Eating Our Way to Collapse

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Despite the fact that we presently produce double the amount of food needed for a population of seven billion, there are still calls from the United Nations and national governments to double global food production in order to avoid future famines. These calls are misguided at best, misleading at worst.

We need to understand that the problem does not lie in the global supply of food, but rather that there is way too much production of mediocre quality commodities. In industrialized countries as well as in some newly industrialized countries like Brazil and China, we notice the prevalence of already major health problems due to over nutrition and mal-nutrition (obesity, diabetes Type 2, while there is still a deficit of production, mostly in industrializing countries where we have the bulk of under-nourished people.

The solution cannot be to simply produce more without specifying where, how and why.

Industrial or conventional agriculture as practiced in most industrialized countries, with heavy inputs of agro-chemicals, could not exist without government subsidies, either direct or indirect. Most commodities, particularly cereals (for consumption, feed and energy), soy and milk, are often subsidized. This is to assure farmers a minimum income, enable them to compete on international markets and foster food security by controlling supplies. The environmental effects created by these agricultural production systems and their connected food systems are equally enormous.

According to a UNCTAD report, traditional industrial agriculture is responsible for about 47 to 52 percent of global greenhouse gases (GHG), not to mention serious soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and heavy use of fossil fuels. Throw that in with the near 50-percent waste from consumers, and you can see there is a serious problem.

The traditional forms of agriculture as practiced in many developing countries has its drawbacks too: from low productivity, to lack of sustainability and low quality produce. The need to transition our agriculture and food systems to an ecologically responsible and self sustaining system is an imperative that can no longer be delayed.

This transformation is not only badly needed, but it can be done immediately and in all regions of the world. Business as usual is not an option — we need to change the way we grow, process and consume food.

We also know how to make this much-needed transformation toward an “agro-ecological” production and sustainable food system. Agro-ecology is the study of interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment. Organic, bio-dynamic, regenerative and permaculture are all forms of sustainable agriculture which fit under this umbrella with varying degrees of compliance around social and environmental sustainability.

And yet, despite the fact that research and development in the past 60 years has concentrated on synthetic products such as fertilizers, pesticides and mono-crops — where one type of crop is promoted to help speed up production, the science behind agro-ecology has also moved forward; albeit at a much slower pace. There is certainly lots of catch up to do in terms of science and technology, but farmers and practitioners contribute much to the innovations in agro-ecology.

KEEP READING ON THE MARK NEWS

Food Security, Forests at Risk Under Trump’s USDA

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Author: Bobby Magill | Published: February 7, 2017 

U.S. food security, forest health, and the ability of farmers to respond to climate change are all at risk if President’s Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture brings climate change skepticism to the agency, agricultural researchers and environmental law experts say.

That concern takes root not only in Trump’s own statements scoffing at climate policy, but also in the words and actions of his nominee for Agriculture secretary — former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who in 2007 resorted to prayer as a strategy to deal with a severe drought Georgia was enduring.

“Snowstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes have been around since the beginning of time, but now they want us to accept that all of it is the result of climate change,” Perdue, whose Senate confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled, wrote in a 2014 National Review column. “It’s become a running joke among the public, and liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.”

In fact, the science of human-caused climate change is far from a running joke.

Established climate science shows that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are quickly warming the planet, leading to melting polar ice caps, rising seas and more frequent extreme weather. Sixteen of the world’s 17 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2000 — a level of global warming leading to more frequent, more intense and more deadly heat waves and extreme drought.

Though climate models are less certain about the role of global warming in hurricanes and tornadoes, they suggest that hurricane intensity will increase as the atmosphere warms. Major hurricanes are already becoming more common in the Atlantic, and landfalling typhoons have become more intense in the Pacific, threatening millions of lives in coastal cities.

The agriculture industry is responsible for about 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. If confirmed, the decisions Perdue will make will influence whether farms shrink their carbon footprint and how farms and forests are managed to respond to climate-related disasters.Responding to climate change is a key mission of the USDA, which is America’s chief supporter of agriculture research, forestry and rural development. The agency funds millions of dollars of research at land grant universities across the country such as Cornell, Clemson and Texas A&M to help farmers learn the risks they face from a world that has been largely warmed by pollution from carbon emissions.

The USDA’s climate programs extend far beyond farms. As America’s largest forest manager, Perdue will determine the direction of the science conducted by the U.S. Forest Service and whether some of America’s most carbon-dense and diverse forests are clear cut for timber harvesting or managed to sustain and blunt the impacts of climate change.

“Just about every activity that the USDA regulates is likely to impact climate policy,” said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “Forests and soils store vast amounts of carbon. When forests are logged or when they burn, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere. Crop farming also contributes to climate change by releasing large quantities of nitrous oxides, much of it from fertilizers, and animal farming contributes vast amounts of methane especially from ruminant animals.”

KEEP READING ON CLIMATE CENTRAL 

Climate Change, Resilience, and the Future of Food

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Author: Laura Lengnick | Published: February 3, 2017 

The United States food system has proven remarkably adaptable over the last 150 years, producing an abundant supply of food, feed, and fiber crops for national and international markets amidst dynamic social change, and despite dramatic natural resource variability across North America.

The story of American agriculture’s rise to world class status is usually told with technology in the hero’s role. In the typical story, the major “revolutions” in the industrialization of American agriculture came about as the result of one or more technological innovations—such as mechanical harvesters, hybrid corn and more feed-efficient livestock, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and genetic engineering. As awareness of the current and potential costs of climate change to agriculture and food systems increase, this singular focus on technological solutions continues through widespread enthusiasm for sustainable intensification.

Public investment: The true hero of the story

Rarely acknowledged is the real, underlying reason for the success of industrial agriculture: the continuous intended and unintended investment of public resources to develop, support, promote, and enable the industrial food system. These resources have taken many forms:

  • Financial resources such as direct and indirect payments designed to stabilize production, recover from disasters, and reduce environmental harms
  • Public financing of the education, research and development programs and institutions that serve the agricultural-industrial complex
  • Unintended human resource subsidies as farm families struggle to balance the demands of full-time farming with full-time off-farm work to maintain family well-being in the face of steadily declining farm profitability
  • Unintended natural resource subsidies in the form of degraded soil, water, and air quality, biodiversity, and ecosystem services
  • Unintended social resource subsidies in the form of degraded health and well-being of rural communities both at home and abroad

Although the costs of industrial food and the benefits of sustainable food systems are widely recognized, and despite new evidence that the global industrial food system is uniquely vulnerable to climate change and other 21st-century challenges, national and international agricultural policy continues to support public investment in an unsustainable global industrial food system.

KEEP READING ON UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

Digging Deep Reveals the Intricate World of Roots

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Author: Becky Harlan | Published: October 15, 2015

If you’ve ever driven past wild prairie grasses swaying in the Kansas breeze and felt a wave of appreciation for America’s heartland, you should know that those visible grasses are just the tip of the iceberg.

“We’re pretty blind to what’s going on beneath the soil,” says photographer Jim Richardson, who became well acquainted with the world of dirt while working on “Our Good Earth,” a 2008 National Geographic magazine story.

The bulk of a prairie grass plant, it turns out, exists out of sight, with anywhere from eight to fourteen feet of roots extending down into the earth. Why should we care? Besides being impressively large, these hidden root balls accomplish a lot—storing carbon, nourishing soil, increasing bioproductivity, and preventing erosion.

Unfortunately, these productive, perennial grasses (which live year round) are more rare than they once were.

“When [you] say the American Midwest is a breadbasket, essentially what you mean is that you have taken out the prairie grasses. You went out with Willa Cather and the plow that broke the plains, plowed up the grassland, and started planting annual grasses like wheat, sorghum, corn, any of the big grains that supply most of our calories,” says Richardson.

A challenge in raising the profile of this tallgrass ecosystem is that so much of it is underground and therefore difficult to visualize. Enter photography.

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Reforming our Land Management, Economy and Agricultural Practices

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Authors: Graham Unagnst-Rufenach and Aaron Guman| Published: February 2, 2017 

Regenerative agriculture allows us to produce food, shelter, medicines  and other products needed to sustain human life while simultaneously regenerating ecological health and the communities, economies and cultures associated with the land.

How does regenerative agriculture work?

Soils and aboveground biomass, such as trees and shrubs, represent one of the greatest opportunities for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into long term, stable storage known as a carbon “sink.” Agroforestry, or agricultural systems which incorporate trees and shrubs, have the highest potential for sequestering carbon while providing other ecosystem benefits.

Storing carbon in the soil and maintaining perennial living soil cover (trees, pasture, grazing animals, etc.) brings a host of benefits, including: increased soil fertility and biological activity, improved wildlife and pollinator habitat, less vulnerability to disease, increased crop yield, increased drought and flood resilience, and increased water-holding and filtration capacity. A 1% increase in soil organic matter over an acre of land allows it to hold 20,000 additional gallons of water, which means less water, and any pollutants carried with it, running off downstream.

Regenerative agriculture is inherently political — it recognizes historical and contemporary injustices in relationship to land and wealth access and distribution, climate change, and human rights; and asserts the need for social, economic, and political — as well as agroecological —  equity and transformation.

Regenerative Agriculture in Vermont

Regenerative agriculture is site, region, and community specific, it meets people and landscapes where they are. This often means collaboratively assessing how we can: 1. mitigate existing problems, 2. adapt to climate change and, 3. implement regenerative practices to produce desired outcomes. Currently there is substantial policy and financial support for mitigation efforts on large farms. However, there is little focus on supporting and funding adaptation and transformation of these farms or our most actively growing agricultural sector in Vermont: small diversified farms.

A transition to regenerative practices

A family we work with wanted to transition the pasture-land they were moving onto into regenerative grazing management. It had long been overgrazed: cattle had been allowed access to the same parts of the land for weeks at a time, wet areas were deeply pock marked and spread out by hoof impact, the forage was stunted and eaten down nearly to the ground, and unfavorable species had begun to dominate parts of the pasture.

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Erica Hellen: “Farming Is Our Livelihood, but It Is Also Activism”

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Author: Emily Payne | Published: January 2017

Erica Hellen, co-owner and farmer at Free Union Grass Farm, is speaking at the third annual D.C. Food Tank Summit, Let’s Build a Better Food Policy, which will be hosted in partnership with George Washington University and the World Resources Institute on February 2, 2017.

Free Union Grass Farm is a diversified livestock farm producing beef, pork, chicken, duck, and eggs on nearly 300 acres in Albemarle county, Virginia. She and her husband utilize rotational grazing and portable infrastructure to raise animals in systems that mimic the natural world. After seven years as a full-time farmer, Erica is familiar with the flaws of our industrialized food system and hopes to convey the role small farmers play in helping fix it.

Food Tank had the chance to speak with Helen about

Food Tank (FT): What originally inspired you to get involved in your work?

Erica Hellen (EH): My liberal arts education at Warren Wilson College exposed me to the world of farming both in the classroom and in the field, on the school’s working farm and garden. It was there I learned the immense role agriculture plays in how we treat our environment. I grew up in an urban area and it had never occurred to me to consider farming as a career, but it combined so many things I love: working outside, being my own boss, and contributing to positive environmental change.

FT: What makes you continue to want to be involved in this kind of work?

EH: Providing something tangible for our community and creating relationships with our customers reminds me that our work is valued, and valuable. Farming is a unique kind of business because it is our livelihood, but it is also activism. There is much to be done when it comes to fixing the food system, and I feel inspired by the work that lies ahead of us.

KEEP READING ON FOODTANK 

Beyond Organic: Carbon Farming Is a Pathway to Climate Stabilization and Resilient Soils

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Author: Derek Markham | Published: January 30, 2017 

Addressing the climate crisis calls for an ‘all of the above’ approach to reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, and although many of us are inclined to supporting organic farming practices, it’s high time we started focusing on carbon farming practices as well. Organically grown food, while a preferable choice for green shoppers in grocery stores and farmers markets, isn’t necessarily the same thing as food grown using smart carbon farming practices, and though the two aren’t mutually exclusive, demand for organics is driven more by marketing, while the other is still a bit of a mystery to the average person.

We’ve covered the concept of carbon farming and carbon sequestration in general many times here on TreeHugger, but it’s one of those topics that, while not nearly as sexy as e-bikes and tiny houses and amazing animals, bears further discussion.

Most of us are probably able to name just a few key examples of carbon farming practices, most likely the addition of compost and/or biochar, and moving to a no-till system with cover crops, but there are a host of other practical methods as well, which may vary a bit depending on the location where they’re implemented. In this short video from Nexus Media, Connor Stedman, a consultant with AppleSeed Permaculture, offers some insights into the importance of carbon farming:

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By 2030 Megacities May Devour More Than 86 Million Acres of Prime Farmland

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Author: Andrew Amelinckx | January 27, 2017 

A recent study by a group of scientists from around the world finds that by 2030, sprawling mega-cities will squeeze out productive farmland, especially in Asia and Africa, putting a burden on what will be an already overtaxed food system.

The study, “Future urban land expansion and implications for global croplands,” published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that by 2030, as much as 86.5 million acres of productive farmland worldwide—between two and four percent of total farmland—will be lost as the world’s so called mega-cities, generally defined as being more than ten million residents, and the adjoining areas, called “mega urban regions,” take over prime agricultural croplands to make room for a growing population and their activities.

The group of scientists from Yale, Texas A&M, the University of Maryland, and research institutions in Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and Austria, found that the world’s most productive cropland—that which is irrigated—is the most at risk. That’s because 60 percent of it is on the the outskirts of large cities. As these cities expand, cropland is lost. According to the study, this irrigated land tends to be twice as productive as the other 40 percent.

“The loss of these critical farmlands puts even more pressure on food producing systems and shows that we must produce strategies to cope with this global problem,” Burak Güneralp, one of the study’s authors and a research assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Texas A & M told Texas A & M Today.

Urban agriculture, the expansion of farming into areas farther from urban centers, and farming intensification practices (such as the heavy use of fertilizers), will offset some of the loss of farmland, say the scientists. Even so, some arid regions, like North Africa and the Middle East, are already pushing the outer limits of land use and don’t have the luxury of expanding farming into new areas away from large cities.

KEEP READING ON MODERN FARMER 

Carbon Farming – Video

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Published: January 30, 2017 

Some people farm corn. Some farm wheat. Some, like Connor Stedman, farm carbon.

“There’s a really significant potential for carbon farming worldwide to play a role in reversing the climate crisis,” said Stedman, an agricultural consultant at AppleSeed Permaculture.

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Call to the World Bank: Enable Farmers, Not Agribusiness

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Author: Shiney Varghese | Published: January 19, 2017 

Ahead World Bank’s release of the 2017 “Enabling the Business of Agriculture” (EBA) project report this month, 156 organizations (including IATP) and academics from around the world, denounced the Bank’s scheme to undermine farmers’ rights to seeds and destroy their food sovereignty and the environment. In letters to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and EBA’s five Western donors, the group has demanded the immediate end of the project, as a key step to stop the corporatization of global agricultural development.

The Obama administration played a lead role in launching the highly controversial New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition at the 2012 G8 Camp David Summit. From the White House fact sheet, G-8 Action on Food Security and Nutrition’, it appears that the New Alliance was instrumental in urging the World Bank to develop options for generating a “Doing Business in Agriculture Index.” The index involved a ranking of the ease of doing business in a country, to help investors with agricultural investment decisions. This G8/New Alliance initiative appears to have given rise to Enabling the Business of Agriculture project, formerly called Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture. EBA focuses on identifying and monitoring regulations” which the Bank considers to “negatively affect agriculture and agribusiness markets”.

When taken together with other initiatives that seek to lower the barriers to investment, EBA becomes a problematic initiative. This is especially so in the context of small-holder food production systems, since such approaches often exclude a long-term view about the future of smallholder farming communities, and the interests of those engaged in such food systems. For example, the EBA awards the best scores to countries that ease private companies’ – but not farmers’ – access to public gene banks.

KEEP READING ON INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE AND TRADE POLICY