Tag Archive for: Impact of Agriculture on Climate

An Eco-Warrior’s Sword Is Their Fork

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Author: Angus McIntosh | Published: November 9, 2017

All of us have a latent eco-warrior inside us. When we are not exercising that eco-warrior, the eco-enemy is active. My reasoning is as follows:

Agriculture is the worst eco-enemy we have. Every time we eat, we choose a farmer practicing either regenerative agriculture or destructive agriculture. The farmer is either an eco-warrior or an eco-enemy. There are no eco-fence-sitters.

Agriculture: Eco-Enemy No.1

Let’s start by looking at the dire state of our planet and its supposed most intelligent inhabitants, homo sapiens, and then we can see how agriculture is the primary cause of this unsustainable condition of a sick planet inhabited by sick humans. Agriculture is the single greatest contributor to environmental destruction and climate instability, whether it is rain forest removal (36 soccer fields cut down every hour) or carbon emissions.

Agriculture has caused 405 dead zones around the world. The biggest is in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is the size of Gauteng. It is directly attributable to artificial fertiliser runoff that ends up in the Mississippi River. Globally we lose 20 times more kilograms of topsoil than kilograms of food produced. Topsoil is what we grow our food in.

Reduced Value Of Nutrition:

One of the very few statistics agreed on is that the nutritional content of food has been in decline for many generations. In 1950 an apple contained 4,3mg of iron. By 1998 it had dropped to 0,18mg.

What is not explained, though, is that this applies to conventionally produced food, not organic food. In every comparable study done, organic food is more nutrient-dense.

As an aside, apples are the fruit sprayed with the most pesticides. South Africa does not have one organic apple producer, which makes us all Adam and Eve.

As nutrients decline, there is a concomitant increase in diseases. In the US, since 1980, heart diseases are up by 412%, asthma by 4137%, bone deformities by 347%. The list goes on and on. Globally there are equal numbers of people dying of obesity and starvation. The same would apply here if we had the statistics, as we mimic what the US does in farming, diet and obesity.

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UNFCCC, FAO and IFAD Outline Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture and Forestry at COP 23

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Author: Stefan Jungcurt Ph.D. | Published: November 9, 2017

Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) are responsible for almost one quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing emissions from agriculture, food systems and forestry, therefore features high on the agenda of the Bonn Climate Conference.

A Primer on AFOLU Emissions and Mitigation Options

The UNFCCC Secretariat has issued a press release that provides a comprehensive overview of the AFOLU issue under the Paris Agreement on climate change, including links to relevant publications and analyses by other organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). The article outlines linkages between AFOLU, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and climate change, specifically SDG 2 (Zero hunger), noting accelerating momentum in the development and scaling-up of solutions. The release takes stock of progress, stating that 90% of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement include measures on agriculture, forestry and food systems. This section also covers the impact of climate change on food and agriculture, community resilience, and as driver of conflict, which threaten to reverse progress in reducing hunger.

The release then outlines the potential for beneficial change in the AFOLU sector under the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, including through: mitigating GHG emissions by reducing deforestation and forest degradation and investing in sustainable agriculture; building resilience through adaptation strategies; investing in inclusive and productive agricultural development; and managing resources more sustainably. Achieving this potential requires transformational agricultural change, the article argues.

The subsequent sections provide an overview of existing initiatives for financing and support, followed by recommendations for overcoming obstacles and barriers, including: improving governance through better sector and sub-sector policy and regulatory frameworks; enhancing data and information gathering and dissemination; scaling-up finance and using it more efficiently; building capacity to address barriers to adoption; and enhancing partnerships. [UNFCCC Press Release]

The Need for a Global Transformation Towards Sustainable Agriculture

In its own press release, FAO stresses the need for a global transformation to sustainable agriculture as strategy to increase food production while making agriculture more resilient against climate change and realizing its mitigation potential. FAO underlines its belief that hunger (SDG 2), poverty (SDG 1) and climate change (SDG 13) are best addressed together by recognizing the linkages between them and designing strategies to improve resource use efficiency, conserve and restore biodiversity, and address climate change impacts. Regarding agriculture’s mitigation potential, the release notes that: rehabilitating degraded soils can sequester up to 51 billion tons of carbon; there is potential to reduce methane emissions from livestock by 30%; and there are opportunities to reduce food loss and waste, which is responsible for 8% of total annual GHG emissions. The article also highlights FAO’s activities during COP 23, including Agriculture Day on 10 November 2017, High-level Round-tables on Climate Action and Zero Hunger on 14 November 2017, and FAO’s series of side events. [FAO Press Release]

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How Carbon Farming Can Help Solve Climate Change

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Author: David Burton | Published: November 9, 2017

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations pledged to keep the average global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to take efforts to narrow that increase to 1.5C. To meet those goals we must not only stop the increase in our greenhouse gas emissions, we must also draw large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

The simplest, most cost effective and environmentally beneficial way to do this is right under our feet. We can farm carbon by storing it in our agricultural soils.

Soils are traditionally rich in carbon. They can contain as much as five per cent carbon by weight, in the form of soil organic matter — plant and animal matter in various stages of decomposition.

But with the introduction of modern agricultural techniques, including the plow, soil organic matter content has dropped by half in many areas of the world, including parts of Canada. That carbon, once stored in the ground, is now found in the atmosphere and oceans as CO2 and is contributing to global warming.

The organic compounds found in soil are the glue that hold soil particles together and help give the soil structure. Like the walls of a building, this structure creates openings and passageways that allow the soil to conduct and store water, contain air, resist soil erosion and provide a habitat for soil organisms.

Plowing breaks apart soil aggregates and allows microorganisms to eat the soil organic compounds. In the short-term, the increased microbial activity releases nutrients, boosting crop productivity. In the long-term the loss of structure reduces the soil’s ability to hold water and resist erosion. Ultimately, crop productivity drops.

How can we make soil organic matter?

First and foremost, we need to disturb soil less. The advent of no-till and reduced tillage methods have allowed us to increase the carbon content of soils.

No-till and direct-seeding methods place the seed directly into the soil, minimizing the disturbance associated with seedbed preparation. The lack of disturbance allows the roots and crop residues from the previous crops to form soil organic matter. It reduces the degradation of the soil organic matter already present in the soil.

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Big Meat and Big Dairy’s Climate Emissions Put Exxon Mobil to Shame

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Authors: Juliette Majot and Devlin Kuyek| Published: November 7, 2017 

Did you know that three meat companies – JBS, Cargill and Tyson – are estimated to have emitted more greenhouse gases last year than all of France and nearly as much as some of the biggest oil companies like Exxon, BP and Shell?

Few meat and dairy companies calculate or publish their climate emissions. So for the first time ever, we have estimated corporate emissions from livestock, using the most comprehensive methodology created to date by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

And before the meat and dairy industries descend upon COP23 to broadcast their “feed the world” narrative, let’s set the story straight: their emissions could lead us to a point of no return.

We’ve found that the top 20 meat and dairy companies emitted more greenhouse gases in 2016 than all of Germany, Europe’s biggest climate polluter by far. If these companies were a country, they would be the world’s seventh largest greenhouse gas emitter.

It’s now clear that the world cannot avoid climate catastrophe without addressing the staggering emissions from the largest meat and dairy conglomerates.

Over the past few decades, the meat and dairy majors have become immensely powerful and have successfully pushed policies to support rapid growth of industrial meat and dairy production and consumption around the world, at all costs.

One consequence, among many, is that livestock production now contributes nearly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, even more than the transportation sector. If production continues to grow as projected by the FAO, emissions will escalate to the point where industrial meat and dairy production alone will undercut our ability to keep temperatures from rising to an apocalyptic scenario.

At the upcoming COP23 climate meeting in Bonn, Germany, the world’s largest meat and dairy companies will tell a different story. They’ll explain that their production is necessary for world food security, and that they should therefore be let off the hook, or better yet, get incentives for tinkering with their greenhouse gas emissions.

This is not true.

These companies produce a vast amount of highly subsidized meat and dairy in a handful of countries where these products are already overconsumed. They then export their surpluses to the rest of the world, undercutting the millions of small farmers who actually do ensure food security and bombarding consumers with unhealthy processed foods.

In Bonn, the big meat and dairy companies are also likely to spend much time and money talking about efficiency, while expanding production. They will say that the only way to effectively reduce emissions is by squeezing out ever more milk from each dairy cow or by bringing beef cattle to slaughter ever more quickly.

Such “solutions” would only compound the industry’s horrific treatment of workers and animals and exacerbate the environmental and health crises caused by the industry.

They would also condemn the 600 million small-scale farmers and 200 million herders who depend on livestock for their livelihoods and who do feed billions of people every day with moderate amounts of meat, dairy and eggs. These small producers are the backbone of food systems that can arrest and address climate change. They are the ones who need to be supported and strengthened.

If we are serious about feeding the planet while fighting climate change, the world needs to urgently invest in a transition to food systems that hinge on small-scale producers, agroecology and local markets.

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How Carbon Farming Could Halt Climate Change

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Author: Laura Sayre | Published: August 10, 2017

We can’t say we weren’t warned. For years, scientists have argued that human civilization must prevent the planet’s average annual temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius—or face certain catastrophe. Once we pass that critical threshold, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, life on planet earth is going to be a lot less fun. Think droughts, floods, superstorms, food shortages, and widespread extinctions.

Now, as forest fires rage and Delaware-sized chunks break off from Antarctica, scientists have more grim news: We’re going to hit the two-degree mark by the end of this century. Even if we manage to cut carbon emissions drastically, it’s simply too late—with one big caveat. If we can find some way to suck excess greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, we may still avert the very worst catastrophes.

What’s the best way to do this? That’s still up for debate. A Bill Gates-backed startup, for instance, is experimenting with a factory-like facility that pumps CO2 out of the air, creating carbon pellets that can be buried underground or used for fuel. But a time-honored, low-tech solution may prove to be even more viable. It’s called “carbon farming,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like: using farms not only to grow food, but also to sequester carbon safely in the soil.

In some ways, farmers make unlikely climate heroes. Agriculture is a major contributor to global climate change, since the industry drives deforestation, relies heavily on fossil fuel-powered machinery, and raises methane-emitting livestock by the billions. But farms, when they’re managed properly, can also be formidable carbon sinks.

Think back to biology class: Plants absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, releasing oxygen in exchange. As crops grow, carbon is used to build plant tissues both above and below ground—from stems and leaves to seeds and roots, even root hairs and root exudates. Sequestering more carbon by planting more trees is readily recognized as a strategy for fighting climate change. But what happens underground is just as important: Plant materials that are left to accumulate and slowly decompose in the soil contribute to the formation of soil organic matter, a way of storing carbon in the soil over long periods of time.

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Regenerative Returns

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Author: Jon Connors | Published: February 3, 2017

Farming, to many, is an afterthought to their daily lives; many of us do not realize the degenerative ecological and economic effects that come from almost all food produced globally. Global degenerative agriculture is the leading cause of rainforest deforestation, land and water toxicity, is the largest consumer of water, and one of the largest causes of soil erosion globally. Regenerative agriculture is the complete opposite; it restores water in local hydrology, builds plant biomass and increases soil content (and soil carbon levels.) This type of agriculture currently has a fraction of the global food market, and due to serious crises facing all of human society, it is set to explode; offering huge investment potential for regular and institutional investors.

Regenerative agriculture can take carbon out of the atmosphere and replace it in the soil (see next subheading.) This means that soon consumers will be able to link their eating habits to food, and fashion habits to clothing, that is specifically designed to reverse climate change. The average consumer need not wait for their government to take action; their everyday purchasing habits can ‘fix’ the largest problem facing humanity today. This is an exciting investment opportunity unlike ever before in recorded history.

Regenerative Agriculture, unlike its degenerative counterpart, (according to preliminary research,) may offer exponential return in the form of food production. This arises from the symbiotic relationship of regenerative plant, microbe and water systems that are designed to improve over time. More research has to be done to fully prove this scientifically, but if true, as the human population continues to grow exponentially, regenerative agricultural yields can keep up with demand in ways that benefit the ecosystem, the local water cycle, and the soil. As Ryland Englehart, cofounder of the nonprofit Kiss the Ground, says, ‘it’s an idea whose time has come.’

The purpose of this paper is to recruit activist investors who see the long term restorative potential of regenerative agriculture, and who want to link a portion of their retirement savings to land regeneration projects. The key driver here is that average investors can link long term portfolio performance with the regenerative movement, and will therefore have an incentive to ‘convert’ their close friends and families toward eating more regenerative food, also to wearing more regenerative clothing, leading to an increase in value of land regeneration investments, and a decrease of carbon in our atmosphere- a truly virtuous cycle.

International Initiative- 4 per 1000

4p1000 is an international initiative that uses the metric of four parts per thousand as the driver for success to offset carbon current carbon emissions; they have identified the tipping point of carbon sequestration to halt the annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The infographic below explains the process thoroughly. Regenerative Agriculture has the potential to rebuild land value while reversing climate change, and this international initiative will help accelerate the process.

According to the 4p1000 website, ‘The aim of the Initiative is to demonstrate that agriculture, and agricultural soils in particular, can play a crucial role where food security and climate change are concerned.

Based on robust scientific evidence, the Initiative therefore invites all partners to declare or to implement practical programmes for carbon sequestration in soil and the types of farming methods (regenerative agriculture) used to promote it.’ The Initiative is currently being signed by 25 nations, as well as 65 partner organizations. This international momentum will push for international policy changes; leading toward potential government subsidies for regenerative agricultural practices (which would increase investment return for regenerative agricultural projects.)

Regenerative Food and Textile Production

The team at Regenerative International is teaming up with other organizations to digitally map the landscape for regenerative farms and organizations worldwide. The goal for this project is to inform consumers where they can purchase food from farms on an easy to understand digital map. This technology will help drive demand for regenerative goods to food consumers, as well as be a ‘best practice’ guide for regenerative farmers in the future. Such easy to use consumer tools help create consumer action that could quickly take market share from degenerative foodstuffs toward regenerative foods.

Companies like Fibershed in Northern California are exploring how to unite locally produced fiber/ textiles, with local dyes and local labor, all with original source materials (wool, etc) raised on regenerative land.Imagine the social clout that comes when early adopter consumers will be able to tell the story of how their new leather jacket, or wool hat, were raised on a farm that sequesters carbon in the soil. As the realities of climate change continue to lead to global weirding, this social impact solution has potential to rapidly spread in the marketplace.

‘Kiss the Ground’ 2017 documentary

Josh and Rebecca Tickell (of ‘Fuel’ and ‘The Big Fix’) are currently creating a full-length documentary about regenerative agriculture called ‘Kiss The Ground.’ Their goal upon release is to encourage one million people to become regenerative farmers. This documentary will help to inform consumers of power of regenerative agriculture, leading to both an increase in supply- by driving farmers to the land, and an increase in demand- by informing consumers of the benefits of regeneration. The nonprofit behind the film, also called Kiss the Ground have an easy to understand animated film called ‘The Soil Story’ that breaks down the story of soil carbon sequestration. This digestible communication can drive rapid consumer demand for regenerative development.

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How Wolfe’s Neck Farm Is Combating Climate Change

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It’s all in the dirt.

Author: Mary Pols | Published: October 29, 2017

This month, Wolfe’s Neck Farm got a new name, the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, and officially became part of an internationally trending agricultural movement that aims to fight climate change from the ground up.

Beyond some signs referring to a TransFARMation, the changes aren’t obvious. That’s because a big part of the rebranding has to do with a mission happening underfoot. Literally. This transformation is about using the soil on this centuries-old 626-acre farm on the shores of Casco Bay to combat climate change.

As to be expected with the ever-evolving world of agriculture, there’s a buzzword for the new approach: regenerative agriculture. But it’s not yet in widespread use, and Wolfe’s Neck’s executive director David Herring finds himself defining it a lot.

“I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘What is this thing about regenerative agriculture? What is that?’ ” Herring said. He smiles the smile of a man who knows that it is a select audience who wants to hear the nitty gritty of dirt. “And so our ability to explain it succinctly has been tested.”

Start with soil health. Richer soil, more dense with organic material, is the obvious path to stronger plants and better yields. That’s what compost is all about. Every farmer engaged in sustainable agriculture is already working toward this.

“These are not brand-new things,” Herring said. “None of these things are.” But there’s a growing consciousness – Herring even uses the word “revolution” – of the potential agricultural soils high in organic material have to trap more carbon, enough potential to halt or even roll back climate change.

TRAPPING CARBON

Improving soil will build a higher level of resilience; organic matter in soil absorbs and retains more water, making farms more drought and flood resistant. But the major premise behind the burgeoning regenerative agriculture movement is that improving soil health is also the ideal means to get excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and into the soil. Soil already sequesters carbon. It has potential to sequester a lot more, if it has human help to increase its capacity to hold carbon. And those humans need some help figuring out the recipe to healthier soil – meaning richer in organic material that can trap the carbon. Based on the speed at which the climate is changing, the recipe needs to be developed quickly.

Which is where Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment comes in. It will continue to be the place to go for a hayride in the fall, seashore camping in the summer or a field trip to gawk at new calves and squeal at the cuteness of baby goats. It’s also still the home of a burgeoning organic dairy program designed to train the next generation of dairy farmers, thus bolstering a struggling sector of agriculture.

But it has a new role as an observatory for how known methods of enriching soil naturally are working and – this is key, given how climate change is already affecting us – a laboratory for figuring out how to improve soils rapidly.

Agriculture has to be part of the solution, Herring said, because it is a major contributor to climate change.

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Raise Your Fork Against Climate Change!

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From China, Slow Food rallies its network of food activists in 160 countries: “Let’s change the food system and stop climate change.”

Published: September 29, 2017

“We are all involved. Climate change is not tomorrow, it’s today, and it demands the united efforts of all of humanity. Each of our choices can make a difference, because it is the sum of all our individual actions that will drive change.” In front of the 400 delegates from 90 countries gathered in China to represent the Slow Food and Terra Madre network, Carlo Petrini reaffirmed that climate change is a reality, that it does not regard some distant future but the here and now. “It is Slow Food’s duty to work on climate change: There can be no quality, no good food, without respect for the environment, for resources and for human labor.”

During the Congress’s opening session delegates and experts from the Slow Food and Terra Madre network shared their experiences:

Remi Ie, Japan. President of Slow Food Nippon.

“In Japan, 2017 was a devastating year for fishers and farmers. Our country used to be known as ‘the land of four seasons’ but this year we experienced torrential rains that devastated the island of Kyushu. In the north, fishers could not catch salmon because of changes in the ocean currents; instead, fish species typical of temperate seas are being found. And everyone noticed the abnormal changes in the cherry tree blossom.”

Francesco Sottile, Italy. Lecturer in Arboreal Cultivation and Special Arboriculture at the University of Palermo.

“Europe saw a severe drought this summer, interspersed by sudden downpours that caused hydrogeological disasters. These exceptional events have dramatic effects on agriculture, history and traditional cultures, particularly in the most vulnerable rural areas. For many years climate change has been attributed to the incessant emissions from industry, and it is only recently that there is awareness about the role that agriculture and livestock farming play. But do different agricultural models exist? We have to decide to act once and for all, each of us with our own contribution at any level. Governments will have to meet targets for containing greenhouse gas emissions globally. At the same time, each one of us is able to make their own choices and contribute individually to delivering a better world.”

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World Hunger Is Increasing Thanks to Wars and Climate Change

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Author: Leah Samberg, The Conversation | Published: October 22, 2017

Around the globe, about 815 million people — 11 percent of the world’s population — went hungry in 2016, according to the latest data from the United Nations. This was the first increase in more than 15 years.

Between 1990 and 2015, due largely to a set of sweeping initiatives by the global community, the proportion of undernourished people in the world was cut in half. In 2015, UN member countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which doubled down on this success by setting out to end hunger entirely by 2030. But a recent UN report shows that, after years of decline, hunger is on the rise again.

As evidenced by nonstop news coverage of floods, fires, refugees and violence, our planet has become a more unstable and less predictable place over the past few years. As these disasters compete for our attention, they make it harder for people in poor, marginalized and war-torn regions to access adequate food.

I study decisions that smallholder farmers and pastoralists, or livestock herders, make about their crops, animals and land. These choices are limited by lack of access to services, markets or credit; by poor governance or inappropriate policies; and by ethnic, gender and educational barriers. As a result, there is often little they can do to maintain secure or sustainable food production in the face of crises.

The new UN report shows that to reduce and ultimately eliminate hunger, simply making agriculture more productive will not be enough. It also is essential to increase the options available to rural populations in an uncertain world.

Conflict and Climate Change Threaten Rural Livelihoods

Around the world, social and political instability are on the rise. Since 2010, state-based conflict has increased by 60 percent and armed conflict within countries has increased by 125 percent. More than half of the food-insecure people identified in the UN report (489 million out of 815 million) live in countries with ongoing violence. More than three-quarters of the world’s chronically malnourished children (122 million of 155 million) live in conflict-affected regions.

At the same time, these regions are experiencing increasingly powerful storms, more frequent and persistent drought and more variable rainfall associated with global climate change. These trends are not unrelated. Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.

War hits farmers especially hard. Conflict can evict them from their land, destroy crops and livestock, prevent them from acquiring seed and fertilizer or selling their produce, restrict their access to water and forage, and disrupt planting or harvest cycles. Many conflicts play out in rural areas characterized by smallholder agriculture or pastoralism. These small-scale farmers are some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Supporting them is one of the UN’s key strategies for reaching its food security targets.

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Insectageddon: Farming Is More Catastrophic Than Climate Breakdown

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The shocking collapse of insect populations hints at a global ecological meltdown

Author: George Monbiot | Published: October 20, 2017

Which of these would you name as the world’s most pressing environmental issue? Climate breakdown, air pollution, water loss, plastic waste or urban expansion? My answer is none of the above. Almost incredibly, I believe that climate breakdown takes third place, behind two issues that receive only a fraction of the attention.

This is not to downgrade the danger presented by global heating – on the contrary, it presents an existential threat. It is simply that I have come to realise that two other issues have such huge and immediate impacts that they push even this great predicament into third place.

One is industrial fishing, which, all over the blue planet, is now causing systemic ecological collapse. The other is the erasure of non-human life from the land by farming.

And perhaps not only non-human life. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, at current rates of soil loss, driven largely by poor farming practice, we have just 60 years of harvests left. And this is before the Global Land Outlook report, published in September, found that productivity is already declining on 20% of the world’s cropland.

The impact on wildlife of changes in farming practice (and the expansion of the farmed area) is so rapid and severe that it is hard to get your head round the scale of what is happening. A study published this week in the journal Plos One reveals that flying insects surveyed on nature reserves in Germany have declined by 76% in 27 years. The most likely cause of this Insectageddon is that the land surrounding those reserves has become hostile to them: the volume of pesticides and the destruction of habitat have turned farmland into a wildlife desert.

It is remarkable that we need to rely on a study in Germany to see what is likely to have been happening worldwide: long-term surveys of this kind simply do not exist elsewhere. This failure reflects distorted priorities in the funding of science. There is no end of grants for research on how to kill insects, but hardly any money for discovering what the impacts of this killing might be. Instead, the work has been left – as in the German case – to recordings by amateur naturalists.

But anyone of my generation (ie in the second bloom of youth) can see and feel the change. We remember the “moth snowstorm” that filled the headlight beams of our parents’ cars on summer nights (memorialised in Michael McCarthy’s lovely book of that name). Every year I collected dozens of species of caterpillars and watched them grow and pupate and hatch. This year I tried to find some caterpillars for my children to raise. I spent the whole summer looking and, aside from the cabbage whites on our broccoli plants, found nothing in the wild but one garden tiger larva. Yes, one caterpillar in one year. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing – or rather, not seeing.

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