“If you eat, you’re involved in agriculture.” – Wendell Berry

The Vicious Spiral

• 2bil overweight or obese
• 1bil undernourished

Resource extraction increasing in emerging economies; 75% of pop live in countries where resource extraction > resource capital

Water quality/quantity:

• Extreme scarcity in sub-Saharan, India, Nepal, SE Asia, Lat Am highlands
• Chemical pollution bad in US, China
• Dead zones from excess fertilizer: poultry production belt (NC, deep south), Europe’s concentrated livestock farming

• US farm belt (MS valley) very degraded
• Iowa, for ex, loses soil at unsustainable rate–some areas >100T of soil per acre. Rich, fertile topsoil being lost to industrial farming techniques/overcultivation
  • Soil carried down MS river and lost at sea

Biodiversity:

• Same area of soil degradation in N Amer shows high loss of biodiversity
  • Focus on corn, soybeans
• Sub saharan, latin america bad
• Industrialized countries w/ 15% pop used 50% fossil fuel, mineral resources; developing countries increased fossil fuel use by 40% in last 10 years

Biologically productive land: cropland, grazing land, forest, fishing ground. Declining

Most of world at margins of using more biocapacity than is being replenished. In 2007: 151% Earth’s biocapacity used. Some countries ok: Lat Am, Canada, Russia

Diet, Food Production, and Global Health

Double burden of disease: healthcare systems of low/middle income countries overwhelmed by same old communicable diseases plus new chronic diseases from diet/less activity. Obesity has doubled globally since 1980. Diabetes type 2, cancers, heart disease, stroke. 80% of type 2 diabetes is in developing countries.

Undernourished mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, India, Mongolia, even China.

Food distribution:

• US produces and uses vast majority of corn
• Europe most wheat
• US/Europe most meat, dairy, way more than India/China
• US consumes 800kg grain per capita per year. Compare to 400 Italy, 200 China. Most of our grain goes to feeding livestock.
  • 700kg grain = 100kg beef
  • 650kg grain = 100kg pork
  • 260kg grain = 100kg poultry
  • 1000kg water = 1kg grain! So 700,000 kg water = 100kg beef; 7000kg water = 1kg beef
    

Federal subsidies: meat and dairy 73.8% of all subsidies. Fruit and veg .37% 

US meat consumption since 1961 increased 70%. 223lbs per person per year. Global demand for meat should double from 1990-2020. Global consumption since 1961: 82% increase. FDA says we don’t need all that protein and meat. US men consuming 170% of recommended protein; women 127%. Lot of room to reduce consumption.

Intergenerational equity and Food production impacts

• Rapid land and soil degradation
• Water table lowering
• Antibiotic overuse – drug resistant bacteria
• Fish stock depletion and more factory farmed fish
• Loss of biodiversity
• Climate disruption

Industrial agriculture and biodiversity

• Current rate of loss 1000 species a year!
• vs Paleolithic rate of 1-2 per year
• Amazon, 2000-2005, deforestation: 60% for cattle farming, 33% small-scale agriculture, 1% large-scale agriculture
  • 1% has ballooned in recent years due to soy production
  • Also sugar cane, maize production
  • Soybeans here predominantly shipped to China to feed hogs, essentially shipping water to china in the form of soybeans
• Threat to food supply: monocropping = more susceptible to disease, drought, pests
  • Industrial animal farming = loss of genetic biodiversity in livestock
  • Species go extinct
  • Spread of pathogens (west nile, dengue)
  • New pathogens emerge
  • Balance of species controls pests (why crop rotation is used)

The role of food animal production

1/32 of the Earth’s surface suitable for raising food. Must raise food for 7bil people.

Meat production inefficient use of grain, water, land, but accounts for 70% farmland, 30% Earth’s surface, 40% grain grown globally

• 7% global water for grain for livestock
• 70% herbicide and 37% pesticide in agriculture used for livestock feed
• half corn grown in US used for animal feed (1% for human feed as actual corn)
• Grain use ahead of production; global stocks decline (China became a grain importer) (450mil hogs grown and consumed each year in china)
• Africa and Middle East require more grain
• Ethanol production the major threat to availability of grains for human consumption since late 2005 (largely driven by subsidies)

Industrial food animal production:

• one corp controls everything from hatching to slaughter.
• animals raised in CAFOs
• feed controlled by corp, not contract grower
• grower is left with waste and carcasses, paid at end of cycle by weight of animals
• livestock outnumber humans 5:1 in US
  • 2002 10bil animals slaughtered for food in US
  • 93% chickens worldwide
  • 20% of worlds animals consumed in US
  • 5 tons waste per capita
• CAFO vs public health
  • antibiotics = resistant bacteria
  • emergence of new foodborne pathogens
  • chemicals enter foodchain through diets of animals
  • CAFO ruins communities
  • health threats apparent in CAFO neighbors, workers (asthma, injuries)
  • climate change
    • 18% greenhouse gas production worldwide, more than anything incl transportation
    • 37% methane emissions (20x worse than CO2)
    • 65% NO2 emissions (286x worse than CO2, and lasts 114yrs in atm). FERTILIZERS.
• Precautionary principle: if something is suspected of endangering humans, the proponent of the activity, not the public, should bear burden of proof
• How to feed everyone sustainably?
  • small farms currently support 2bil people globally; improve biodiversity and soil quality; decrease poverty
  • need to advance technologies and make them free
  • govt investment
  • invest in women farmers
  • infrastructure improvements: roads, storage facilities, refrigeration, surplus mgmt
  • diet: can’t sustain meat consumption increase, but need access to iron- and protein-rich meat sources
  • resilient food system: elasticity, recoverability, buoyancy

 Reading: Food: The growing problem

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100728/full/466546a.html

• At least 30% of global food is wasted; people are too poor to buy it. Highest rates of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa; most undernourished in Asia
• Percent hungry dropped for decades, but 2008 food price crisis reversed trend
• Available calories per person has increased (family size decreasing, pop growth should plateau in 2050), so we will be able to support higher pop, but water is limiting resource
• Some studies say we’ll have enough land by converting land farmland in Lat Am and Afr without hurting forests, protected areas, urbanization. But others say we should intensify existing farms
• Sustainable intensification: doing more with less, improving techniques, less water, less chemicals. Need more public investment in farming practices.