• Sustainable approaches are those that are the least toxic and least energy intensive, and yet maintain productivity and profitability.

• The notion that sustainable agricultural systems maintain output in spite of major disturbance, such as caused by intensive stress or large perturbation (Conway, 1985) is of particular relevance to semi-arid ecosystems.

• Breeding, selection and deployment methods appropriate to these objectives should be used rather than those used for high input intensive agriculture plant breeding.