Applying the Circular Economy Lens to Water

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Author: Nick Jeffries | Published: January 26, 2017 

Water is in many ways a poster child for circularity. For the last 3.8 billion years, the earth’s stock of water, a constant 1.4 billion km3, has continuously circulated through the many stages and processes of the hydrological cycle, powered by the energy of the sun. In the last hundred or so years, a blink of an eye in planetary time, human activities have started to disrupt this well-tuned circularity in ways that risk our future prosperity as well as the health of the planet.

Water is a remarkable substance. Its apparent simplicity belies its raft of peculiar properties, many of which are crucial to life on earth. These idiosyncrasies include the fact that its solid state – ice – floats on its own melt (insulating any life beneath it); its boiling point is much higher than similar hydrogen compounds (so it exists at a liquid within a temperature range ideal for life); and it dissolves more substances and stores more energy than any other liquid (making it an extremely useful medium for many of life’s processes). Water’s strangeness not only supports the processes of life, but is a major constituent of it – a new born child is 75% water. Perhaps oddest of all, water in its purest form (two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen) is hypertonic: if imbibed, it will strip the water out of your cells and could kill you.

“WATER WATER EVERYWHERE, NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK”

We live on a blue planet, but most water is not in a form or a place that can fulfil easily the basic needs of humankind. The great majority of it is seawater – only about 2.5% is freshwater and most of this is out of reach, locked up in icecaps, glaciers or deep underground. The actual percentage easily accessible to us is more like 0.007%. Luckily, this is a small fraction of a very large number, so there is in fact more than enough volume to meet the needs of the human population. The challenge lies in managing this water well.

In many areas of the world this challenge is not being sufficiently met leading to a multiplicity of lost opportunities and negative impacts. These consequences inevitably become more severe as the level of economic development reduces.

In 2014, a drought in California led to the loss of 17, 000 part-time or seasonal jobs and $2.2billion in agricultural revenue. In the UK, leakages from the water network is equivalent to 20% of the nation’s water supply or 21.5 million people, thereby increasing the cost of providing water. During a recent dry period in Sao Paolo, low rainfall and polluted reservoirs meant daily shut-offs to urban water supply, electricity prices to rise by 80% and businesses to scale down or even close. In China, a major problem relates to the contamination of surface water and groundwater by industrial effluent, driving water scarcity and creating a significant public health risk. It is estimated that 11% of cases of cancer of the digestive system may be attributable to polluted water.

However it is the poor who suffer the most extreme consequences of inadequate water resources. In many African countries, people must walk for many hours each day to fetch water from sources that are often contaminated. This task often falls to women who are vulnerable to attack, or to children compromising their education. Poor quality water causes illness, leading to a loss of work productivity and requiring expensive treatment. Worse still, according to the UN, water or waterborne diseases lead to the deaths of over 3.4 million people per year, the majority of these deaths are children under the age of five. The rising severity of consequences as economic level falls offers a good illustration of the paradox: the poorer you are the more you pay for things, relatively speaking.

Considering all of this it is easy to understand why the World Economic Forum cites “a global water” crisis as the biggest threat facing mankind in the next century.

Therefore we should ask whether the circular economy, a new framework for thinking about the economy that has already helped identify potential solutions to other big global resource challenges, could contribute to creating a better relationship between people and water: one that is resilient, regenerative, and works in the long term.

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Cultivating a Regenerative Food System

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Authors: Martin Stuchtey and Morten Rossé | Published: January 28, 2017

The agricultural story of the 20th century was one of unprecedented success: due to more intensive and specialized cultivation, farmers markedly improved productivity and kept food prices low. However, this industrialization has created problems of its own, and may — unaltered — be running out of steam. In 2010, for the first time in a century, the growth of global grain yields fell below that of the global population growth
That is why it is time to move away from what has become a “linear food system”: a take, make, dispose system in which, too often, synthetic inputs go into the land; the land gets overused, and a huge proportion of the food produced is wasted and ends up in landfill. In addition, many nutrients never make it back to the field, stacking up in contaminated sludge. The goal should be to move toward a regenerative model in which land is restored as it is used and in which nutrient and material loops provide much-needed inputs, resulting in a healthier food supply.

In terms of how to get started on the circular path, there are a number of promising approaches.

Retain and restore natural capital

Restoration of large, damaged ecosystems is possible and the commercial potential is already proven. One famous example is the Loess plateau in China, where 3.7 million acres of degraded land have been restored since the mid-1990s. This project lifted more than 2.5 million people out of poverty, almost tripling their income, by replacing low-value agricultural commodities with high-value products. Per capita grain output rose 60 percent and the perennial vegetation cover doubled from 17 percent to 34 percent. In addition, flood control, water use, employment, biodiversity and carbon absorption all improved.

The Savory Institute, based in Colorado, promotes a process that emulates nature. As the institute describes it, managers control the livestock so that conditions mimic the predator-prey relationships that were in existence when the grasslands evolved. This involves dividing land into smaller paddocks, putting cattle in large herds, and moving them frequently across the property. The land benefits from the cycle of use and rest — the same pattern observed in grazing animals in natural grassland ecosystems. This approach has regenerated more than 6.1 million acres.

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In America’s Heartland, Discussing Climate Change Without Saying ‘Climate Change’

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Author: Hiroko Tabuchi | Published: January 28, 2017  

Doug Palen, a fourth-generation grain farmer on Kansas’ wind-swept plains, is in the business of understanding the climate. Since 2012, he has choked through the harshest drought to hit the Great Plains in a century, punctuated by freakish snowstorms and suffocating gales of dust. His planting season starts earlier in the spring and pushes deeper into winter.

To adapt, he has embraced an environmentally conscious way of farming that guards against soil erosion and conserves precious water. He can talk for hours about carbon sequestration — the trapping of global-warming-causing gases in plant life and in the soil — or the science of the beneficial microbes that enrich his land.

In short, he is a climate change realist. Just don’t expect him to utter the words “climate change.”

“If politicians want to exhaust themselves debating the climate, that’s their choice,” Mr. Palen said, walking through fields of freshly planted winter wheat. “I have a farm to run.

Here in north-central Kansas, America’s breadbasket and conservative heartland, the economic realities of agriculture make climate change a critical business issue. At the same time, politics and social pressure make frank discussion complicated. This is wheat country, and Donald J. Trump country, and though the weather is acting up, the conservative orthodoxy maintains that the science isn’t settled.

So while climate change is part of daily conversation, it gets disguised as something else.

“People are all talking about it, without talking about it,” said Miriam Horn, the author of a recent book on conservative Americans and the environment, “Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman.” “It’s become such a charged topic that there’s a navigation people do.”

Mr. Palen — he plays his politics close to his vest but allows that he didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton — and others here in Glen Elder and across the state illustrate the delicate dance.

Farmers like him focus on practical issues like erosion or dwindling aquifers. “When you don’t get the rainfall, it’s tough times,” he said.

Regional politicians and business leaders speak of pursuing jobs that clean energy may create, rather than pressing the need to rein in carbon emissions. A science teacher at a community college — whose deeply religious students sometimes express doubts about the trustworthiness of science that contradicts biblical teachings — speaks to his class about the positives of scientific discovery (electricity) in order to ease into more contentious subjects (global warming).

And an editor for a closely followed agriculture magazine, Successful Farming, recently made a controversial move, drawing a flurry of angry letters: He broke with longstanding policy to address climate change head-on.

“Some readers thanked us,” the editor Gil Gullickson said. “But some wondered whether we’d been hijacked by avid environmentalists.”

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Agriculture Is Part of the Climate Change Solution

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Author: Lois Ross | Published: January 24, 2017

Small farmers face pretty much the same issues no matter what part of the world they happen to till — access to land, seed, financing and more.

I learned that lesson while rolling through the hills of northern Nicaragua, acting as an interpreter for a brigade of Canadian farmers hoping to transfer their skills to support local farmers. At that time mechanization for many small farmers in Nicaragua seemed to be the main impediment. But thinking back to the exchanges I translated, the lack of tractors, chemicals and artificial fertilizers presented challenges but also possibilities to explore.

How do you grow food in a world where resources are limited? For small farmers in developing regions, resources have always been limited. These Canadian and Nicaraguan farmers wanted to learn from each other, and the challenges each group faced related to producing food, farming methods, and taking care of the soil and their communities. The question was how best to do this in a global system based on profit and not on stewardship. At the end of the brigade’s stay, it would be fair to say that the Canadians learned as much if not more than their Nicaraguan counterparts. Both realized that the problems facing agriculture were much larger than farmers themselves. Still, they persevered.

These progressive farmers knew that agriculture could be part of the solution — for community, health, food security and much more.

Agriculture and climate change

Despite the attempts of certain farm groups, for many years agricultural practices in so-called developed nations have been environmentally destructive. We have been told that the industrial model of agriculture is necessary to ensure production and food security. It’s an old story, one that has created a false reality. And the North has promoted that false reality. Aid programs targetting developing nations have long tried to transfer the industrialized model to smaller, poorer countries. Industrial agriculture has been supported as the only model that is successful. The costs have been huge.

The time has come to look at how agriculture might actually be a huge part of climate change mitigation.

Agriculture can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it is going to mean putting stewardship and food production ahead of profit and expansion. It is possible.

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Savory Institute Ignites Consumer Revolution

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Published: January 24, 2017

News Release

At the forefront of the fight to save the world’s grasslands, the Savory Institute is taking a bold step towards ecological change on a global scale. Savory’s new Land to Market verification program will enable consumers to buy food and fashion items derived from livestock properly managed through practices verified to enhance water availability, soil health, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitats. A recent Indiegogo campaign raised over $44,000 in support of the initiative.

Addressing the true cost of fast-food and fast-fashion, Savory’s Land to Market is a grassroots and collaborative program designed to create a market and production system for products that regenerate land and human health. Savory’s program will equip and support producers while providing brands and consumers with an efficient and transparent mechanism to guide their purchases of regenerative food and fiber items.

“Currently, regenerative producers are unable to position their products advantageously and differentiate themselves in the market place. Additionally, there is no outcome based verification mechanism to back claims of regenerative land management,” explains Savory Institute co-founder and CEO, Daniela Ibarra-Howell. “We’ve engaged with partners across the conservation and academic spectrum to develop an Ecological Outcome Verification tool to allow robust measurements of key indicators of ecosystem health, to be analyzed, verified, and compared across contexts, and the data utilized in retail programs,” she notes.

Michigan State University (MSU), a Savory hub, is taking the lead in aggregating the data from the program. Hub leader, Dr. Jason Rowntree, says, “We are hoping to create one of the largest global databases for monitoring ecosystem services, with MSU serving as the data analysis arm”. Savory’s goal is to positively impact 1 billion hectares (2.47B acres) of grasslands through Holistic Management by 2025.

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4 Per 1000 | Soils for Food Security and Climate

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Human activities release enormous quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This intensifies the greenhouse effect and accelerates climate change. The world soil contains 2 to 3 times more carbon than the atmosphere. Increasing this storage of carbon by 4 parts for 1000 in the top 30 or 40cm of the soil could stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is the proposal of the “4 parts for 1000, soils for food security and climate”.

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Time to Act on Water Scarcity

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Published: January 20, 2017 

Growing water scarcity is now one of the leading challenges for sustainable development, and that challenge is poised to intensify as the world’s population continues to swell and climate change intensifies, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva warned today.

Competition for water will intensify as humanity’s numbers exceed 9 billion people around 2050 — already, millions of family farmers in developing countries suffer from lack of access to freshwater, while conflicts over water resources already surpass those tied to land disputes in some regions, he noted in remarks made at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (19-21 January) in Berlin.

Additionally, climate change is already altering hydrological regimes everywhere, Graziano da Silva said, citing estimates that around one billion people in dry regions may face increasing water scarcity in the near future. These are regions with a high concentration of extreme poverty and hunger.

Agriculture is both a major cause and casualty of water scarcity. Farming accounts for around 70 percent of fresh water withdrawals in the world today, and also contributes to water pollution due to pesticides and chemicals.

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Southern African Women Fight Climate Change Through Smart Farming

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Author: Jeffrey Moyo | Published: January 25, 2017

From planting maize to trying tobacco and cotton on her fields, 44-year-old mother of four Silvia Hungwe says she has seen it all as she wrestles with effects of climate change which have caused her crops to fail each farming season.

Seated under a tree as she talks to InDepthNews (IDN) in Mbudzi on the outskirts of Harare, an area that has turned into a hive of goat trading activity over the years, Hungwe – who has now turned to keeping goats – is on the lookout for customers.

A number of other women like Hungwe are strolling nearby with their goats, eagerly approaching each passer-by in the hope of doing business.

“I tried farming back in my rural home in Mwenezi district in Masvingo Province, but climatic conditions never favoured me as my crops failed me each season,” says Hungwe. “As a result, I decided to go into goat breeding and I bring the goats here to sell. Goats are resistant to drought and whether there are rains or no rains, they survive against all odds.”

Hungwe explains that her husband opted to cross over to neighbouring South Africa almost a decade ago after he realised that farming was not rewarding him in the village, primarily due to the effects of climate change.

“I have not heard from him ever since he left for South Africa around 2007. He just said farming here in the rural areas was not helping him because there are no rains or at times too much rains and he had to try other things across the border. So I said, well, I have to soldier on here and try other ways.”

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, there are approximately 350,000 active female farmers in this southern African nation.

With incessant crop failure in Zimbabwe, official statistics from the country’s Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development show that there are approximately 136,000 goat breeders countrywide, ranging from ordinary communal goat breeders to peri-urban goat breeders, 20% of them women.

Climate change experts say women here have become resilient in the face of the changing climatic conditions which have resulted in huge crop failure over the years.

“Many homes, be it in the rural or urban areas are being headed by women who daily come face to face with the effects of climate change because their husbands have either died or migrated to greener pastures after failing to adjust to the climate change impacts back home,” Martin Gombe, a climate change officer for Zimbabwe’s environment, water and climate ministry, told IDN.

With droughts wreaking havoc in vast areas of Zimbabwe, recently worsened by floods that hit the entire country at the beginning of 2017, a majority of women here have taken up so-called climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as food deficits have taken a knock on them and their children.

CSA reduces exposure, sensitivity or vulnerability to climate variability or change through practices and technologies that sustainably increase productivity and support farmers’ adaptation to climate change.

Environment Africa, a regional African non-governmental organisation responding to the continent’s environmental and climatic needs, says climate-smart agriculture is working to help Zimbabwe’s struggling women farmers win their battle against the impact of climate change.

KEEP READING ON THE WIRE

From Asia to Outback Australia, Farmers Are on the Climate Change Frontline

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Author: Anika Molesworth | Published: January 20, 2017

For those standing on the precipice of life the impacts of climate change are an ever present reality. The rural poor in Southeast Asia are some of the most vulnerable to climate extremes and seasonal vagaries. For these farmers, many who live at subsistence level and survive on less that $1US a day, life is a high-wire act with no safety net.

One stroke of bad luck – a drought, flood or pest outbreak – and they tumble further into hardship. Yet, here in Cambodia I work at an agricultural research centre with the most humbling and inspiring people. Not a day goes by that I don’t stand in awe at an under-resourced team committed to moving mountains despite the odds lined up against them.

It perhaps follows that those who stare so closely at the face of climate change talk only of pertinent matters. The health of their family and community, having enough food to feed them, the quality of their water sources and the condition of their natural environment.

Just over 6,000 kms away is my family’s farm. Located in far western NSW, Broken Hill is known for mining, good pub meals and drag queens. My family purchased our outback sheep station in the year 2000. The start of the decade long Millennium Drought. Tipped head first into volatility of agriculture, it was immediately apparent how interconnected individual components of a farming system are. As we all know, when the rain doesn’t come, less vegetation grows, livestock are sold at reduced weights, crop yields are not achieved, less money in the farmer’s pocket means off-farm employment is sought, and shops in rural towns close.

The far west is an ancient environment. A challenging environment. And an extremely fragile one. Acacias stunted and twisted by the harsh scorch of the desert offer the cool reprieve of shade to lonely sheep. I find this landscape hauntingly beautiful, and impossible not to fall in love with.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN 

Climate Change Threatens American Agriculture

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Author: Kendra Pierre-Louis | Published: January 20, 2017

You may already be mourning the fact that climate change rings the death knell for beloved foreign grown foods like chocolate and coffee, but a recent study in Nature Communications brings the bad news closer to home. The study found that climate change is also going to hurt domestic staples—wheat, corn, and soybeans—with their yields dropping each day the crops experience temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher. For each day that corn and soybeans fields spend at these temperatures, the study found, yield drops by up to six percent.

Researchers used computer crop models that blend physics, chemistry, biology, and observed data on crop yields. “First we simulated yields from past years and checked to see if they show the same response as reporter yields,” said Bernhard Schauberger a researcher at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the lead author on the study. When the data matched, they then used the model to project forward under different climate scenarios.

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