Past farm policies have not encouraged a sustainable agriculture in the U. S. However, the 1985 and 1990 farm bills began to move in a more supportive direction, and the Clinton Administration has promised a new commitment to sustainability. There are several reasons why past policies have not fostered sustainability, such as prevailing beliefs and values of our society, resistance from the conventional agriculture community, different meanings of sustainability and ways to achieve it, and lack of facts and information about it. Time, new knowledge, and understanding are now lowering many of these barriers. But full support for a sustainable agriculture could await fundamental changes in the beliefs and values of our society which now run counter to the meaning of sustainability.