Toward a Better Path
To feed our growing population sustainably, the food community must rethink the system and accelerate investment in a more sustainable future. The innovations are already out there. Now we need to refine and replicate them throughout the world. And we need to get to critical mass, because it’s not just one company that needs to invest in these innovations in order to feed 9 billion by 2050. Rather, it’s all of us who must think about where we invest our resources — be it the financial sector, the food sector, the government, nonprofit organizations or simply ourselves, the eaters.
We can do this by moving toward broader, big-picture systems thinking, which tells us that we can’t understand a problem by looking only at individual parts. Instead, we must understand how the parts interact with and influence each other. As naturalist John Muir famously said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
What follows is a series of ideas exploring how to start thinking differently about our food system, taking into account all aspects of this complex network.
Rethink: How We Farm
Farming is the foundation of our food system, so it’s critical we start here. We need innovations that will not only increase food production, but also create vibrant rural communities and protect healthy ecosystems.
Invest in agroecological farming — While many farmers rely heavily on chemical inputs to grow their crops, some farmers are finding ways to balance productivity and ecosystem health through agroecological practices. Agroecology is a scientific approach to managing agricultural land by understanding the structure and function of the natural ecosystems on which it is built.
Kenneth Miller is a farmer in North Dakota who practices agroecology using cover crops and livestock to build soil health. Unlike many of his neighbors, Miller divides his fields into manageable sections, reincorporating livestock and devising what he calls a “cover crop cocktail.” Cover crop cocktails vary, but the purpose is to include a blend of different species and plant types, each with its own rooting patterns that help contribute to diversity and restoration of microbial and physical soil function after producing a single grain crop. Miller is building soil organic matter, the critical component for sustainable land stewardship. He also is seeing increased crop yields while reducing costs, resulting in net profitability.
To move away from pollutants and to better support farmers, agrochemical companies should shift their investments in product innovation to ones that are nontoxic and nonpersistent.
Likewise, the Marsden Farm study out of Iowa State University, highlighted in a 2012 article by Mark Bittman of the New York Times, describes a four-year rotation that included corn, soy, oats and alfalfa, along with integrated livestock management, to produce higher yields of corn and soy than strictly corn and soy rotations or corn, soy and oat rotations. In the study, nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides decreased by up to 88 percent and toxins in the ground decreased 200-fold, all while profits remained the same. Again, another example of agroecology principles in action.
Apply agrochemicals judiciously — An agroecological farmer may still want to use agrochemicals, but they should be applied as a last resort, not a first line of defense. I know farmers who have battled a vicious weed, bindweed, that can live for up to 30 years and wreaks havoc on farmland, with roots that travel up to 30 feet deep into the soil. Some of these farmers used herbicides, but only after years of trying to combat bindweed through nonchemical methods.
To move away from pollutants and to better support farmers, agrochemical companies should shift their investments in product innovation to ones that are nontoxic and nonpersistent, and turn more attention to bio-based solutions that eliminate excess waste and pollution.
Furthermore, we need to measure precisely what we’re putting onto the soil and at what rates. At present, we don’t have a comprehensive, publicly available database that tracks pesticides (active and “inert” ingredients) and how long they persist in the soil. This must be created. More importantly, we need to conduct more independent research on how these chemicals affect the environment, humans and animals over the long term.
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Is there any evidence at all that grass fed meat is "better" (I'm Australian and most of our domestically consumed cattle and sheep meat is grass fed and our rate of bowel cancer is the highest in the world!). By evidence I don't mean claims by Michael Pollen, I mean actual data. I don't know of any.
Is there any evidence that reductions of meat consumption would free up land? Sure ... Jonathan Foley's work is the best I know of. But how much do you need to reduce consumption to free up land?
That depends on how much meat you want to produce. Is it 10 percent of what is eaten now? 50%? 1%? Without putting a number on it, there is no way to calculate the land required. Eating just 1% of meat would certainly free up land ... but 50%? That's far from obvious. And what about climate change? For every ruminant we graze, that's a significant amount of methane that needs to be dealt with. Australia has more cattle than people and the warming they produce exceeds that of all our coal fired power stations ... and grass fed cattle produce far more methane than feedlot cattle.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/11/australias-most-powerful-climate-forcing-agent-its-not-coal/
On the land-related point, given that 1/3 of cereal production is fed to animals, one might posit that we could switch from animal-feed to people-feed crops. Thus it might not ‘free up land’, but you would use land differently so you can feed more people (given feed to animal conversion rates). And to your point, it’s about the quantity of meat we want to produce. I don’t have an exact percentage to give you. My point is around reworking parameters to feed a growing population. In fact, I think that these numbers need to come from a bottoms-up, not a top-down approach so that the regional ecology and population needs are taken into account. There are a lot of variables at stake and we need to consider the needs of the land and people.
As for climate change and animals, this is a really interesting issue. Based on what I have studied, animals can be an integral part of a healthy ecosystem landscape. And while enteric fermentation is problematic from a carbon emissions standpoint, we need to also consider the benefits that animals can bring from an ecosystem-health perspective. Yes, they may contribute methane into the atmosphere, so we need to consider quantity of animals. But they can also regenerate our lands if we practice holistic management techniques. Alan Savory’s team has done extensive work on this and I know several folks who follow his principles. You can find his portfolio of research here: http://www.savoryinstitute.com/2013/03/resources/evidence-supporting-holistic-management/. And you can watch a great TED talk on this topic here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html.
Joel Salatin, Allan Savory, and others have shown that properly managed ruminants on grasslands will actually sequester carbon and build soils. Oh, and increase yields and profit, by the way.
Shauna: Other species of animals on our planet expand or contract their populations based primarily on their food supply. Why should we be different? If we were only able to produce enough food next year for 7.1 billion people, I'd be pretty confident in saying there would be 7.1 billion people. Would people suffer? I don't think people would suffer any more than they already do suffer. I know it's a crazy thought. I just thought I'd put it out there. We are, after all, biologically based creatures that evolved on this planet WITH all the other creatures that are here. Shouldn't the same natural laws that govern their existence also govern ours?
When you eat red meat, any red meat (kangaroo, beef, pork, venison, etc) your body generates endogenous nitrosamines ... the same stuff that causes lung cancer in smokers. This process is entirely natural and has nothing to do with refining or processing. Your claim about bowel cancer being the result of refined and processed food isn't supported by any data at all ... it get echoed around the internet ad nauseum but there's no actual epidemiology to support it. Whereas there is plenty to support the red meat link. The nitrosamine causal chain is one of a few for which there is good evidence.
Also, you recommend `agroecology’- an understanding the structure and function of the natural ecosystems on which agriculture is built. The World Bank IAASTD Report is partly to blame for the confusion over just what agroecology is and its relation to natural ecosystems. The Glossary of the IAASTD Report claims that: “Agroecological functions are generally maximized when there is high species diversity/perennial forest-like habitats.” I think this almost exactly wrong. Most of our food now comes from annual grasses – a plant type that cannot survive in `perennial forest-like habitats’. There is a sound agroecological reasons for the success of cereal monocultures. Firstly: a major ecological principal is the need to escape competition, in particular from the dominance of woody vegetation – grasslands worldwide manage this escape. Secondly, cereal fields are a close mimic of the wild annual grasslands that supported our pre-agricultural ancestors over 10,000 years ago. These natural fields of one species were maintained by natural disturbance – flooding, fire, and grazing. From the dawn of agriculture farmers have mimicked this disturbance by tilling and weeding to reduce competition for the crop.
In addition, we may have a `monoculture of the mind’ for agroecology. Rather than a broad international acceptance of agroecology, it is dominantly promoted from a limited number of scientists in the United States, with the apparent intention of turning the agricultural clock back a hundred years or so.
First, grass fed beef produces more methane than feedlot beef. Why? Because that's what you find when you measure it, here's one such study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10375217
Savory? He's fine if you are more interested in a good story than in finding out what actually happens. Here's a little critique: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/04/allan_savory_s_ted_talk_is_wrong_and_the_benefits_of_holistic_grazing_have.html
Now back to grass fed beef. The UCS stuff is about fat profiles. I was talking about bowel cancer which has nothing to do with fat profiles. Red meat causes bowel cancer (see World Cancer Research Fund's 2007 report) and the faty acid profile is irrelevant. It might be relevant to heart disease but to find out you'd at least need to confirm that Australians have less heart disease ... and since we have heaps of it, I doubt you can do that. It doesn't matter how often you say that this or that fat profile is healthy ... you need epidemiological data ... measure of relative death rates of people eating different diets. Our heart disease rates dropped here a couple of decades ago when we started to remove fat from dairy products (remember this is all grass fed fat) and reduced sheep intake (remember all our sheep were grass fed) and replaced it with chicken (grain fed!).
Agroecology is, indeed, not a new concept and it seems - based on the definition you highlight - that there are different interpretations of what it means. I defined agroecology in the article, and it's a bit broader than how you define it (referencing the WB). Species diversity is certainly key. But understanding the geographical complexity is also a part of the analysis. Here is how Stephen Gliessman, a pioneer in studying this work, talks about it: http://www.agroecology.org/Steve.html. I don't agree that those who are working on agroecology are taking us back in time. Quite the opposite, I see some amazing in-depth scientific research that looks at soil structure, water filtration and a host of other ecological components that seek to understand how farming and nature can work together symbiotically. Healthy soil is the foundation for farming and this is what I see progressive agroecological practitioners working on.
I'd love to learn more about your points on policy and subsidies. I realize that these are complex issues and federal policy is more than just direct payment subsidies. But there are plenty of other 'price supports' the the U.S. offers to farmers that ultimately end up acting as a subsidy - i.e. crop insurance.
Regarding methane production of pasture-raised versus grain-fed, this analysis has many variables to consider and it's not a black and white response. The study you referenced uses low-quality feeds for pasture raised animals and feed seems to be a major factor for methane emissions. A report by UCS (yet another one!) highlights several studies that assess this issue. They state: "Perennial pasture species typically sequester more carbon in soil than annual row crops used for feed grain concen- trates. On the other hand, cattle in CAFOs usually gain weight faster than cattle on pasture. The result is that feedlots may produce fewer methane and nitrous oxide emissions per unit of product, but pastures may offset that advantage by sequestering more carbon in the soil. However, best management practices can affect both the rate at which pasture soil sequesters carbon and the rate at which pasture plants grow—and thus the productivity of beef production—as well as other factors that influence methane and nitrous oxide emissions from pasture." http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/global-warming-and-beef-production-report.pdf
If that is the case, then I hypothesis that all the badgering by NGO and Gov will only move the needle a little bit.
The bold step is incorporating an ecological dimension into the existing economy. Okay, I hear you - that is folly, let's continue badgering - that too is folly, but NGO and Gov staff are well-trained in that.
Here is my money to my mouth: https://prezi.com/pvx9r5dykawt/the-role-of-shared-governance/
I have applied this six times and am fairly proficient in it.
Here is a point by point takedown of that Slate article: http://sheldonfrith.com/2015/12/14/why-the-slate-article-about-allan-savory-is-dead-wrong/