“If you eat, you’re involved in agriculture.” – Wendell Berry
The Vicious Spiral
- Extreme poverty in the world is decreasing
- Projected population growth mostly in developing nations
- high: sub-saharan africa, bolivia, afghanistan, pakistan
- Low: canada, brazil, most of europe, russia
- Hunger declining but still too high
- Most in Asia/Pacific,then sub-Saharan Africa
- 1 billion of 7 billion total people are undernourished
- Food prices spikes due to fuel prices going up, more crops used for ethanol
Equity and Global Ecological Footprints
- 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
- Fertilizer overuse = nitrogen/phosphorus pollution
- High use of non-renewable resources and reliance on fossil fuels
- Agricultural subsidies
- Artificially inexpensive fuel and water
- Hidden costs of food = externalities
- 2/3 water use worldwide is for irrigation
- Irrigated land produces most crops, and amount of irrigated land growing
Chemicals
- 220million metric tons of fertilizer used per year globally in 2020
- Most chemicals not tested
- Crops only absorb 1/3 to 1/2 of applied nitrogen
- 6mil metric tons of pesticides used per year globally
- chemicals enter food, air, water stream and could give us cancer
- 1 billion lbs pesticide per year in US
- that’s 20% global production for 4% global population
- Roundup resistance (glycophosphate). At least 10 species of weeds now.
- Monsanto controls 96% soybean market w/ Roundup resistant soybean seeds
Energy use
- 1kcal output requires 3kcal input on avg farm
- Feedlot cattle: 1kcal output requires 35kcal input!
- Over 80% US energy consumption for food production (2002)
- Most greenhouse gases from meat (30%); processed foods/snacks (25%); dairy (18%); cereals & fruit/veg 11%; chicken/eggs/fish 10%
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.