“Food production is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss across the world. This was true for most of our history and is still true today.” -Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser/Our World in Data
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Agriculture
On the left we have intensive farming, clearly not the way to go. On the right, “agroecological agriculture”, clearly on the side of virtue and biodiversity. Now here’s another example of intensive agriculture…
“Intensive” is rarely used in a positive context for farming. People tend to associate it with low animal welfare, pollution and faceless corporations…But there are lots of different ways to farm intensively.” - - Emma Garnett, Five misused food and farming terms, from natural to intensive – and what they really mean, 2023
From Chapter 10 of Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise , a project led by the Heritage Foundation that outlines policy goals for a second Trump term: “For a conservative USDA to become a reality, and for it to stay on course with the mission as outlined, the White House must strongly support these reforms and install strong USDA leaders… There would be strong opposition from environmental groups and others who want the federal government to transform American agriculture to meet their ideological objectives.”
But it’s not going to happen without the cooperation of farmers. And that’s not an easy task, given that farming is a low margin, high-risk affair. Now consider that sustainable and intensive farming practices often require high initial investment with uncertain or delayed payoff. Most farmers don’t have the luxury of waiting years for a return on investment - they can hardly think past this year’s harvest. So how can governments make it easier for farmers to adopt practices and technologies that protect the biosphere? Here are some ideas…
Unfortunately, farmers often resist new ways of doing things, especially poor farmers in developing countries. Who could blame them? Farming is full of risk and uncertainty, between the weather, pests, volatile markets, bad policies, lack of storage facilities, and inadequate infrastructure. Sustainable farming requires an investment of time, labor and capital, and the return on this investment may take years. Small farmers in particular may not have the luxury to think past the current harvest.
At the present time, almost 33% of the earth’s total land area is used for agriculture. Let’s reduce that by a fifth, from roughly 49 million to 38 million square kilometers: close to the amount of agricultural land in 1950. Sounds crazy, but it’s doable, considering that agricultural productivity has already improved to the point that to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we need only 30% of the farmland (Our World in Data).
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, agricultural land includes croplands, pastures, orchards, vineyards, and flowering shrubs but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. Almost 33% of the earth’s total land area is used for agriculture. The rest goes to forest/shrub ( 37%), glaciers (10%) barren land such as deserts (19%) and a minuscule 1% for human urban areas and built-up land…Expanding wild habitat is mostly about taking from agriculture and giving to forests and shrub lands.
The biggest threat to biodiversity is loss of habitat. Agriculture is the main driver of habitat loss on the planet and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change will reduce agricultural productivity unless crops become more resilient. GM crops require less land and are more resilient than conventional and organic crops.
Small scale subsistence farming is a lose-lose proposition. It perpetuates poverty and degrades the environment. Smallholders cannot afford to be stewards of their environments. Between the vagaries of growing conditions and food prices, they can’t count on a stable income year to year, so they have little incentive to forego additional income or food now for better returns later. Larger farms are in a better position to ride out price fluctuations and to maintain the long-term vitality of their land.
Then again, the above chart makes the decline in cropland look bigger than it has been, which was just 5% over a period of 20 years. We can do better. Unfortunately, the federal government’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) undermines efforts to shrink US cropland further by subsidizing farmers to grow biofuel crops - mainly corn for ethanol - to meet biofuel mandates for transportation and heating fuel. Check out the next chart and guess the year RFS went into effect:...That would be 2006, or almost 10 million additional acres of corn ago. Now, nearly 40% of corn grown in the US goes to ethanol, up from 5% in 1996 (Saavoss et al, 2021).
This time around I’m going to address what more the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) can do to protect the environment, increase biodiversity, and combat climate change. The USDA already has several programs that help agricultural producers and foresters adopt and maintain conservation systems that protect water and air quality, reduce soil erosion, protect and enhance wildlife habitat, forests and wetlands, conserve water, and sequester carbon. Here are some of them…
Thanks to political pressure from farmers and various industry groups, and despite abundant evidence that increasing biofuel production would do the planet more harm than good, the federal government continues to spend billions on biofuel subsidies every year. This has got to change.
“…many of the practices recommended to reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change also will make farms and ranches more resilient to extreme weather and often increase soil health, productivity, and profitability.”
Alley cropping is an agroforestry practice that involves alternating field crops with rows of trees or shrubs. Besides soaking up emissions and storing carbon, alley cropping reduces surface water runoff and erosion, improves soil quality, enhances habitat for wildlife and beneficial insects, and decreases offsite movement of nutrients or chemicals. Alley cropping also provides farmers the opportunity to make extra revenue given that tree products like fruit and nuts generally fetch higher prices than many field crops. So why haven’t more US farmers adopted the practice?
The insecticides I have in mind are neonicotinoids, which have devastated bee populations throughout the world. Seeds treated with neonicotinoids are also toxic to birds (some birds more than others). A few years ago, the European Union banned various neonicotinoids from all agricultural fields because of the harm they caused bees and birds. Follow-up studies are now trickling in from Europe and the results have been quite illuminating. Here are some findings…
We have to go beyond categorical, either/or thinking to solve the problem of agriculture and the environment. It’s not about organic versus conventional. It’s about how to grow more food on less land while reducing environmental harm. So that soils remain healthy, more land reverts to wild habitat, and the rest of the biosphere isn’t poisoned by pesticides and fertilizer run-off (including manure).
Republicans used to be more gung-ho about saving endangered species and other environmental causes, e.g., a Republican president established the Environmental Protection Agency and the late, great John McCain fought many battles to protect natural habitats. But then the ardor cooled. Why was that?
Lecturing, guilt-tripping, or trying to scare farmers into sustainable practices will not work and is likely to invite resistance - especially in the US, where there’s already a lot of bad blood between the farming community and environmental activists. Forcing farmers to change their ways with new laws and regulations could very well backfire come the next election cycle. Nope, advancing the cause of sustainable agriculture requires an attitude of respect and a solid understanding of farmer priorities, constraints, and concerns. And that requires getting answers to a bunch of questions, such as…
To hear Elizabeth Warren tell it, Agribusiness is ruining the family farm and Big Chicken is making life miserable for US chicken farmers….agricultural economists have a different take…and here is what chicken farmers have to say about the matter.