Food production: the balancing act

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Christophe Pelletier

Since the beginning of times, feeding a population has always been about balance.

When mankind was still in the stage of hunting, fishing and gathering, survival was about keeping resources at a level that would allow the group to keep on feeding from its close environment.
When agriculture started, followed by the domestication of what became farm animals, the idea was clearly to have more control on the resources and insure that they would be available on a more regular basis. Of course, there were times when this did not happen, but the principle has remained.
For many centuries, agriculture was a local activity. Farmers would grow a diversified group of products that insured a sustainable balance at local level. The different products were a reflection of seasons and of land diversity. They also would offer different activities, and some revenue, through the different times of the year.
Their productions were part of a cycle. For instance, farm animals would eat crops coming from the farm to produce meat, milk, eggs which are all related to the reproduction cycle and the continuation of their species. What would not be digested, as well by the farm animals as by the local human population would return to the land as manure (usually mixed with a crop by-product such as straw to provide and insulating litter), fertilizing the next round of crops. So basically, what was extracted from the Earth was returning to it, thus insuring the continuity of the system, for as long as the climate would support it.
With the growth of world population and the increasing mobility and later globalization of markets, this very local and sustainable system has evolved. Products are sold far away from their area of production; many farms have specialized and replace the manure cycle by purchase of fertilizers. Animals are fed with raw materials originating from the over side of the world. Genetics, crop engineering, technical progress have also allowed yields to sharply increase as well as the speed of the production of foodstuffs, vegetal and animal. This has benefited mankind on the shorter term because it provided more food at relatively cheaper prices, so more accessible to a larger group. This has benefited trade and business, but it has brought its toll on the balance that is the cornerstone of any biologically related activity.
For example, intensive animal husbandry was developed in poor regions, allowing farmers to have a decent revenue in areas were they could not have stayed, but as the animals were fed with non-indigenous feedstuffs, they produced massive amounts of manure that were much higher than the local ground could process. This has led to loss of soil fertility, as a result of excess phosphates in the ground, among other things. Water resources have been polluted with high level of minerals, such as nitrates making it risky to use for infants and pregnant women. The exclusive use of chemical fertilizers in crop areas, as a result of the disappearance of a mixed farming also led to lower levels of organic matter (which is crucial to fix minerals and make them fully available for plants) and has caused some severe erosion of very fertile soils. While these problems were growing in the West as we were putting too much back on the land, on the other side of the world the opposite situation was happening with an exhaustion of soils to produce crops aimed for export only, which resulted in taking more out of those soils and not returning it in the right form. Further, these regions developed very often these commercial crops on land that had been won from ecosystems such has tropical forests, which have very sensitive soils to rain, erosion and oxidation of metals such as aluminum and iron.
By bringing the natural cycles out of balance, we have weakened the Earth from providing us optimally with what feeds us. Our future and our sustainability will depend of our ability to manage this balancing act. As usual, what seems a challenge can also offer new opportunities!

The challenge of feeding the world and preserving the planet

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Christophe Pelletier

The world population is increasing at an amazing rate.
From 6 billion people on the planet in 2000, we will be 9 billion by 2050; an increase of 50%; and we were only 3 billion in 1960.

By looking how much damage has been made to the environment and the huge depletion of natural resources that we have created in the last 50 years (or last time the population grew by 3 billion), one can wonder how we will be able to feed, shelter, provide water and energy to the whole population in 40 years from now.
When it comes to feeding the world, the first question that comes to mind is where can we produce 50% more agricultural products on a land area that will decrease as a result of more area needed for urbanism (unless, we grow cities in height) and 50% more demand for drinking water than now. And these percentages are actually very conservative if we think that the emerging countries are seeing their standard of living increasing, which unfortunately also means that more resources are wasted than just the incremental growth of 50%.
We need to feed 3 billion people more who on average will tend to eat more animal protein at the expense of grain and legumes. This demand for animal protein means more competition between humans and farm animals for the grains and legumes. So, we have less land available to grow so much more food of vegetal and animal origin.
We could consider increasing the agricultural area, but this means more deforestation and a strong reduction of natural habitats. More agriculture will mean more use of energy and water, which will have a huge impact on our environment and the price of commodities. And I am not even taken in the picture the fact that we also want to feed our cars with agricultural product, bio-ethanol.
On the other side of things, we hear more and more calls to restore more balance our environment, to use our resources more carefully. And this is the challenge, if not the dilemma of the coming years: we have only one Earth and it is not expandable, while our population is exploding.
How will we be able to meet both targets? Personally, I do not have the answer to this, but I am sure of one thing: a dramatic change must come, either of our own free will or forced by Nature, and we need to anticipate for this as this will require an adaptability as mankind has not known for a long time.

Bioethanol: Solution or Problem?

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Christophe Pelletier

Opinions seem to be quite diverse about using bioethanol as a fuel.
So is bioethanol a solution or a problem?

My view is that it will not solve the CO2 emission problem. All it can do is to reduce dependence on fossile fuel, but that is a very temporary relief, which has more to do with politics.
It is quite likely that a massive production of bioethanol will have more negative consequences than positive ones.
Using agricultural land to feed our cars instead of meeting the increasing demand for food as the world population increases strongly rises questions, especially ethically ones. Of course, a way of coping with this would be to turn more land from its current use into agricultural land, but that probably will result in more environmental discussable practices such as excessive deforestation.
I would love to see a thorough and comprehensive study of all the consequences, positive as well as negative, to know where bioethanol might lead us. What will the impact be on gas emissions? What will be the impact on fuel costs? What will be the impact on agricultural and food prices? So far, I have only read opinions and I haven’t found such research.

As long as this stays this way, I will choose the principle of precaution and favor policies that encourage people to cut their energy use instead of getting massively and blindly in something that appears to me as an illusion.