Sustainable Farming

Permaculture Training for Students in Rural India

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Lend-A-Hand India, a US based non-profit founded by young Indians, has trained over 10,000 students in rural India in various trade skills. They are now developing a course in sustainable rural development based on permaculture principles.

I'm working on this project along with an international group of permaculture experts. The course will be designed to empower these rural students to help their communities meet their food, water, and shelter needs sustainably. Training in permaculture based farm design, water harvesting, waste management, locally appropriate building design and construction, and community action will enable better use of local resources, improved self-reliance, and rehabilitation natural ecosystems.

Please visit the project web page to donate to this project. Since Lend-A-Hand India is a registered non-profit under section 501(c)(3), your donation will be tax deductible!

Nitrogen Overfertilization May Be Reducing Soil Carbon

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:11:00 +0000

The accepted agricultural wisdom is that fertilized fields in which plant residue is left in the field will actually gain soil carbon. Unfortunately, it seems the reverse is true - a study by University of Illinois scientists has shown that in their long term (1876-) test fields, soil carbon levels increased steadily till around 1965, when animal manure was used as fertilizer, and started declining after that, with the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

With decreasing soil carbon (humus), the soil structure deteriorates, as does the capacity of the soil to hold on to nitrogen. As nitrogen leaches out with water, the land needs more fertilizers to stay productive, creating a vicious cycle.

From the paper Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production

... Overwhelmingly, the evidence is diametrically opposed to the buildup concept and instead corroborates a view elaborated long ago by White (1927) and Albrecht (1938) that fertilizer N depletessoil organic matter by promoting microbial C utilization and N mineralization. An inexorable conclusion can be drawn: The scientific basis for input-intensive cereal production is seriously flawed. The long-term consequences of continued reliance on current production practices will be a decline in soil productivity that increases the need for synthetic N fertilization, threatens food security, and exacerbates environmental degradation.

This dilemma calls for an international effort by agricultural scientists to thoroughly review, evaluate, and revise current cereal production and management systems and policies. The immediate need is to use scientific and technological advances that can increase input efficiencies. One aspect of this strategy would be to more accurately match the input of ammoniacal N to crop N requirement by accounting for site-specific variations in soil N-supplying capacity and by synchronizing application with plant N uptake. In the long term, a transition may be required toward agricultural diversification using legume-based crop rotations, which provide a valuable means to reduce the intensity of ammoniacal fertilization with the input of less reactive organic N.

There is an informative article on Grist.org with comments from the authors.

Hat tip to Doug on the Fukuoka Farming group for pointing out the Grist.org article.

100 kilo of meat and Hummers, or 20 kilo of meat and Hondas?

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:12:00 +0000

Here's an excellent conversation on the challenges and possibilities for the next 40 years between Vaclav Smil, a professor at University of Manitoba and Andrew Revkin, NYTimes journalist and Dot Earth blogger.

The whole video is worth watching, but at 78 minutes, rather long. So here are some important points:

The Challenge:

5 % of global population in North America consumes 35% of all resources. If India and China reach the same level of consumption, we need 5 planets.

The Good News:

Global population may never reach 9 B. Currently there is a 70-80% probability to peak between 8.2-8.5 B.
The Japanese consume half as much energy per capita as North Americans.
We have a lot of options for energy (shale gas) and other mineral resources.
Supercrops (nitrogen fixing, low water requirement, low phosphate requirement) may be possible with advanced genetic engineering*.
Human beings are amazingly adaptable.

The Bad News:

We are not going to change our personal behavior and economic structure unless we actually undergo a catastrophe.
China is moving rapidly towards NAm consumption levels. India wants to outdo China.
Alternative energy resources are currently very inefficient. Carbon sequestration is impractical, but will continue to consume attention.
Nitrogen fertilizers may become cheaper now due to cheap gas, but cheap and clean sources of phosphates are rapidly depleting.
Western economies is in grave danger. US is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the human race, and the debt is growing at $2T/six months.

The best things you can do now are:

Read anything and everything you can, become more numerate, and learn about the physical world around you.
Drive smaller and fewer cars
Eat less meat (Feed to meat ratios for factory farmed animals: Chickens - 3:1; Pigs - 7:1; Cows - 25:1)

--

* BTW, definitely check out these articles on Synthetic Biology in NYTimes -

Genetic engineers have looked at nature as a set of finished products to tweak and improve — a tomato that could be made into a slightly better tomato. But synthetic biologists imagine nature as a manufacturing platform: all living things are just crates of genetic cogs; we should be able to spill all those cogs out on the floor and rig them into whatever new machinery we want. It’s a jarring shift, making the ways humankind has changed nature until now seem superficial.

and also The New Yorker -

The deeply unpleasant risks associated with synthetic biology are not hard to imagine: who would control this technology, who would pay for it, and how much would it cost? Would we all have access or, as in the 1997 film “Gattaca,” which envisaged a world where the most successful children were eugenically selected, would there be genetic haves and have-nots and a new type of discrimination—genoism—to accompany it? Moreover, how safe can it be to manipulate and create life? How likely are accidents that would unleash organisms onto a world that is not prepared for them? And will it be an easy technology for people bent on destruction to acquire? “We are talking about things that have never been done before,” Endy said. “If the society that powered this technology collapses in some way, we would go extinct pretty quickly. You wouldn’t have a chance to revert back to the farm or to the pre-farm. We would just be gone. ”

Sustainable Intensification

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:28:00 +0000

Science Magazine has an excellent overview of the challenges of optimizing food production for 9 Billion people over the next 40 years:

Producing more food from the same area of land while reducing the environmental impacts requires what has been called "sustainable intensification". In exactly the same way that yields can be increased with the use of existing technologies, many options currently exist to reduce negative externalities. Net reductions in some greenhouse gas emissions can potentially be achieved by changing agronomic practices, the adoption of integrated pest management methods, the integrated management of waste in livestock production, and the use of agroforestry. However, the effects of different agronomic practices on the full range of greenhouse gases can be very complex and may depend on the temporal and spatial scale of measurement. More research is required to allow a better assessment of competing policy options. Strategies such as zero or reduced tillage (the reduction in inversion ploughing), contour farming, mulches, and cover crops improve water and soil conservation, but they may not increase stocks of soil carbon or reduce emissions of nitrous oxide. Precision agriculture refers to a series of technologies that allow the application of water, nutrients, and pesticides only to the places and at the times they are required, thereby optimizing the use of inputs. Finally, agricultural land and water bodies used for aquaculture and fisheries can be managed in ways specifically designed to reduce negative impacts on biodiversity.

NYTimes has a good summary.

Permaculture design principles can help reach a lot of these goals.

Farmer Suicides?

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Google time line for pages from India - 1990-2009

Is the incidence decreasing or is the internet tired of talking about this? Exhaustive and informative coverage of the crisis by P. Sainath, Jaideep Hardikar and others continues on IndiaTogether.com.

Plant-Soil Organisms Interaction Research

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:40:00 +0000

This is the kind of research we need if farming is to become truly scientific:

"What is the importance of the involvement of microbes in plants? It hasn't really been examined," Bais notes. "We think that plants are doing everything on their own, but there is a whole world of microbes underground, associated with the roots of plants, that has yet to be analyzed."

Scientists have long known the symbiotic relationship between legume plants such as beans and the bacteria known as rhizobia that colonize the plants' roots and enable the plants to convert nitrogen from the air into fertilizer.

More recently, in research reported last fall, Bais and his colleagues showed that when the leaves of the small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana were infected by a pathogen, the plant secreted an acid to recruit beneficial bacteria in the soil (Bacillus subtilis) to come to its defense.

Harsh Bais is a Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at University of Delaware.

Agroecology

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:12:00 +0000

The total-ecosystem-management view of agriculture put forward in Permaculture and Natural Farming are increasingly gaining acceptance as a legitimate academic research subject, often called Agroecology. Almost all major universities in the US now have agroecology research and education programs: UC Berkeley, Penn State, UC Santa Cruz, NCSU, UIUC, and Iowa State, to name just a few.

Miguel Altieri (UC Berkeley) and Stephen Gleissman (UC Santa Cruz) are probably the leading academic researchers in this field.

Common Bean, Maize, and Sunflower in UBC Milpa by aim sir na curad

Despite this activity, true sustainability in agriculture is faced with multiple challenges. From the "Barriers to Implementation" section of Prof Altieri's article* Modern Agriculture: Ecological Impacts and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming:

...some well-intentioned groups suffer from "technological determinism", and emphasize as a key strategy only the development and dissemination of low-input or appropriate technologies as if these technologies in themselves have the capability of initiating beneficial social changes. The organic farming school that emphasizes input substitution (i.e. a toxic chemical substituted by a biological insecticide) but leaving the monoculture structure untouched, epitomizes those groups that have a relatively benign view of capitalist agriculture. Such perspective has unfortunately prevented many groups from understanding the structural roots of environmental degradation linked to monoculture farming.
...
On the other hand, the large influence of multinational companies in promoting sales of agrochemicals cannot be ignored as a barrier to sustainable farming. Most MNCs have taken advantage of existing policies that promote the enhanced participation of the private sector in technology development and delivery, positioning themselves in a powerful position to scale up promotion and marketing of pesticides. Realistically then the future of agriculture will be determined by power relations, and there is no reason why farmers and the public in general, if sufficiently empowered, could not influence the direction of agriculture along sustainability goals.

* The whole article is a must-read. In just under 4000 words, Altieri gives an excellent overview of

the effects of industrial agriculture
the anticipated (and current) effects of genetic engineering
the alternative offered by Agroecological approaches
and the barriers to implementation

Do go and read that article now. If you are interested in getting a deeper understanding of the subject, there are some very well written books, esp. Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture.

Crisis 2030?

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:31:00 +0000

The BBC News website has an excellent feature on the upcoming resource crunch. The main story gives an overview:

...the warning from John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, of a possible crisis in 2030. Specifically, he points to research indicating that by 2030 "a whole series of events come together":
• The world's population will rise by 33%
• Demand for food will increase by 50%
• Demand for water will increase by 30%
• Demand for energy will increase by 50%
He foresees each problem combining to create a "perfect storm" in which the whole is bigger, and more serious, than the sum of its parts.

As far as I can see, that's doesn't include the impact of the lost environmental services due to natural resource degradation and climate change. Considering these aspects, I think we'll face serious crises sooner, especially in the high-population density developing world.

There are accompanying articles with video on the three big aspects of the problem:

Mega Cities and population growth (Delhi and Mumbai)
Growing demand for resource (China)
Deteriorating natural resources (Water shortages in California)

as well as on possible solutions:

The changes in life style required
The role of science
The new agricultural trends and the case for more GM food

We have of course survived the previous Malthusian predictions, but this time it might be different:

Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot - the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity - by about 25%. Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.

Indian Environmental Protection Agency

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:35:00 +0000

Looks like an Indian version of the Environmental Protection Agency is on the cards:

According to Jairam Ramesh, environment minister, the Congress party-led government plans to set up an Environmental Protection Agency, modelled on that of the US, which would ensure that standards were implemented and monitored.
It has also sought parliamentary approval for the creation of other new environmental institutions including "green courts" aimed at resolving cases long stuck in the existing, overburdened judicial system.
The new push comes as India finds itself in the spotlight in the run up to December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, where world leaders are hoping to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto agreement. India, China, and other developing countries are under pressure to come up with firmer plans to reduce emissions.
- Financial Times

Let's hope the EPA is staffed with the best environmentalists we can get, and more importantly, it is actually able to enforce its policies.

India's Environment - Status Update

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:42:00 +0000

The Government of India just released a "State of the Environment" report. I can't find the original report, but there is a lot of coverage:

BBC News:

The State of the Environment report says that at least 45% of India's land area is "degraded due to erosion, soil acidity, alkalinity and salinity, water logging and wind erosion".
...
in the past, a combination of rainfall and surface and groundwater supplies were sufficient for the population. But now it says that rainfall has become more erratic, groundwater supplies are becoming more depleted and surface water is becoming more polluted.
...
"with an economy closely linked to a natural resource base", India faces big challenges in the future including a scarcity of water and lower crop yields.

IBN:

...the level of respirable suspended particulate matter--the small pieces of soot and dust that get inside the lungs--had gone up in all the 50 cities across India studied by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Central Pollution Control Board.
...
10 percent of its wild flora and fauna are on the threatened list... The main causes, according to the report, were habitat destruction, poaching, invasive species, overexploitation, pollution and climate change.
...
about 700 million Indians directly face the threat of global warming today, as it affects farming, makes droughts, floods and storms more frequent and more severe and is raising the sea level.

On the plus side:

over two-thirds of the degraded 147 million hectares can be regenerated quite easily, ... and India's forest cover is gradually increasing
...
India contributes around 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. That is about a quarter of the emissions of China and the US. ... Indian per capita emissions are one-twentieth of the US and one-tenth of Europe and Japan.

Rapid Groundwater Loss in North India

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:20:00 +0000

For the first time, satellite remote sensing of a 2000-kilometer swath running from eastern Pakistan across northern India and into Bangladesh has put a solid number on how quickly the region is depleting its groundwater. The number "is big," says hydrologist James Famiglietti of the University of California, Irvine--big as in 54 cubic kilometers of groundwater lost per year from the world's most intensively irrigated region hosting 600 million people. "I don't think anybody knew how quickly it was being depleted over that large an area."
...
groundwater was being pumped out 70% faster in this decade than the Central Ground Water Board of India estimated it was in the mid-1990s. The apparent surge in withdrawal would have been large enough to turn a once-stable water table into a falling one that demands ever-deeper wells and bigger pumps and may draw in salty or polluted water
- Science Magazine

Also:

The world's food production needs to double by 2050 to feed the world's growing population. But over this period, climate change, reduced access to water and changing land use are likely to make growing crops harder rather than easier.
- BBC News

Carbon Emissions in Agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Organic/natural farming is not just about indirect environmental benefits:

The carbon-footprinting process often produces surprises. An environmentally conscious consumer in the crisps aisle of the supermarket will probably be thinking about packaging or “food miles”. The Carbon Trust reckons that about 1 per cent of the climate impact of a packet of crisps is from moving potatoes around. The largest single culprit is the production of the nitrogen fertiliser, and half of the climate impact in general takes place at the agricultural stage.

- Tim Harford, Carbon footprinting: time to pick up the pace

The Tangled Web of Sustainable Development

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:44:00 +0000

The issues of farm productivity, water scarcity, deforestation, human health, social equity, are all so completely interrelated, that it is hard to figure out a solution to just one of these without addressing the others, and practically impossible to implement such a solution successfully. This is one of the things that I have been discovering over the past couple of months.

What is the solution to this complex scenario? Integrated development is certainly desirable, but not easy to implement either. My project for the next few months will be to visit various organizations around who have successfully implemented this project on scale, and learn about the common elements of their success.

On a related note, BBC's earth Watch blog ponders the interrelatedness and prioritization of various environmental problems:

I've tried to find rational ways of figuring out answers to the prioritisation conundrum.

One sample question is this: if climate impacts are at present largely reversible but the loss of a species self-evidently isn't, does that make biodiversity loss more important than climate change?

Another is this: if environmental issues are so interlinked, then why do we bother separating them out in the way that the Rio conventions do? Woudn't it be more logical to try to sort everything out en masse?

A third is this: if the fundamental drivers of all the trends are the swelling in the human population and our expanding thirst for raw materials, why aren't these the things that politicians and environmental groups are shouting about and trying to change?

A Greener Revolution?

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:43:00 +0000

The June issue of National Geographic* has a special report on the future of the global food system -

In an era of tightening supplies and rising prices, our hot and hungry world could face a perpetual food crisis.

The article is an excellent review of the previous "Green Revolution", its positive and negative consequences**, and the enormous challenges we face finding a better future for humans and other species through the twin challenges of global warming and population growth:

...is a reprise of the green revolution—with the traditional package of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation, supercharged by genetically engineered seeds—really the answer to the world's food crisis? Last year a massive study called the "International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development" concluded that the immense production increases brought about by science and technology in the past 30 years have failed to improve food access for many of the world's poor. The six-year study, initiated by the World Bank and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and involving some 400 agricultural experts from around the globe, called for a paradigm shift in agriculture toward more sustainable and ecologically friendly practices that would benefit the world's 900 million small farmers, not just agribusiness.***
...
And so a shift has already begun to small, underfunded projects scattered across Africa and Asia. Some call it agroecology, others sustainable agriculture, but the underlying idea is revolutionary: that we must stop focusing on simply maximizing grain yields at any cost and consider the environmental and social impacts of food production. Vandana Shiva is a nuclear physicist turned agroecologist who is India's harshest critic of the green revolution. "I call it monocultures of the mind," she says. "They just look at yields of wheat and rice, but overall the food basket is going down. There were 250 kinds of crops in Punjab before the green revolution." Shiva argues that small-scale, biologically diverse farms can produce more food with fewer petroleum-based inputs. Her research has shown that using compost instead of natural-gas-derived fertilizer increases organic matter in the soil, sequestering carbon and holding moisture—two key advantages for farmers facing climate change. "If you are talking about solving the food crisis, these are the methods you need," adds Shiva.

* Previously on this blog: September 2008 Nat Geo article on Soils.
** Previously: NPR radio story on India's Green Revolution
*** Previously: UNEP report: The Environmental Food Crisis

Hat tip to Abhijit Dingare for pointing out the article.

Water: A Two-fold Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:06:00 +0000

On one hand, we are loosing our water reservoirs - groundwater, snow packs and glaciers, freshwater lakes - rapidly. Water tables are falling almost everywhere in India, due to "Green Revolution" methods that emphasized pumping groundwater:

To date, India’s 100 million farmers have drilled 21 million wells, investing some $12 billion in wells and pumps. In a survey of India’s water situation, Fred Pearce reported in the New Scientist that “half of India’s traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. Electricity blackouts are reaching epidemic proportions in states where half of the electricity is used to pump water from depths of up to a kilometer.”

In Tamil Nadu, a state with more than 62 million people in southern India, wells are going dry almost everywhere. According to Kuppannan Palanisami of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, falling water tables have dried up 95 percent of the wells owned by small farmers, reducing the irrigated area in the state by half over the last decade. As a result, many farmers have returned to dryland farming. [ref]

- Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

On the other hand, impending climate fluctuations will disproportionately affect small farmers dependent on un-irrigated farmland:

Even a small increase in temperatures ... could push down crop yields in southern regions of the world... A greater frequency of droughts and floods, the agency added, could be particularly bad for agriculture.

"Rain-fed agriculture in marginal areas in semi-arid and subhumid regions is mostly at risk," Diouf said on a visit to the southern Indian city of Chennai. "India could lose 125 million tons of its rain-fed cereal production, equivalent to 18 percent of its total production."

- Warming threatens farms in India, UN official says. New York Times

The current approach to solving this problem is a combination

build ever larger dams and canal networks [ref],
exploit deep water aquifers,
build expensive water desalination plants [ref], and
commodify water [ref, ref]

Inevitably, these approaches will make water expensive for everyone and actively harm millions of small farmers that need water the most, while exacerbating the underlying resource problem.

A much better approach that solves the underlying problem, makes water truly more abundant, and actually benefits the people most at risk is to

promote universal small scale water harvesting, especially on drylands [see previous post] and
phase out annual crops that are completely dependent on rains in favor of perennials and tree crops that can withstand inconsistent and unpredictable weather patterns.

Book: Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands And Beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:03:00 +0000

Water is probably the most critical resource for successful farming. Lack of water is certainly bad in the short run, but improper use of water also has ill effects like increasing the salt content of the soil, making it unfarmable.

We have seen before that harvesting and managing water intelligently is one of the goals of Permaculture design. The two volumes of Brad Lancaster's Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond are the most authoritative books on water harvesting that I have come across.

Volume 1

Volume 2

Lancaster has traveled the world in search of rainwater harvesting techniques, and refined the methods he found in the parched regions of Africa, India and elsewhere to create almost an encyclopedia of water harvesting and utilization methods. These are presented in a manner that's useful for the city dweller and the farmer alike.

The books are written in a very accessible language and have plenty of illustrations that show how each method works. In addition, the formulas for each method are also included, with examples, so that you can calculate the amount of water you can get. The books also contain plenty of practical tips and tricks that Lancaster has accumulated through his own experience as well as from others. Volume 1 contains an overview of the methods of water harvesting - small earthworks and water storage in cisterns etc, while volume 2 goes into deeper detail about earthworks.

Two of the most important points I learned from the books:

The soil is our best water reservoir.
What's important is not how much rain falls in an area, but how much stops in that area, and how it is used.

Krishiko Asha: Sustinability In Eastern Nepal

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Recently I came across an exciting new project to improve sustainability and rehabilitate the environment of a group of sixteen villages in eastern Nepal. Called क्रिषिको अाशा or Hope for Agriculture, this is a movement started by Rajeev Goyal (based on his interaction with these villagers as a Peace Corps Volunteer) and Priyanka Bista. Along with a few of the villagers, Rajeev and Priyanka are also going to travel in Nepal and India to learn from various sustainability projects, and we might co-ordinate some of our visits. To plan this trip, they have started a map of such projects in the subcontinent:

View green network in a larger map.

Read more about Hope for Agriculture on their blog, and in this Huffington Post article. If you have any suggestions for organizations that should be on this map, please let us know.

Book: The Hidden Connections

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Attention Conservation Notice:
A rapid education about life, consciousness, and society, as well as a thorough discussion of the problems we face in corporate institutions, globalization, and food and resource supply. This book has something for everyone, and everything for someone. Recommended.

Overview:
Written by Fritjof Capra, (The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point, etc.), and published first in 2002, The Hidden Connections is a very thorough and convincing overview of the change we need to create in this world if we want humanity to survive and thrive for the next thousand years.

Part one is a rapid (and fairly dense) information download about the processes and evolution of life, cognition and consciousness, and sociology, especially with respect to the patterns and processes common to these three levels of organization. Capra then wants to apply the understanding of these patterns and processes in part two to solve problems facing big corporations, global capitalism, and biotechnology.

Part two, however, is mainly a review of the state of thing in these three arenas, the important current events, and what other people have thought and written about these. While link between parts one and two is somewhat tenuous, (both in terms of the application of the patterns to solving the global problems as well as in the writing style) the chapters in part two themselves link together very well, and explore the very important issues of global finance, and the inequality it has generated, as well as agricultural biotechnology, which is endangering biodiversity and sustainability of farming world over.

All in all, the book is an excellent overview of some of the major problems we face in the world today, and how we can solve them. Be sure to read it.

Off To India!

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:39:00 +0000

I'll be reaching Pune on Tuesday, May 5. The goals of my trip are:

To set up a network of people interested in spreading sustainable agriculture, esp. in Maharashtra.
To visit sustainable farms and sustainable agriculture organizations all over India, to learn about their techniques.
To figure out a strategy for accelerating the spread of environmentally and economically sustainable agriculture in India, and especially the states hit by farmer suicides.

If you have any suggestions or know people who would be interested in helping this project, please let me know!

Myth Seven: Biotechnology Will Solve The Problems Of Industrial Agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Recently, I wrote about the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the non-existent benefits of genetically modified crops:

Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
... Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields. ...

Biotechnology crops, like the Roundup Ready seeds from Monsanto are exacerbating the problems they were supposed to solve:

As more acres of "Roundup Ready" crops are planted, the use of the pesticide has increased. The increased application has led some weeds to develop a resistance to glyphosate, the generic term for the chemical in Roundup. And, in turn, farmers have had to apply stronger doses of pesticide to kill the superweeds.
- Business Week, February 2008

Nonetheless, we tend to think of technological progress as a net positive. Is biotechnology the answer to the problems of mechanical and chemical technology of the past few decades?

Do we need biotechnology to feed the world?

We've seen that the world already produces enough food for everyone. Hunger is not a result of scarcity, but of inequitable distribution.

... The second fallacy is that genetic engineering boosts food production. Currently there are two principal types of biotechnology seeds in production: herbicide resistant and "pest" resistant. [Herbicide resistant crops] allow farmers to apply [Roundup] in ever greater amounts without killing the crops. ... [The "pest" resistant crop] produces its own insecticide.
...
genetically engineered seeds do not actually increase overall crop yields. ... [in] more than 8,200 field trials... Roundup ready seed produced fewer bushels of soybeans than similar natural varieties.

(The other troubling aspect of GM foods - the terminator seed technology, is currently under a de-facto ban. It is legally prohibited in India and Brazil.)

Is biotechnology safe?

There is no overall reduction in pesticide use with genetically modified crops.
GM foods brings its own pollution hazard - biological and genetic pollution. The harmful effects of GM organisms on natural ecosystems is well documented.
Genes from modified organisms can spread to other organisms, with unpredictable consequences*.
Biotechnology may bring new toxins and allergens into the human food supply.*

Biotechnology is expensive and inefficient:

Despite the billions of dollars spent creating transgenic organisms, biotechnology is yet to bring to market a single product that actually benefits consumers. Why should the public pay for this effort that offers no advantages, but increases risks?

- based on pg 62-63, Fatal Harvest.

* For example the StarLink corn recall: Wikipedia, New York Times, and more stories from the NYTimes.

Myth Six: Industrial Agriculture Benefits The Environment And Wildlife

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:50:00 +0000

We've read a while ago that even many environmentalists think of the corn-belt style agriculture as a necessary evil, to be tolerated so that the environment elsewhere can be protected. I've personally heard this argument from a very well educated and knowledgeable friend. This just goes to show that Big Food propaganda machine has been very successful.

Propoganda - Sustainable agriculture is "low-yield":

A typical claim of the industrial apologists is that the industrial style of agriculture has prevented some 15 million square miles of wildlands from being plowed under for "low-yield" food production. ... They also claim that if the world does not fully embrace industrial agriculture, hundreds of thousands of wildlife species will be lost to low yield crops and ranging livestock.

There is overwhelming evidence of higher productivity and efficiency of small, biodiverse, low mechanization, petro-chemical free agriculture (see also here and here). Can anybody really believe that industrial agriculture and factory meat-farming, which are net destroyers of energy, water, and soil can benefit the environment in any way?

...sustainable or alternative agriculture minimizes the environmental impacts of farming on plants and animals, as well as the air, water, and soil, often without added economic costs. ... Organic and diversified farming practices increase the prevalence of birds and mammals on farmlands and ensure biological diversity for the planet.

Poisoning the environment:

Pesticide use - endemic to industrial agriculture - has been clearly identified as a principal driving force behind the drastic reduction in biodiversity on America's farmlands. .... there are no fewer than 50 scientific studies that have documented the adverse environmental effects of pseticide use on bird, mammal, and amphibian populations across USA and Canada.
...
Chemical fertilizers - which are also a key component of industrial agriculture - pose an even greater risk to soil and water quality... Aquatic and marine life are especially vulnerable to the tons of residues from chemically treated croplands that find their way into our major estuaries each year.

Wildlife habitats:

... the huge, monocultured fields characteristic of industrial agriculture have dramatically reduced the wildlife populations by transforming habitats, displacing populations of native species, and introducing non-native species. ... Diversified farming techniques, on the other hand, incorporate numerous varieties of plants, flowers, and weeds, and encourage the proliferation of various wildlife, insect, and plant species.

No myth can hide the fact that decades of industrial agriculture have been a disaster for the environment. Its chemical poisoning has caused eco-cide among countless species. ... the tilling, mowing, and harvesting operations of industrial agriculture have affected, and continue to catastrophically destroy wildlife, soil, and water quality.

- pg 60-61, Fatal Harvest.

Documentary: Food Inc.

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:10:00 +0000

Food, Inc. is a new documentary by Robert Kenner that examines the state of food, and particularly "Big Food" in America. Doesn't look like it has been released widely yet, but should be certainly worth watching. Check out the trailers below:

Myth Five: Industrial Food Offers More Choices

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Along with the illusion of abundance, supermarkets create an illusion of choice (40 types of breakfast cereals! 60 varieties of juices!). However, if you look at the ingredients, this illusion breaks down rapidly.

The illusion of the package:

Each year, more than 15,000 new food products come to market in the U.S. ... However, these introductions rarely represent an increase in food choices for the consumers. The packages attempt to hide the fact that we are essentially increasing the same set of ingredients over and over, even though they go by different names. ... a full 95% of the calories we eat come from only 30 varieties of plants.

The loss of diversity:

By growing all our crops in monoculture, industrial agriculture not only limits what we can eat today, but also reduces the choices of future generations. ... a study of the seed stock readily available in 1903 vursus the inventory of the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory... found an astounding loss of diversity: we lost nearly 93% of lettuce, over 96% of field corn, about 91% of field corn, more than 95% of tomato, and almost 98% of asparagus varieties.

"Big Food" dictates what we eat:

A handful of companies own most of the food brands in the market. For example, Kraft Foods, (the second largest food company in the world, after Nestlé) owns around 150 brands worldwide. Large food manufacturers have also been acquiring and introducing organic brands.

Why does this matter?

The goverment, bending under pressure from agribusiness, has never required labels that inform consumers about pesticides and other chemicals used on crops, or the residues still left on those foods at the time of purchase. ... "nuked" processed foods are not labled*. ... under pressure from the biotechnology industry, [the U.S. FDA] has decided not to require genetically engineered foods to be independently safety tested or labled. ... Agribusiness not only uses its political muscle to prevent food labling, it also has pushed through laws to stop critics from getting importnat information about food to consumers ... [by pressuring] 13 states to pass "food disparagement" legislation.

What's the alternative?

By choosing ... local, small-scale organic farming ... we could not only give ourselved the choice of safe and healthy food and a cleaner environment, but we could also incorporate literally thousands of ddifferent varieties and tastes into our diets.

- pg 58-59, Fatal Harvest.

*For the latest on food irradiation labling, see here.

Myth Four: Industrial Agriculture Is Efficient

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:58:00 +0000

Proponents of mega-farming often insist that highly mechanized, chemical intensive industrial agriculture produces food more effciently than small scale farming. I have already written about The Myth Of Large Farm Productivity, as well as the Energy Cost Of Food to show that this is false economically as well as energetically. Below are the facts against the proposed "efficiency" of mega-farming from the book Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy Of Industrial Agriculture:

Is bigger better?

Numerous reports have found that smaller farms are actually more efficient than larger "industrial" farms. ... when farms get larger, the costs of production per unit often increase, because larger acreage requires more expensive machinery and more chemicals to protect crops. ... small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms. This is now widely recognized by agricultural economists across the political spectrum, as the 'inverse relationship between farm size and output.' ... even the World Bank now advocates redistributing land to small farmers in the third world as a step toward increasing overall agricultural productivity.

Output versus Yield:

... how does the "bigger is better" myth survive? ... because of a deeply flawed method of measuring farm "productivity" ... as the production per unit area of a single crop. ... If we are to compare accurately the productivity of small and large farms, we should use total agricultural output, balanced against total farm inputs and "externalities," rather than single crop yield as our measurement principle.
...
Though the yield per unit area of one crop may be lower, the total output per unit area of small farms, often composed of more than a dozen crops and numerous animal products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.
...
There is virtual consensus that large farms do not make as good use of even [farm labor and modern technology] because of management and labor problems inherent in large operations. Mid sized and many smaller farms come far closer to peak efficiency when these factors are calculated.

- pg 56-57, Fatal Harvest.

More On The Hidden Costs Of Industrial Agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (Chinmay) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:46:00 +0000

The Union of Concerned Scientists website has an interesting Food and Agriculture section. From their article "Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture":

It is time to transform agriculture into a sustainable enterprise, one based on systems that can be employed for centuries -- not decades -- without undermining the resources on which agricultural productivity depends. The question is how to do it. The choices are to stick with the current system and adjust around the edges or to fundamentally rethink it. UCS is aiming for the transformation of U.S. agriculture to a system that is both productive and practical over the long-term. Apparent advantages of the current, industrial approach – from high yields per acre, to chemical industry profits, to profitable CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), to foreign sales by corporate giants like Sara Lee, ConAgra, and Cargill – look very different when considered in the light of the health and other problems the approach creates, as well as the many ways in which consumers actually subsidize the destructive system with their tax dollars.

Also of interest from the UCS website:

Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
As the world grapples with concerns about food availability, this groundbreaking UCS report debunks widespread myths about the superiority of GE crop yields.