One Of These Days

"Agricultural activities and the subsequent processing, storage, transport and disposal of its products are directly or indirectly responsible for almost 40% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions". A third of the planet is reliant on agricultural-based activity, and as the largest sector a priority form of measuring sustainable development. Agroecology is increasingly regarded as a solution

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, known as the World Agriculture Report, was written by 400 experts over four years assessing how to reduce hunger and poverty, to improve rural livelihood and protect health. All within the context of a finite world and the issue of a carrying capacity. Historically we have made leaps and bounds in the planets carrying capacity with technological advancement, specifically in the agricultural sector, and the IAASTD intends to take this further to aid "equitable, socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable development". Without hastening into the debate of the oxymoron of sustainable-development, the IAASTDs aims are fascinatingly and radically different to historical technological solutions.

The report advocates the discipline of agroecology the science of sustainable agriculture, drawing on both natural and social sciences, to framework ecologically-sound and economically-resilient farming. The origins of agroecology date back to the late 1920s. Combining scientific observation of local ecological expertise - adapting farming to natural processes and systems (greater resilience even in extreme conditions), with techniques readily accessible to the smallest-scale farmers to promote equity with sustainable agricultural production.

In a world where half of what we produce is thrown away, yet 805 million people go hungry, the IAASTDs proposals sound miraculous. With a population set to reach 9bn by 2050, and climate change bringing enormous challenges, our agricultural production will determine if ecosystem functionality in the future can sustain carrying capacity. 

Agroecology brings us balance with the Earth once more.

Agroecology has become widely advocated (NGOs, IDOs, develop-ed/-ing governments, etc) as a future to sustainable food production and wider development aims. Laura Silici earlier this year wrote a report on agroecology's progress, a key highlight showing "a review of 40 initiatives employing different agroecological practices showed an average crop yield increase of 113%, in addition to environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration, reduction in pesticide use and soil restoration". However, despite its benefits (rural-livelihood promotion, ecosystem services, development etc), agroecology remains low-scale, unused or promoted by agricultural policy or research organisations (surprised?). Agribusinesses are disinterested in adopting a movement antithetical to their production, nor do they provide the private-sector funding agroecological research depends on.

Its success as a practise and a movement mean agroecology undeniably works. Challenges continue to impede the rise of agroecology at the project level, and much must be done to integrate the "islands" together and within our global production. 

What Do You Want From Me?

In just over 2.5 centuries the Earth's population has grown spectacularly quickly. From under a billion people on the planet, to over 7 billion by the early 21st C. Increased life expectancy, the expansion of technologies, urban-life, production scale to meet the demand have depleted the environment at an accelerating rate. Berck, Levy and Chowdhury (2012) argue that we can come to a steady state with our planet through a cyclic feedback of environmental deterioration leading to social concern pressuring policy of production.

They express how "we regard people as reacting to environmental degradation by decreasing their individual exploitation of the environment". Our actions degrade the environment, which increases our concern for it's well-being, and essentially our own. First looking at frameworks of growth helps us to understand processes at work. At the core of capitalist belief is that economic growth begets population growth begets further economic growth etc, thus assuming infinite resources. Malthusian framework realizes the finite limits of the planet, and argues that growth deteriorates natural resources, meaning per capita food output is reduced thus limits population growth, and further limits exploitation of the environment. 

The logic is as follows;

               "Changing carrying capacity and environmental concerns are likely to engender a cyclical environment–population course that converges to the steady state... excess carrying capacity is large and concerns for the environment are low. Hence, population grows rapidly and so also does its aggregate footprint. As the environment deteriorates the excess carrying capacity diminishes and, in turn, population growth decelerates. At the same time, concerns for the environment rise. Negative population growth and rising concerns moderate the aggregate footprint and, subsequently, the environment starts improving. As the environment gradually improves, carrying capacity is slightly increased. Population growth is resumed and is accompanied for a while by moderated concerns. Then, with a bit larger aggregate footprint the environment slightly deteriorates, population growth diminishes and concerns rise, and so on, with gradual convergence to steady state" but our concern is weakened by skepticism of changes in the state of the environment, particularly what is, and isn't, natural variability. It may be necessary for greater global-scientific consensus on what is of concern.

This moderating-feedback loop was simulated by Meadows et al. (1972) showing "that output growth would be impeded by lack of resources" given technology (to increase availability of food and goods) grows linearly, whilst population, non-renewable consumption & pollution grow exponentially. At the least, pollution would put enormous constraint on our ability to survive, requiring either a technological or socio-political revolution to counter the effects. 

There are counters to the simplifications of Malthus/Capitalist economic thinking; Galor and Weil (2000) provided strong evidence showing the opposite to the predicted trends - richer countries were seeing decline in population growth as economic development was reached. Poor and rich countries alike, over the past twenty years environmental concern has grown. The question is, can this be possible for all countries to achieve before we reach our planet's tipping points? After "rounds of international meetings have revealed the inability of nations to cooperate effectively on curbing environmental degradation", where can we turn to for a global scale approach? The market? People? Or abandon it all to fate and head into the stars? It all feels like the challenge is too enormous in scope for any individual to feel they can make a difference, an argument as older than this debate, and yet as always change starts with an individual decision on an individual level. With information, communication, and a desire to reconcile with the environment, policy can be influenced to change to achieve the steady-state Berck et al. discussed.

Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert

I came across an interesting and relevant (both to the film and content of this blog) excerpt from one of my readings. Cabin (2007b) in a series of debates on restoration ecology process, a key management and scientific tool to restoring ecosystems and their services, one amongst numerous strategies to preserve our Earth from total degradation. He focuses on the issue of agricultural encroachment into the remaining natural areas of the terrestrial biosphere;

Since the early Holocene, agriculture altered and eventually dominated landscapes. The scientific advances that have governed our technological process have led to vastly-increased food production, longer life-spans, and even resistant strands of crop-species to prevent crop failures, something our ancestors dreamt of. Cabin counter-argues Giardina et al. (2007) in that “science is absolutely the foundation on which day-to-day agricultural decisions should be made”, and a holistic approach to this field reveals a host of “unintended horrors” in the double-edged sword of science-driven enterprise. Despite the impressive yields globally, the rise in “malnutrition, starvation, epidemic diseases, social inequities and oppression, and population explosions… combined with the corresponding environmental disasters agriculture created or exacerbated, have led to some… [to consider the invention of] and the modern, high-technology, industrialised agricultural sciences in particular as being the ‘worst mistakes in the history of the human race’” ((Cohen & Armelagos 1984; Diamond 1987; Manning 2004a, 2004b; cited in Cabin, 2007b). Although I find this view rather extreme, its point is well established.

Despite the obvious benefits, the mechanisation of agriculture in particular has had spectacularly destructive impacts on ecosystems and the environment in general (methane emissions from cattle, reduced sequestration of, and release of, carbon as a result of forest-clearing, etc), and seemingly little overall benefit at solving the world’s true problems;

(1) With ample supplies of food to make all six (seven) billion of us fat, still over a billion people go hungry and malnourished, contributing directly or indirectly to the deaths of tens of thousands of children;

(2) Developing countries continue a negative food balance in the pursuit of development – exporting more food than they import, most of the export supplying wealthy developed countries like the United States (where obesity is arguably the most pressing public health problem), and Europe;

(3) As a result of scientific-obsession and free-market capitalism, unsurprisingly a minority of multinationals are siphoning control to ever more concentrated levels; production, processing, distribution, and most importantly, returns. They justify the industrial/mechanised scale of farms under “scientific progress”, ousting “small, diversified, highly productive, ecologically sustainable, locally controlled, indigenous agricultural systems (developed in the absence of western science) with ever larger genetically engineered monocultures that displace the local human community, require many calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food, and contaminate the land and water with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides”, (Lappe et al. 1998; Gliessman 2000; Lappe & Lappe 2002; Nestle 2002; Manning 2004a, 2004b; Pimentel et al. 2005; Pollan 2006; Cited in Cabin, 2007b).

Therefore we return to the original point of this post; is science absolutely the foundation on which to govern agriculture, in light of a growing population, and a severely degraded natural environment, when we consider the “progress” so far?

Marooned

As this blog is inspired on the recently released Nolan sci-fi epic Interstellar, I thought I would introduce a few of the concepts brought up by the film, and of course the ideas behind the arguments I have brought up. I went to see it on the opening night at an IMAX (yes it was awesome), and it pictured highly lucid imagery of a dystopian possibility. The world has been ravaged, leaving a dustbowl of decaying crops, a global population close to the edge, frequent duststorms of enormous magnitudes, possibly as a result of a changing climate and soil degradation, and the constantly feeling of doom. I shall not reveal any spoilers for those who have yet to see the film, but shall say that the need to leave earth from a dire situation is exceedingly pressing.

Excluding the remaining science fiction imagery (which was exceptionally impressive), Nolan's depiction of a dying Earth is resonant of Blommkamps' work, and doesn't feel at all an unrealistic scenario which we could fall into, given the rise of our current economic paradigm's harvesting of the planet, and the political structures that hold these mechanisms in place.

Returning to Gary Peters' essay, he makes an excellent and eloquent suggestion; "Earth cannot sustain a growing population of ever-wealthier people living on a planet that has a finite supply of resources, and the twenty-first century is going to be the proving ground for this proposition", the exact scenario Interstellar forewarns us of. I am not denouncing technologies capacity to continue our species' legacy, but we are also natural beings dependent on our homeworld, and in an endless sea of nothing, the only home we have.

Welcome To The Machine

An article by Kirtana Chandrasekaran and Martin Drago, “Small Scale Food Producers are the Solution to the Global Food Crisis”. Population growth and carrying capacity are predominantly influenced by accessibility to food. It is not lack of food, but lack of access (too expensive etc) that causes famine, a distinction little known by the vast majority. 

Those most affected are the rural poor in developing countries, specifically peasants and similar small-scale food producers. Natural crises have far greater impact on these people’s livelihoods than we are used to in this day. To our shame and failure, over 800million people will go hungry tonight, whilst over 2billion are grossly overweight or obese. 

Evidence is turning against the monocultures, hybrid seeds and … of agribusinesses and governments globally, who advocate them as the best way to feed a global population. Local producers are reversing this globalised-food trend, showing that in fact locally grown and sourced food is much more efficient and effective at feeding not only the producers, but the local people too. In Asia, all rice is grown on farms of 2ha (average) and remains the rice-powerhouse on the planet. Backers of industrial continually turn to our growing population as justification to overlook the environmental injustices – despite the age old truth it is not lack of food, but unfair distribution and lack of access that leads to hunger. This is a consequence of free trade over the universal human right to food. It is no surprise much food is used as cattle fodder or converted into agrofuels – driven by profit and consumption, instead of need. 

“National food security targets are often met by sourcing food produced under environmentally destructive and socially exploitative conditions that destroy local food producers but benefit agribusiness corporations”. Instead food sovereignty promotes local control  by communities and producers, whilst promoting health and agro-ecology – a UN recognised method to counter multiple issues; hunger, environmental degradation, and poverty. “The solution to global hunger is within our grasp, but it requires a fundamental reform of the global food system: a wholesale shift from industrial farming to agroecology and food sovereignty”. Earth can support us, but can we use it wisely? Can we wrest power from those in control before it’s too late?

I enjoy the video for the imagery and ideas it raises; 

 

Obscured By Clouds

         

This week I shall examine an article by Joel Cohen, revisiting the debate on Carrying Capacity itself. Some of the figures and facts are outdated by 20 years, but the ideas remain unnervingly relevant. We already understand that our population is bound by both environmental determinism (natural constraints/limits) and our own choices (economics, culture/politics, environment, and demography).

For century’s contention over the planet’s limits have always been an excuse for fear, desperation, and war. In this age where technology and global connectedness it would be rational to assume we could form a planet-wide cooperative system to ensure adequate ways of life for all to flourish. However, the “scientific uncertainty about whether and how Earth will support its projected human population has led to public controversy: will humankind live amid scarcity or abundance or a mixture of both?" Is it fear of not having enough however, or the end result of neoliberal capitalism of wealth concentration at last impacting billions of people?

The technological optimists conform to the neoliberal structure by arguing that technology has saved us historically at each major junction, and will forever be our Panacea. This school of thought does not critique the core-issue of neo-liberal thinking, as Daly provides a suitable analogy “The growth advocates are left with one basic argument: resource and environmental limits have not halted growth in the past and therefore will not do so in the future. But such logic proves too much, namely, that nothing new can ever happen. A famous general survived a hundred battles without a scratch, and that was still true when he was blown up” (1996: 35), the same logic applies to technological advances providing a solution for every problem in our past. However, to admit finite-ism, would refute capitalist belief so completely, that none dare admit to the Earth’s natural limits. 

Nolan’s sci-fi epic shows a paradoxical issue of technology failing to save the planet, but being used to find another one suitable for colonisation. So perhaps it can act as a fall-back, but on a moral level why ruin this just right planet when we can still save it?