1. The environmental imperative of Sustainable Agriculture
The Future of Food

2. The challenge of feeding a growing population
Concept
The greatest obstacles to providing enough food for everyone are poverty, political upheaval, corruption, war, and the harmful environmental effects of food production.
The challenge of feeding a growing population

3. Byzantine Proverb He who has bread has many problems
He who has no bread has only one problem

4. What Is Food Security and Why Is It So Difficult to Attain?
Concept
Many of the poor have health problems from not getting enough food, while many people in affluent countries suffer health problems from eating too much.

5. Food
About 925 million people have health problems because they do not get enough to eat
1.6 billion people face health problems from eating too much.

6. Over-nutrition Too many calories, too little exercise, or both
Similar overall health outlook as undernourished
66% of American adults overweight
34% obese
Heart disease and stroke
Type II diabetes and some cancers

7. Over nutrition Food intake exceeds energy use and causes body fat
Too many calories not enough exercise
Lower life expectancy, heart disease, lower productivity and quality of life
In developed countries it is 2nd leading preventable cause of death after smoking

8. Malnutrition UN Estimates:
Annually, 5.5 million children die prematurely due to effects of under nutrition.
In U.S. estimates are 11 million do not have access to enough food

10. What are the environmental impacts of our food choices?
Concept
We have used high-input industrialized agriculture and lower-input traditional methods to greatly increase supplies of food
Modern industrialized agriculture has a greater harmful impact on the environment than any other human activity.
What are the environmental impacts of our food choices?

11. Environmental Effects of Food Production
Biodiversity loss
Soil degradation
Air pollution
Water shortages and erosion
Human health

12. Green Revolution Attributed to Norman Borlaug, American scientist
Conducted research in Mexico
Developed new disease resistance high-yield varieties of wheat.
By combining Borlaug's wheat varieties with new mechanized agricultural technologies, Mexico was able to produce more wheat than was needed, leading to its becoming an exporter of wheat by the 1960s.
Prior to the use of these varieties, the country was importing almost half of its wheat supply.

13. Green Revolution
The technologies spread worldwide in the 1950s and 1960s.
The U.S. imported about half of its wheat in the 1940s but after using Green Revolution technologies, became an exporter by the 1960s.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, as well as many government agencies around the world funded increased research.

14. Green Revolution
India was on the brink of mass famine in the early 1960s because of its rapidly growing population.
Borlaug and the Ford Foundation implemented research there and developed a new variety of rice, IR8, that produced more grain per plant when grown with irrigation and fertilizers.
Today, India is one of the world's leading rice producers and IR8 rice usage spread throughout Asia.

15. Green Revolution
Along with the new strains of wheat, rice and corn, GR required
Synthetic fertilizer and pesticides
Increased water and fossil fuel consumption
Leading to
Localized pollution
Soil erosion
Salinization
Desertification

16. Green Revolution Monocultures: large expanses of single crop types
Replaced traditional, small-scale polycultures
More efficient for planting and harvesting
Increased risk of crop failure due to disease

17. Food Production
Global food production has risen more quickly than world population over the past half-century
Between food production rose 150%
Between the same years, population rose 100%
Land area converted to agriculture increased only 10%

18. Seed Bank
Seed banking involves collecting and storing seed from plants.
It is both an insurance policy against extinction and a source of high-quality material for the restoration of habitats.
Labor intensive
Estimated an average of $5000 is needed to save a species from extinction.

19. The Millennium Seed Bank Wakehurst, England
Largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world.
Focus on global plant life faced with the threat of extinction and plants of most use for the future.
Partner with 50 countries.
Successfully banked 10% of the world's wild plant species.
Goal is 25% by 2020
Target plants and regions most at risk from climate change and the ever-increasing impact of human activities.

20. Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Spitsbergen, Norway.
On 10 March 2010 the seed count at the vault passed half a million (500,000) samples. As of July 2012, the number of distinct samples has increased to 750,000.
Main focus is food crops

21. The Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve
Southern Mexico
Repository for crop biodiversity, especially corn.
Preserving traditional varieties in their ancestral homelands

22. Can We Continue to Produce MORE?
Crossbreeding and artificial selection
Genetic engineering (gene splicing)
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
Continued Green Revolution techniques
Introducing new foods
Working more land

23. Cross Breading and Artificial Selection
Done for centuries to produce “improved” crops
Bigger corn and tomatoes
Slow process

24. Genetic Engineering Slicing the DNA of one species into another
Quicker
More cost efficient
Allows insertion of almost any species
More than 2/3 of foods in U.S. have GE ingredients
Improvements
drought, pests, salty soil, less fertilizer………

25. Can We Continue to Produce MORE?
Lack of resources such as water, fertile soil and environmental factors may limit our ability to continue to yield more crops.
Can we just spread the “Green Revolution” around the world to produce more?
Will GE uniformity lead to more vulnerable crops to pests, diseases, harsh weather?

26. Can We Continue to Produce MORE?
Will people be willing to try new foods? (superfoods)
Is irrigating more land the answer?
Is cultivating more land the answer?
Can we grow more food in urban areas?
Why not just waste less food? 70% currently wasted

27. Environmental issues of raising animals for food
How are rangelands used to produce meat?
Is producing more meat the answer to the world’s food problems?
What are the effects of overgrazing?
How can meat be produced more sustainable?
Environmental issues of raising animals for food

28. Mmmm, bacon!!!

29. Producing More Meat
Many feel need to increase meat production to feed population
As incomes rise so does meat consumption
Meat Industry is a powerful lobby
Jobs, jobs, jobs…

30. Producing More Meat
Global meat production has increased fivefold since 1950
Per capita meat production has doubled since 1950
Feedlots: animals are fattened for slaughter in densely populated confined areas

31. Producing More Meat Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO)
High density
Minimize land cost
Improve feeding efficiency

32. Producing More Meat
One-third of the world’s cropland is devoted to growing feed for animals
45% of global grain production goes to livestock and poultry

33. High Density Farming Leads to Problems
Surface and ground water contamination
Disease
Antibiotic and hormone use
Greenhouse gases
Waste disposal

34. Rangelands Cattle, Sheep, goats are on 42% of rangeland
Pastures are managed grasslands
Renewable resource
Threat to native plant species?

35. Overgrazing
Occurs when too many animals graze for too long and exceed the carrying capacity of the grassland area
Kills vegetation
Reduces grass cover
Causes erosion
Compacts soil
Damages watershed
Desertification

36. Overgrazing Solutions
Control numbers by figuring out carrying capacity
Move from riparian zones and locate watering hole away from sensitive zones
Move animals around
Replant overgrazed areas and/or use fertilizers

37. Efficiency of converting grain to animal protein
Kilograms of grain needed per kilogram of body weight
Beef cattle 20
Pigs
7.3
Chicken
2.8
Milk
1.1
Efficiency of converting grain to animal protein

38. More Fish? Where do we get our fish and shellfish?
What are the impacts of over fishing?
What is aquaculture?

39. Where do we get fish and shellfish?
Fisheries: concentrations of aquatic species suitable for harvesting from a body of water
55% come from the ocean
Fish and shellfish supply 7% of world’s food
Mostly from coastal zones
Primary source of protein for more than 1 billion people (mostly developing countries)

40. How are fish harvested? High Tech Global Fishing Fleets Roam World
Sonar, GPS, spotter planes, huge nets, long fishing lines
Large factory ships catch, process and freeze product

41. How are fish harvested?
Trawling: dragging a funnel shaped net along bottom of sea
Used to catch bottom dwellers
Shrimp, cod, flounder, scallops
Scrapes up everything on bottom leaving it bare
Clear cutting ocean floor
Bycatch thrown back

42. How are fish harvested?
Purse-Seine Fishing: Surrounding schools of fish with boats and a huge net to capture entire school
Net drawn in tighter and tighter
Tuna, herring, mackerel
Uses spotter planes often
Led to huge dolphin kills

43. How are fish harvested?
Long lining: putting out lines up to 80 miles long with thousands of hooks
Swordfish, tuna, shark, halibut, cod
Huge bycatch
Endanger turtles, dolphins, whales etc.

44. How are fish harvested? Drift netting: using huge nets to trap fish
Huge bycatch
Kill many unwanted species
Danger to marine mammals
Since 1992 UN ban driftnets over 1.6 miles in international water (voluntary compliance)

45. Overfishing Tragedy of Commons
Not a new problem, but becoming global and tech driven
Commercial Extinction
Adding to the problem
development along the coasts
wetland and estuary pollution
coral reef and mangrove forest destruction
New high demand for “healthy” fish

46. Where do we get fish and shellfish?
Aquaculture: using feedlot management to raise marine and freshwater fish.
Using cages and nets
Rivers, lakes and oceans
China is the world’s leader
1/3rd of world’s marine fish harvest is used for animal feed, fishmeal and oil

48. Aquaculture Raising fish and shellfish for food, like crops
World’s fastest growing food production
What do you think are pros and cons of this technique?

49. Aquaculture Cons Pros Highly efficient
High yield in small volume of water
Increased yields through crossbreeding and genetic engineering
Can reduce overharvesting of conventional fisheries
Little use of fuel
Profits not tied to price of oil
High profits
Large inputs of land, feed and water needed
Produces large and concentrated outputs of waste
Destroys mangrove forests
Increased grain production needed to fee some species
Fish can be killed by pesticide runoff
Dense populations vulnerable to disease
Tanks too contaminated to use after about 5 years.

50. Solutions: Sustainable Agriculture
Concept
More sustainable forms of food production will greatly reduce the harmful environmental impacts of current systems while increasing food security and national security for all countries.

51. Is Organic Agriculture the Answer?
Many environmental advantages over conventional farming
Requires more human labor
Organic food costs 10-75% more than conventionally grown food
Cheaper than conventionally grown food when environmental costs are included

52. Organic Agriculture
Organic agriculture as a component of sustainable agriculture
Certified organic farming:
Less than 1% of world cropland
0.1% of U.S. cropland
6-18% in many European countries

53. Sustainable Agriculture
More
Less
High yield polyculture
Organic fertilizers
Biological pest control
Integrated pest management
Irrigation efficiency
Perennial crops
Crop rotation
Use of more water efficient crops
Soil conservation
Subsidies for more sustainable farming and fishing
Soil erosion
Soil salinization
Aquifer depletion
Overgrazing
Overfishing
Loss of biodiversity
Loss of prime cropland
Food waste
Subsidies for unsustainable farming and fishing
Population growth
poverty

54. Industrialized vs. Organic

55. Government Policy
How do governments influence agriculture?

56. Governments influence food production
Control prices
Helps consumers
Hurts farmers

57. Governments influence food production
Provide subsidies to farmers
Price supports, tax breaks to encourage food production
Can harm farmers in other countries who don’t get subsidies
Some analysts call for ending all subsidies
Let the marketplace decide