agriculture

  • impact of agriculture → consumes 70% of freshwater use, produces 25% of GHG emissions to the atmosphere, and is 17% of all commercial energy in the U.S.
  • food security → guarantee of an adequate, reliable, and available food supply to all people at all times; involves food availability, food access, food stability/resilience, and food utilization
  • green revolution → a doubling of global food production since the 1950s, achieved because of pesticides, technology and machinery, genetic modification, shift to large-scale farming, and chemical fertilizers
    • pesticides - eliminating competing organisms that could diminish yield
    • technology and machinery - mechanization, industrialization, etc improved the productivity of agriculture
    • genetic modification - targeting specific characteristics and modifying the genetic code
    • shift from small to large-scale farming - allows for efficiencies and economies of scale
    • embracement of fossil fuels
  • problems with agricultural developments → the overuse of pesticides increases our exposure to harmful chemicals and can stay in the environment for a long time; lack of genetic diversity can result in the collapse of crops; soil quality decreases over time; land for farming is becoming increasingly rare (competing demand for space); supply of easily accessible, cheap fertilizers diminishes; can be expensive to develop new technologies
  • the environmental expense of industrialized farming → 70% of all freshwater use, uses 17% of all commercial energy used in the U.S., pollutes, degrades soil, destroys biodiversity; 10 units of nonrenewable fossil fuel energy are needed to put 1 unit of food energy on the table
  • food price roller coaster → volatile oil prices (increase in fossil fuel prices), increasing demand for meat/dairy products, diversion of land/agricultural produce for biofuels, diversion of land to house the growing population, extreme weather (drought and water shortages, flooding)
  • undernourishment → receiving less than 90% of daily caloric needs, mostly in developing worlds
  • overnutrition → receiving too many calories each day, common in the developed world; causes similar problems to those who are underfed including lower life expectancy, greater susceptibility to illness and disease, lower productivity and life quality
  • agricultural challenges → loss of prime farmland, loss of domesticated varieties, improving yields (more people to feed), curbing environmental impacts
  • loss of agricultural land → there is no prime agricultural land left unclaimed, land is lost to urbanization and suburban sprawl
  • Canada Land Inventory (CLI) → quality and suitability of land resources for particular uses, seven classes are used to rate land capability where class 1 has the highest and 7 the lowest capability to support agricultural activities
    • class 1 occupies less than 0.05% of Canada’s total land mass
    • Saskatchewan has the most total dependable agricultural land (class 1-3), while Ontario has the most class 1 agricultural land
  • loss of domestic varieties → farmers are using fewer varieties of plants and animals, currently, only 14 plants and 8 terrestrial animal species supply 90% of the global intake of calories, causing a loss of genetic diversity in our crops
  • increasing livestock yields → using hormones for better and faster growth, antibiotics are needed to prevent infection living in crowded conditions
  • increasing crop yields → land is limited, yields can be increased through genetic engineering and better farming methods (irrigation, using less water with drip irrigation)
  • industry pressure → moving towards a greater dependency on corporate farming because of efficiencies of scale and the need to feed the growing population; agricultural practices that are ecologically unsustainable but improve the bottom line; factory farming; and biotechnology (the 2nd green revolution)
  • environmental impacts of agriculture → declining site capability, pollution caused by agriculture (pesticide and fertilizer use), water quality and quantity impacts, conversion of natural ecosystems, emissions of greenhouse gases, increased vulnerability of monocultures (climate change, diseases), effects of biotechnology on biodiversity, and overall concerns with GMOs
  • land degradation and soil problems → foundation for feeding a growing population, but as population and consumption increase, soils are being degraded; poor agricultural practices allow countless tons of fertile soil to be blown and washed away
  • concerns with pesticides → genetic resistance, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, affect non-target species, new pests may emerge, don’t stay put, though usage continues to grow
  • meat production → meat is an important source of high-quality protein, meat production per capita more than doubled from 1950-2003 and is expected to double again by 2050, however, meat production has a lot of environmental concerns
  • agriculture and water pollution → runoff from fields sends pesticides and fertilizer flowing into rivers and lakes causing toxic pollution, eutrophication, and fish die-offs
  • eutrophication → introduction of excess nutrients in an aquatic system, algo population dies, consuming a lot of oxygen and leaving little for other species, ultimately resulting in fish die-offs
  • agricultural impacts on water → irrigation of croplands accounts for 75% of humanity’s consumptive use of freshwater
    • i.e. Colorado River water crisis - huge drainage basin carries water to the Pacific Ocean near Baja Mexico and has a huge water volume used to irrigate farms in the American Southwest to the point that the river now runs dry before reaching the ocean
  • virtual (embedded, indirect) water → the water hidden or embodied in the production of food, fibre, and non-food commodities
  • virtual water trade → huge amounts of water are displaced when poor countries grow water-intensive crops for export to countries trying to conserve their water supplies, 3/10 of the world’s top food exporters are water-scarce countries, and 3/10 of the top food importers are water-rich countries
  • agriculture and GHG emissions → agriculture accounts for more than 25% of total GHG emissions, if global agriculture continues on its current trajectory, it is estimated that the GHG from food production will increase by 50% by 2050
  • strategies to reduce environmental impacts of agriculture → increasing crop yields, reducing crop and food waste, using fertilizers and irrigation water more efficiently, and promoting healthier and more environmentally friendly diets
  • regenerative farming - organic agriculture → gentler on land, maintains the integrity of soil, less machinery, water and energy conservation, diversification of crops, no GMOs
    • soil conservation → return organic material to the soil and nurture its ability to sustain life, prevent erosion
    • low-input sustainable agriculture → small-scale, low-input farming; free-range, reduction in chemicals, hormone and antibiotic use, natural fertilizers; can result in a lower yield
  • Cuba and sustainable agriculture → Before the collapse of the socialist bloc, the use of highly mechanized agricultural methods, extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers, and high-scale irrigation was common. Its collapse brought great upheaval and led to an alternative model without the use of feed, fertilizers, or fuel, instead promoting the use of small farms and urban gardens
  • three pillars of sustainable agriculture → environment, social, and economic
    • environment - reduce the negative effects on natural ecosystems, or even enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends
    • social - quality of life of those who live and work on the farm as well as those in surrounding communities
    • economic - economic viability of an agricultural system that can survive in the long term in a changing economic context
  • future of agriculture → shifting food trends, increase in plant-based diets; vertical and hydroponic farming, less water, soil, and space; urban farming, more localized, fewer food miles
  • agricultural technology → automation, robots, drones, autonomous vehicles; precision farming, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides; biotechnology, breeding climate resistance, better yields, nutritional value, new ways to create food
  • biotechnology → modification of a plant or animal by adding genes from another species of plant or animal
  • transgenic/genetically modified species/GMOs → organisms that have received genes from other species
    • i.e. moving a gene from a fish that has an antifreeze protein into strawberries so that they don’t freeze
    • the original intent was to improve the production process (i.e. shelf life, greater yields), increasingly being used to improve nutritional composition or even therapeutic effects
  • CRISPR and genetic modification → Genome editing, a highly adaptable, targetable tool for cleaving and rewriting DNA sequences; allows for the fine-tuning of nucleotides and changing the genetic code
  • hacking photosynthesis → trying to have rice be more efficient in the way it photosynthesizes to increase crop yields, C4 rice project
  • benefits of GM crops → decrease nutritional deficiencies, improve yields
  • drawbacks of GM crops → cross-pollination with native species could dilute genetic diversity, available only to the rich as they are very expensive due to patents
  • lab-grown meat → meat produced by culturing animal cells in vitro, has environmental and ethical benefits, i.e. reduction in GHG emissions, water, and land requirements
  • cultured meat → meat is grown in a lab from stem cells; a biopsy of cells from the muscle of choice are taken and cultured in petri dishes and fed with a nutrient mixture, then cultures are transferred to larger containers and form fibres, which are harvested