The environmental imperative of Sustainable Agriculture

1. The environmental imperative of Sustainable Agriculture The Future of Food

2. Concept • The greatest obstacles to providing enough food for everyone are poverty, political upheaval, corruption, war, and the harmful environmental effects of food production. The challenge of feeding a growing population

3. Byzantine Proverb He who has bread has many problems He who has no bread has only one problem

4. What Is Food Security and Why Is It So Difficult to Attain? Concept • Many of the poor have health problems from not getting enough food, while many people in affluent countries suffer health problems from eating too much.

5. Food • About 925 million people have health problems because they do not get enough to eat • 1.6 billion people face health problems from eating too much.

6. Over-nutrition • Too many calories, too little exercise, or both • Similar overall health outlook as undernourished • 66% of American adults overweight • 34% obese • Heart disease and stroke • Type II diabetes and some cancers

7. Over nutrition • Food intake exceeds energy use and causes body fat • Too many calories not enough exercise • Lower life expectancy, heart disease, lower productivity and quality of life • In developed countries it is 2nd leading preventable cause of death after smoking

8. Malnutrition UN Estimates: • Annually, 5.5 million children die prematurely due to effects of under nutrition. • In U.S. estimates are 11 million do not have access to enough food

10. Concept • We have used high-input industrialized agriculture and lower-input traditional methods to greatly increase supplies of food • Modern industrialized agriculture has a greater harmful impact on the environment than any other human activity. What are the environmental impacts of our food choices?

11. Environmental Effects of Food Production • Biodiversity loss • Soil degradation • Air pollution • Water shortages and erosion • Human health

12. Green Revolution • Attributed to Norman Borlaug, American scientist • Conducted research in Mexico • Developed new disease resistance high-yield varieties of wheat. • By combining Borlaug's wheat varieties with new mechanized agricultural technologies, Mexico was able to produce more wheat than was needed, leading to its becoming an exporter of wheat by the 1960s. • Prior to the use of these varieties, the country was importing almost half of its wheat supply.

13. Green Revolution • The technologies spread worldwide in the 1950s and 1960s. • The U.S. imported about half of its wheat in the 1940s but after using Green Revolution technologies, became an exporter by the 1960s. • The Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, as well as many government agencies around the world funded increased research.

14. Green Revolution • India was on the brink of mass famine in the early 1960s because of its rapidly growing population. • Borlaug and the Ford Foundation implemented research there and developed a new variety of rice, IR8, that produced more grain per plant when grown with irrigation and fertilizers. • Today, India is one of the world's leading rice producers and IR8 rice usage spread throughout Asia.

15. Green Revolution • Along with the new strains of wheat, rice and corn, GR required • Synthetic fertilizer and pesticides • Increased water and fossil fuel consumption • Leading to • Localized pollution • Soil erosion • Salinization • Desertification

16. Green Revolution • Monocultures: large expanses of single crop types • Replaced traditional, small-scale polycultures • More efficient for planting and harvesting • Increased risk of crop failure due to disease

17. Food Production • Global food production has risen more quickly than world population over the past half-century • Between 1960-2008 food production rose 150% • Between the same years, population rose 100% • Land area converted to agriculture increased only 10%

18. Seed Bank • Seed banking involves collecting and storing seed from plants. • It is both an insurance policy against extinction and a source of high-quality material for the restoration of habitats. • Labor intensive • Estimated an average of $5000 is needed to save a species from extinction.

19. The Millennium Seed BankWakehurst, England • Largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world. • Focus on global plant life faced with the threat of extinction and plants of most use for the future. • Partner with 50 countries. • Successfully banked 10% of the world's wild plant species. • Goal is 25% by 2020 • Target plants and regions most at risk from climate change and the ever-increasing impact of human activities.

20. Svalbard Global Seed Vault • Spitsbergen, Norway. • On 10 March 2010 the seed count at the vault passed half a million (500,000) samples. As of July 2012, the number of distinct samples has increased to 750,000. • Main focus is food crops

21. The Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve • Southern Mexico • Repository for crop biodiversity, especially corn. • Preserving traditional varieties in their ancestral homelands

22. Can We Continue to Produce MORE? • Crossbreeding and artificial selection • Genetic engineering (gene splicing) • Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) • Continued Green Revolution techniques • Introducing new foods • Working more land

23. Cross Breading and Artificial Selection • Done for centuries to produce “improved” crops • Bigger corn and tomatoes • Slow process

24. Genetic Engineering • Slicing the DNA of one species into another • Quicker • More cost efficient • Allows insertion of almost any species • More than 2/3 of foods in U.S. have GE ingredients • Improvements • drought, pests, salty soil, less fertilizer………

25. Can We Continue to Produce MORE? • Lack of resources such as water, fertile soil and environmental factors may limit our ability to continue to yield more crops. • Can we just spread the “Green Revolution” around the world to produce more? • Will GE uniformity lead to more vulnerable crops to pests, diseases, harsh weather?

26. Can We Continue to Produce MORE? • Will people be willing to try new foods? (superfoods) • Is irrigating more land the answer? • Is cultivating more land the answer? • Can we grow more food in urban areas? • Why not just waste less food? 70% currently wasted

27. How are rangelands used to produce meat? • Is producing more meat the answer to the world’s food problems? • What are the effects of overgrazing? • How can meat be produced more sustainable? Environmental issues of raising animals for food

28. Mmmm, bacon!!!

29. Producing More Meat • Many feel need to increase meat production to feed population • As incomes rise so does meat consumption • Meat Industry is a powerful lobby • Jobs, jobs, jobs…

30. Producing More Meat • Global meat production has increased fivefold since 1950 • Per capita meat production has doubled since 1950 • Feedlots: animals are fattened for slaughter in densely populated confined areas

31. Producing More Meat • Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) • High density • Minimize land cost • Improve feeding efficiency

32. Producing More Meat • One-third of the world’s cropland is devoted to growing feed for animals • 45% of global grain production goes to livestock and poultry

33. High Density Farming Leads to Problems • Surface and ground water contamination • Disease • Antibiotic and hormone use • Greenhouse gases • Waste disposal

34. Rangelands • Cattle, Sheep, goats are on 42% of rangeland • Pastures are managed grasslands • Renewable resource • Threat to native plant species?

35. Overgrazing • Occurs when too many animals graze for too long and exceed the carrying capacity of the grassland area • Kills vegetation • Reduces grass cover • Causes erosion • Compacts soil • Damages watershed • Desertification

36. Overgrazing Solutions • Control numbers by figuring out carrying capacity • Move from riparian zones and locate watering hole away from sensitive zones • Move animals around • Replant overgrazed areas and/or use fertilizers

37. Kilograms of grain needed per kilogram of body weight Beef cattle 20 Pigs 7.3 Chicken 2.8 Milk 1.1 Efficiency of converting grain to animal protein

38. More Fish? Where do we get our fish and shellfish? What are the impacts of over fishing? What is aquaculture?

39. Where do we get fish and shellfish? Fisheries: concentrations of aquatic species suitable for harvesting from a body of water • 55% come from the ocean • Fish and shellfish supply 7% of world’s food • Mostly from coastal zones • Primary source of protein for more than 1 billion people (mostly developing countries)

40. How are fish harvested? High Tech Global Fishing Fleets Roam World • Sonar, GPS, spotter planes, huge nets, long fishing lines • Large factory ships catch, process and freeze product

41. How are fish harvested? Trawling: dragging a funnel shaped net along bottom of sea • Used to catch bottom dwellers • Shrimp, cod, flounder, scallops • Scrapes up everything on bottom leaving it bare • Clear cutting ocean floor Bycatch thrown back

42. How are fish harvested? Purse-Seine Fishing: Surrounding schools of fish with boats and a huge net to capture entire school • Net drawn in tighter and tighter • Tuna, herring, mackerel • Uses spotter planes often • Led to huge dolphin kills

43. How are fish harvested? Long lining: putting out lines up to 80 miles long with thousands of hooks • Swordfish, tuna, shark, halibut, cod • Huge bycatch • Endanger turtles, dolphins, whales etc.

44. How are fish harvested? Drift netting: using huge nets to trap fish • Huge bycatch • Kill many unwanted species • Danger to marine mammals • Since 1992 UN ban driftnets over 1.6 miles in international water (voluntary compliance)

45. Overfishing • Tragedy of Commons • Not a new problem, but becoming global and tech driven • Commercial Extinction • Adding to the problem • development along the coasts • wetland and estuary pollution • coral reef and mangrove forest destruction • New high demand for “healthy” fish

46. Where do we get fish and shellfish? Aquaculture: using feedlot management to raise marine and freshwater fish. • Using cages and nets • Rivers, lakes and oceans • China is the world’s leader • 1/3rd of world’s marine fish harvest is used for animal feed, fishmeal and oil

48. Aquaculture Raising fish and shellfish for food, like crops • World’s fastest growing food production • What do you think are pros and cons of this technique?

49. Aquaculture Pros Cons Large inputs of land, feed and water needed Produces large and concentrated outputs of waste Destroys mangrove forests Increased grain production needed to fee some species Fish can be killed by pesticide runoff Dense populations vulnerable to disease Tanks too contaminated to use after about 5 years. • Highly efficient • High yield in small volume of water • Increased yields through crossbreeding and genetic engineering • Can reduce overharvesting of conventional fisheries • Little use of fuel • Profits not tied to price of oil • High profits

50. Solutions: Sustainable Agriculture Concept • More sustainable forms of food production will greatly reduce the harmful environmental impacts of current systems while increasing food security and national security for all countries.