immediate problems of food deficit. But the environmental effects of intensive agriculture, such as soil erosion and Stalinization, pollution of groundwater and surface water, and loss of biodiversity, have led to the concerns of sustainability of agricultural production and it became a burning issue, on both the global and national scale. The challenge for agricultural research systems' management in the 21st century is to enable the transition to sustainable agricultural development through functional integration of the sustainability concept into agricultural research policies, programmes and projects. The definition of sustainable development given by the United World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), commonly known as the 'Brundtland Commission', can be adopted as thestarting point: 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. The sustainable concept, therefore, has physical, ecological, social, cultural and ethical dimensions. Sustainable agriculture involves efficient and effective management of environmental, economic and social aspects. Moreover, it involves dynamic interactions between technology, environment and society. Generally, Geographical Information System (GIS) is being used as a decision support system by policy makers, scientists and administrators. However, implementation of GIS technologies at the village level and empowering the farmers to use them for local-level planning and monitoring agriculture for its sustainability is lacking.
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