Agriculture is by far the largest user of natural resources and their sustainable management our commitment to future generations. The United Nations promised on their conference in Rio in June 1992 a future development of humanity towards sustainability. But fifteen years after Rio the practise of sustainable development still looks poor. Sustainability is in fact a term widely used but in many cases poorly understood. Its implications go much further than the performance in the present when often only “profit” is seen as an indicator for sustainability. According to the definition of ‘The Brundtland Commission’ (1997) “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The trouble with sustainable development is that it requires investments for future generations, which are usually not profitable in the present. W. Berry named this “We currently live in the economy and culture of the ‘one-night stand’”. Also today’s agriculture and its prospected future development are far away from being sustainable. Technological developments in agriculture are often justified by claiming on alleviation of world hunger, but as A. Kimbrell writes: “World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops“. Besides a general discussion about sustainable development in agriculture, the contribution focuses exemplarily on specific issues like nutrient efficiency and nutrient losses, balanced fertilization, transfer of toxic inorganic and organic compounds and soil conservation.