Declining crop yields and increasing agricultural emissions

Alongside the recent release of the UN IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, a new study, published in Nature, provides evidence that global increases in temperature of only 2°C will reduce crop yields in temperate and tropical regions from the 2030s onward.

The meta-analysis, collated and analysed by researchers at the University of Leeds, combined 1,700 published data sets for wheat, rice and maize, the largest dataset on crop responses to climate change yet. The research, taking into account currently practiced adaptation activities such as changing planting dates and using improved varieties, as well as uncertainty and the timing of impacts, found that the variability between crop yields in different places and at different times is also likely to increase with climate change, which could have a profound impact on the security of food supply.

Beyond 2050 declines in crop yields will be greater in magnitude, reductions of 25% are expected to be widespread with median crop yields to drop by 2% each decade for the rest of the century. Although crop productivity has previously been predicted to improve in Northern Europe, crop yields even under moderate future warming may decline in many places. Coupled with increasing demand for food (expected to increase 14% per decade until 2050), future food security without significant intervention looks bleak.

The clear message from the paper and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report is the urgent need for farmers to adapt to a changing climate and for all countries to seriously engage in mitigating climate change. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recently released figures showing that greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural, forestry and fisheries sector have doubled over the last 50 years and could grow by over 30% by 2050. The majority of this increase is being seen in developing countries, with the expansion of agricultural production.

Between 2001 and 2010 emissions from crop and livestock agriculture increased 14% while emissions from land use change and deforestation declined 10%, yet more evidence that agriculture needs to be part of climate discussions. Within agriculture, enteric fermentation (methane from livestock) accounts for the largest proportion of emissions (39%) and increased 11% between 2001 and 2010. The FAO, in 2012, launched the FAOSTAT emissions database, which details the GHG emissions of agriculture, forestry and other land use activities.

With crop yields expected to decline (and already declining in many countries) and agricultural emissions appearing to be on an upwards trajectory, the former perhaps incentivising the latter, we need smarter agriculture, that is resilient to future climate change while also reducing GHG emissions, the very goal of sustainable intensification.

A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Climate change mitigation through livestock system transitions, discusses how climate mitigation policies can reduce emissions from the livestock sector. Authors identify much potential to mitigate climate change in livestock production systems, namely the transition from extensive to more productive systems, reducing the livestock sector’s impact on land use change. The paper also recommends emissions reductions should be targeted to the supply (rather than demand) side. Aside from this rather controversial recommendation, this paper, as with many others, identifies significant opportunities to mitigate climate change and increase food supply within the agricultural sector. Serious action on implementing the variety of adaptation and mitigation strategies at the global and local level appears to be the limiting factor in progress.

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

 
Food Security and Nutrition and the Post-2015 Development Goals, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

 
Food Giants Want ‘Sustainable’ Beef. But What Does That Mean?, The Salt

 
FAO: ‘Revolution’ in Agriculture Vital to Meet Food Targets, Voice of America

 
Meeting the Food Challenges of Tomorrow Through the Legacy of Borlaug, Roll Call

 
Climate Change Could Delay The Fight Against World Hunger For Decades: Report, Huffington Post

 
Ending hunger – the rich world holds the keys, The Ecologist

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Steady increase in incidents of low levels of GM crops in traded food and feed, FAO

Victoria Seeds: Changing lives through wealth creation, Josephine Okot

The End of the ‘Developing World’, The New York Times

Book review: ‘The Meat Racket’ by Christopher Leonard, The Washington Post

GM Crops Lead to Increase in Trade Disruptions – UN Report, Sustainable Pulse

How the global banana industry is killing the world’s favourite fruit, Quartz

Agroforestry can ensure food security and mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa, EurekAlert

What can would-be African lions learn from the Asian tigers? It’s all about how urban elites see farmers, according to ODI, Duncan Green, Oxfam

Fertilizer in small doses yields higher returns for less money, Phys.org

Storm brewing over WHO sugar proposal, Nature

Food system that fails poor countries needs urgent reform, says UN expert, The Guardian

UN expert calls for bridging gap between urban consumers and local food producers, UN

Food Tank By The Numbers: Family Farming, Food Tank

The Power of Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys (HCES) to Inform Evidence-Based Nutrition Interventions and Policies, USAID

Making livestock farming more sustainable

The livestock sector is important as a source of protein and income, and some one billion people rely on livestock for their livelihood but it is generally accepted that the world’s livestock systems place a huge burden on the environment, for example, contributing 14.5% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Some 45% of these emissions originate from the production of feed. The one billion tons of cereals produced for feed each year could feed an estimated 3.5 billion humans. The health impacts of a diet high in meat have also been widely reported.  It is clear that the world’s livestock systems are not sustainable but how can we change this? Two new reports address this challenge.

A Nature commentary piece authored by Eisler et al, discusses the need for the sustainable intensification of livestock. They highlight eight strategies to cut the environmental and economic costs of livestock farming while increasing the quantity and quality of the food they produce.

1)      Feed animals less human food. Of the third or more of cereal grains going to livestock feed, 40% goes to ruminants. But ruminants, such as cattle, can survive on food inedible to humans, such as hay, silage and high-fibre crop residues. They can also graze in marginal areas leaving prime agricultural land for growing human food.

2)      Raise regionally appropriate animals. Highly productive livestock breeds such as Holstein cattle have been introduced around the world in the pursuit of increased productivity. Given that they are a temperate breed, however, they are often expensive and labour-intensive to manage in other climates, and yields can be less than a third of normal yields under these conditions. Working with breeds adapted to local conditions such as those resistant to local pests and diseases may be a less risky option, particularly for poor households.

3)      Keep animals healthy. Improving hygiene, quarantine and disease surveillance practices can help avoid animal diseases being transmitted to humans. 13 livestock-related zoonoses cause 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths each year. Improving husbandry practices and animal welfare, for example keeping livestock at lower densities, can improve the health of livestock and the quantity and quality of livestock products.

4)      Adopt smart supplements. Specific plant extracts can help microbial populations in the rumen to grow faster, using nitrogen and energy more efficiently and boosting yields without significantly increasing GHG emissions. And smart supplements don’t have to be expensive: a water fern in India is a source of extra protein for cattle and goats.

True cost accounting in food and farming: stories, smallholders and virtuous circles

On the 6^th December the Sustainable Food Trust held a conference entitled True Cost Accounting in Food and Farming at the Royal Geographical Society following a two day workshop on the same topic. Central to the conference was the understanding that if food systems are to become truly sustainable, the actual (environmental and social) cost of producing food must be reflected in retail prices. Food producers, suppliers and retailers need to be financially accountable for the impacts of production on environmental and public health.

The challenges we face

The event began with a story, starting 60 years ago when the need for cheap food drove agricultural development, disconnecting people from the origin of our food and creating an industry where small family farms could not compete. Despite the good intentions to end world hunger and make food accessible to all, the environmental and public health costs were considered too late (if at all). A small group of people (environmentalists and animal welfare lobbyists among them) advocated the need to consider the wider impacts of our food systems, a plea that is ongoing but largely ignored even today. As Patrick Holden, Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Trust and storyteller, explained, the conference, the largest international gathering on the subject of true cost accounting, aimed to be the beginning of a process of moving true cost accounting beyond rhetoric, objection and protest to one of real action.

Kicking off the event was a video message from HRH Prince Charles who began by stating that the biggest challenge the world faces today is producing enough food without doing irreparable damage to the environment and human health, a challenge made much harder by the likely impacts of climate change. He emphasised the need for the polluter to pay despite the financial odds being stacked against this objective. A burning question is whether the polluter pays principle will affect businesses and their ability to turn a profit or instead drive innovation, as in the case of the Land Fill Tax, which created new jobs and instigated greater recycling efforts. We need to understand better how food producers can make a profit whilst also moving to a more agroecological approach. He ended by expressing his hope that the outcome of the conference and workshops would be the commission of a study to find out if it is more profitable to farm by putting nature at the centre of food producing operations. The heart of the problem we face is the “economic invisibility of nature” and in realising that the ultimate source of economic capital is natural capital and not the other way around. We will only inflict conflict and misery if we continue farming based on increasingly weakened ecosystems.

Professor Jules Pretty, University of Essex, explained how our understanding of the negative externalities that the modern agricultural and green revolutions have caused began with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, which documented bird losses occurring due to seed treatments. In 1992 Prof. Pretty and Gordon Conway wrote Unwelcome Harvest, which documented the wider impacts of food production but was still only part of the picture. In 1998, a team at the University of Essex published a paper that showed the total cost of agriculture in the UK to the environment to be £2.4 billion per year, in part from the contamination of water by pesticides, soil erosion, organic carbon losses and greenhouse gas emissions. This figure showed that the environmental costs alone of our agricultural systems were higher than net farm income. While similar studies were published in other countries, the outputs were criticised for ignoring the positive externalities of agriculture i.e. its contribution to the environment and human health. In 2005, Prof. Pretty and another of the day’s speakers, Prof. Tim Lang, City University London, recalculated the externalities of agriculture, expanding the boundaries from farm to fork, resulting in a lower figure. The most surprising result was that the environmental burden arising from food miles was greater than the environmental cost on farm, and most significant of all was the minimal impact of importing food and transporting it around the country compared to household shopping trips.

Prof. Pretty then went on to discuss our current farming systems, divided into three and represented by a glass of water. The first, almost filled to the brim with water, represented an industrial system, very productive but with lots of spillover effects. The second, half full, showed moderately productive systems trading some of the productivity of intensive systems for a lower impact on the environment. The third glass, with only a small amount of water, represented the 2.4 billion producers in the world who have yields of ½ to 1 tonne per hectare (compared to the UK average yields of 8t/ha). The latter could, theoretically, more than double yields with little environmental impact with the right agroecological techniques and farmer engagement. While some argue that feeding the world is more a matter of better distribution and reducing food waste, Prof. Pretty believes we need to focus on increasing the food production of these 2.4 billion farmers, many of whom are poor, on their own farms. But we need to increase production in the right way.

In 1997, Prof. Pretty coined the term sustainable intensification to highlight the fact that we need to do more and better on existing agricultural land. The term doesn’t imply that one system or technology is better than another, instead it is about getting the best outcomes for a range of objectives. There are a pantheon of options, for example, no till farming, push-pull pest control, precision farming to name a few and the right choice will depend on the agroecological circumstances. In 2009, Reaping the Benefits, a report by the Royal Society concluded that the need to increase food production by 70% to 2050 would have to come from existing land and that we need to do intensification better, accentuating the positive and diminishing the negative. In a sense we need to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course the environmental impacts are only one of agriculture’s hidden costs, as Prof. Tim Lang explained. Of the 19 leading risk factors of disease, which account for 58.8 million deaths each year, food is a contributory factor in 10 of these, for example cardiovascular disease (CVD). In 2011 to 2030 CVD will cause economic losses of $15 trillion. From 2010 to 2030 non-communicable diseases such as diabetes are estimated to cost 48% of global GDP and yet the cost to prevent many of these diseases is very small in comparison. Prof. Lang expands that if food systems are to be designed with public health in mind they would look very different: more horticulture, less meat and dairy production for example. Dr. Pete Myers, Environmental Health Services, talked about the impacts of agrochemicals on human health, of which only the tiniest fraction of chemicals have been studied and linked to health and economic costs. Much of our knowledge on the impact of agrochemicals is based on outdated methodologies, ignoring the huge advances in epigenetics and endocrine disruptors of more recent years as well as cocktail and timing effects. For example, many chemicals whose properties we thought we knew may have a different impact when combined with other chemicals and exposure to even low doses of chemicals can have a profound effect, sometimes much later in life. Dr. Myers gave as an example the effect of 2.5 parts per billion (ppb) of atrazine (farmers usually apply at higher concentrations) to frogs from hatching to adult, the result was the conversion of a genetic male to a fully functioning female (i.e. able to reproduce). In another experiment, the same strain of mice, eating the same amount of calories and undertaking the same physical activities, would become obese when exposed to 1ppb of obesogens (commonly used as fungicides) from birth, stem cells that would have become bone cells becoming fat cells.

So our food production systems produce negative impacts on the environment and for human health but our understanding of these hidden costs is still relatively small and even smaller when it comes to how this information should be used. While some at the conference argued for the inclusion of these costs into retail prices of food, others acknowledged the impact this could have on the poor and hungry, and instead urged the use of such figures in guiding policy making, whose language is predominantly one of economics.

Going vegetarian: the answer to the world’s problems?

Speaking at the First International Conference on Global Food Security held last month in the Netherlands, David Tilman, Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota and professor at University of California, Santa Barbara‘s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, presented his views on how we can achieve global food security and environmental sustainability.

Food insecurity and unsustainable use of the environment are two of the greatest challenges we as a society face. And they are linked: how we tackle one problem will affect the other. Prof. Tilman laid out the main barriers we face to achieving food security and environmental sustainability:

1)      Increased demand driven by population and income growth

2)      Dietary shifts and health including under and over nutrition

3)      Environmental issues which include greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient pollution, ecosystem destruction and biodiversity loss.

Speaking to the second barrier in his list, Prof.Tilman explained that as income increases so does the demand for calories and animal protein. He pointed to the need for changes in dietary behaviour, without which it is unlikely we will address the world’s problems.

By 2050 global demand for crop protein will have increased by 110%, for crop calories by 100%. 30% of these increases will be a product of population growth, 70% from higher incomes, which are increasing most rapidly in poorer nations.

Changing our diets will not only address some of this growth in demand but it could also make us healthier. Recent evidence points to a 50 to 60% lower incidence of diabetes in lower meat diets. A pesco-vegetarian diet can add up to 10 years of life to a human adult, although there are multiple confounding factors that could bias this result. There is also a huge disparity in terms of access to meat, with half the global population having access to less animal protein than recommended under a low meat diet. So some people eat too much meat, some not enough.

Health benefits aside, a lower meat diet, for those with excessive meat consumption, also has environmental impacts in terms of agricultural production and how it expands. For example shifting towards greater production of fruits and vegetables, for which the whole world is underachieving in terms of eating the recommended amounts, less livestock and increased aquaculture.

Looking to the environmental sustainability challenge, Prof. Tilman explained that annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion equate to almost 9 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon equivalent, an amount that is hard to reduce given the world’s energy needs. If everybody drove a hybrid car, for example, this total amount would be reduced only by about one twentieth. At the moment it is hard to see how we will even reduce the rate at which emissions are growing each year. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (not including fossil fuels which make up about 10% of agricultural emissions) are just under 4Gt of carbon equivalent per year, most of which comes from land clearing, livestock production and nitrogen fertilisation.  If diets continue to change and yields continue on their past growth trajectories, by 2050 agricultural emissions will have increased by an additional 4Gt per year.

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Traditional innovation in farming is under threat, Thomason Reuters Foundation

Tanzania becomes a battleground in fight over genetically modified crops, The Washington Post

The battle lines on food labelling, Politico

Agric: Key to achieving MDGs, Daily Trust

Women’s land rights matter for tackling hunger, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Africa Should Not Ignore the Potential of GM Crops, Jane Karuku

Changing course to feed the world in 2050, Triple Crisis

Seeds of discontent documentary unveils how foreign investors fuel land grabs, Agrarian Justice

‘It’s the small-scale producers who feed the world – promote and protect them’, The Guardian

Antiobiotic use on organic apples and pears

Think organic farming doesn’t use harmful compounds, think again. As the expiry date for the use of the antibiotics, Streptomycin and Oxytetracycline, on organic apple and pear farming in the US approaches, much debate has arisen over the standards for organic farming and food labelling.

Apples and pears are subject to an infection called Fire Blight, which can devastate entire orchards For that reason organic farmers have received an exemption allowing them to spray certain antibiotics to tackle this disease. In 2002 when the US Department of Agriculture’s national organic labelling standards went into effect the two antibiotics were included in a list of ‘allowed’ compounds subject to periodic review. This exemption is set to expire in October 2014, which supposedly allowed time to develop new, non-antibiotic, methods of control. But as 2014 approaches and a viable alternative is still lacking, some groups are battling for an extension on this expiry date.

Last week the National Organic Standards Board met to discuss a petition from organic farmers to extend the exemption. They rejected this petition and use of the antibiotic Oxytetracyline will not be allowed beyond the existing expiration date. In six months’ time the Board will meet again to discuss the use of Streptomycin.

Sustainable agricultural intensification: Tackling food insecurity in a resource-scarce world

By Lindiwe Majele Sibanda and Katy Wilson.

Reblogged from AlertNet

Today, the world is searching for solutions to a series of global challenges unprecedented in their scale and complexity. Food insecurity, malnutrition, climate change, rural poverty and environmental degradation are all among them.

A recent meeting hosted by the Irish government and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ) in Dublin convened experts and practitioners from around the globe to discuss how the next iteration of development goals following the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can respond to this set of challenges, as part of the so-called “post-2015” development agenda.

Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable to these threats as both supply-side and demand-side challenges are putting additional pressure on an already fragile food production system. Indeed, current systems of production will only be able to meet 13 percent of the continent’s food needs by 2050, while three out of four people added to the planet between now and 2100 will be born in the region.

Improving agricultural yields efficiently and sustainably must be central in addressing Africa’s food insecurity challenges. This calls for “sustainable intensification”. 

Sustainable intensification offers a framework for producing more food with less impact on the environment, intensifying food production while ensuring the natural resource base on which agriculture depends is sustained, and indeed improved, for future generations.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the term has taken on a highly politicised meaning, with some arguing it is synonymous with industrial agriculture reliant on a high use of fertilisers and pesticides. But this does not have to be the case.

The term’s original scientific intent was for it to be relevant to all types of agricultural systems, including smallholder farmers in Africa. It is now time that the term is re-embraced to help meet the challenges we face as a global population of 9 billion people by the year 2050.

REPORT POINTS THE WAY

A new report from the Montpellier Panel, an eminent panel of international experts led by Sir Gordon Conway of Agriculture for Impact, provides innovative thinking and examples of how sustainable intensification can be used by smallholder African farmers to address the continent’s food and nutrition crisis.

Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins

Pastoralism is often seen as a traditional way of life rather than a thriving sector but livestock trade in the Horn of Africa is estimated to be worth $1 billion, an economic growth that has brought broader benefits for agriculture in the area.

A new book edited by Andy Catley, Jeremy Lind and Ian Scoones looks at how by focusing on city hubs, policy makers may be missing out on opportunities for investment in rural areas that could have multiplier effects for the rural economy as a whole, in turn boosting the country’s economic growth.

The book, in a collection of case studies, presents the diversity, adaptability and creativity of pastoralists as well as the challenges they face in the hopes that policymakers will see the importance of pro-pastoralism policies not only as a route to supporting livelihoods but as an opportunity for economic growth.