'Feeding the world'--or consuming it?

The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible 22

In the ongoing debate about whether sustainable agriculture can “feed the world,” it’s important not to lose sight of what industrial agriculture is doing to ecosystems—both in specific areas and on a grand scale.

Producing and distributing lots and lots of calories, leveraged by fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers and poisons, may solve certain short-term problems; but the practice also creates long-term ones that won’t be easily solved.

In June, a study emerged showing that so-called inert ingredients in Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used flagship herbicide, can kill human cells even at low levels—“particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells,” reports Scientific American. This is an herbicide that’s used on virtually all of our nation’s corn and soy fields, covering tens of millions of acres of cropland. (It’s also widely used by landscapers and on home lawns.)

Then there was the recent atrazine imbroglio. For years, the EPA has been assuring the public that the highly toxic herbicide, still widely used in the Corn Belt, wasn’t showing up in drinking water in worrisome levels. Turns out that was a lie, as some excellent muckraking by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund revealed. Atrazine exposure has been strongly associated with reproductive health maladies, including a rise in hermaphroditism among frog populations.

Note that corn and soy production, as practiced today, is completely reliant on these two broad-spectrum herbicides.

Now comes news about the hazards of another input critical to the project of industrial agricultire: synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. When farmers apply nitrogen to farm fields, a certain amount enters the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. And according to a study conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published in Science, human-generated nitrous oxide is now the No. 1 contributor to ozone-layer depletion.

The study is the first ever to look closely at nitrous oxide’s role as an ozone destroyer. The results are alarming. From a summary of the study on the NOAA website:

For the first time, this study has evaluated nitrous oxide emissions from human activities in terms of their potential impact on Earth’s ozone layer. As chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been phased out by international agreement, ebb in the atmosphere, nitrous oxide will remain a significant ozone-destroyer, the study found. Today, nitrous oxide emissions from human activities are more than twice as high as the next leading ozone-depleting gas.

The withering away of the ozone layer, which was slowed but not stopped by the 1987 Montreal Protocol phasing out CFCs, is no trivial matter. As the NOAA summary puts it:

The ozone layer serves to shield plants, animals and people from excessive ultraviolet light from the sun. Thinning of the ozone layer allows more ultraviolet light to reach the Earth’s surface where it can damage crops and aquatic life and harm human health.

Moreover, the Montreal Protocol does not regulate nitrous oxide.

Of course, agriculture-induced nitrous oxide isn’t just eating the ozone layer. It’s also a greenhouse gas with 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

Thus the implications of agriculture’s reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer are literally earth-shaking: The way we’re feeding ourselves is contributing dramatically to two processes—climate change and ozone depletion—that could literally make the planet uninhabitable by humans.

Worse still, we my be seriously underestimating industrial agriculture’s nitrous oxide emissions. When considering agriculture’s contribution of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere, scientists have assumed that about 1 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers ends up in the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. The EPA operates under that assumption, as did the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the real number may be considerably higher. A 2008 study [PDF] by the Nobel-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen found that as much as 5 percent of nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers turns into nitrous oxide—which would make agriculture a much larger contributor to climate change (and ozone depletion) than is currently assumed.

On top of all of that, nitrogen runoff from agriculture is also strongly implicated in the creation of coastal dead zones—large algae blooms that suck oxygen out of the sea and snuff out marine life.

What all of this points to is the need to bring ecological considerations into agriculture. And in fact, there’s already a budding field known as agroecology. Agrocecology is now at best a fringe field in academia; as public funding for university research dries up, giant agribusiness firms like Monsanto increasingly finance—and control—the research agenda. They have little interest in ecology and vested interests in pushing their own proprietary products.

 

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

Related Stories

Advertisement
Advertisement
  1. foodprovider's avatar

    foodprovider Posted 7:58 am
    01 Sep 2009

    Could you please distiguish what sustainable agriculture and indutrial agriculture is?  It would be helpful to know exactly what your definitions are.  Thanks. 

    Permalink

  2. foodprovider's avatar

    foodprovider Posted 8:17 am
    01 Sep 2009

    Tom, what does the title of your article have to do with the article it'self.  I was all ready to learn about how we are eating wrong and come to find that this is just another article about how agriculture is bad.  I was disappointed when i found that out.  Now if you want to write about something that can be potentially harmful to human life, write an article about the devastating properties of di-hydrogen oxide.  I would think that a compound such as that (which can wipe out whole populations within minutes) would be of greater concern than "how we eat".

    Permalink

  3. Barbara P Posted 12:21 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    Dear Foodprovider,The Dihydrogen oxide scare is such an old hoax. We would need a huge zunami to wipe out whole populations within minutes with 'water.'

    Permalink

    1. foodprovider's avatar

      foodprovider Posted 1:02 pm
      01 Sep 2009

      my point exactly.  why use scare tactics?  Stick with the facts, get data from both sides.  For every study telling us one thing, there is a study telling us different.  Why do we listen to opinions? Opinions like the Time Article on the cost of food.  If you want to know about your food, go to the people who produce your food.  Find out for yourself how the food you put on your table gets there. 

      Permalink

  4. Ken Meter's avatar

    Ken Meter Posted 12:35 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    Great story, Tom, with important insights all people who eat should work to overturn.  All I want to add is the fact that atrazine is routinely showing up in rainfall -- so even those of us who purchase organic foods have chemical residues to contend with.

    Permalink

    1. foodprovider's avatar

      foodprovider Posted 1:06 pm
      01 Sep 2009

      Ken, could you tell us what references you found that state that atrazine is found in rainwater?  I had heard that atrazine (actually a metabolite that is also found in atrazine) had been found in lakes in northern Canada too.  Funny thing is, there has been no atrazine used that far north, as no crops were grwon that far north.

      Permalink

    2. Matt D Posted 1:56 pm
      01 Sep 2009

      Atrazine in rainwater?? Are you kidding me?You, me and everyone else commenting here is going to die of heart disease, cancer or accidents that have nothing to do with absurdly low levels of pesticides.  Millions of people are starving RIGHT NOW while fundementalist greens obsess over trace levels of chemicals in their food and the survival of every last critter species.  Some chemicals used in industry (whether agriculture, automotive or telecommunications) are dangerous and should be regulated/replaced accordingly - but you have to base your choices on scientific cost-benefit analyses, not emotion.  Banning all "chemicals" is not a science-based position.  It's superstition.  Industrialized agriculture is not killing the planet any more than ipods and priuses are.  The entire Western lifestyle has a really big environmental footprint right now, and no simple-minded "solution" will change that.

      Permalink

      1. Yardener Posted 3:51 pm
        01 Sep 2009

        Whew, empty the dirty water from your bong pardner.Superstition? You've been holding your breath for way too long! It's a scientific fact that the use of chemical destroys the soil organisms, rendering the soil sterile and useless, requiring greater amounts of chemicals - pick your cide, it doesn't matter cowboy - for decreasing amounts of yield.
        Ignore me though. Empty that dirty water a pick up a copy of the meticulously researched "The End of Food" by Paul Roberts. I wonder if you can even get past the cover seeing that you've stated that industrial agriculture isn't killing the planet.Hey! Did you know the guys at the Land Institute think that industrial agriculture is responsible for 40% of ALL carbon in the atmosphere? Ahct! Not that it matters to you but I'm sure the IPCC is kicking themselves over missing nitrogen. Just remember though: natures abhors monoculture. Pathogens love it.
        Keep your head down in the sand as the food system continue to slow motion collapse. Notice how it will all come to an end rather quickly as they add even more chemicals in hopes of slavaging what's left. The answer is and always has been right under our noses: compost.

        Permalink

  5. Cold Press Posted 1:41 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    FOOD PROVIDER comments above:"Tom, what does the title of your article have to do with the article it'self.  I was all ready to learn about how we are eating wrong and come to find that this is just another article about how agriculture is bad."Of course, the entire article answers this question but the fourth paragraph from the end seems to nail it down precisely:"Thus the implications of agriculture’s reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer are literally earth-shaking: The way we’re feeding ourselves is contributing dramatically to two processes—climate change and ozone depletion—that could literally make the planet uninhabitable by humans."Tom: Thanks for your article about 'how we are eating wrong.'

    Permalink

  6. Ken Meter's avatar

    Ken Meter Posted 2:00 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    For "Foodprovider", my source is Tyrone Hayes at Berkeley, one of the foremost experts on atrazine.  Exactly what you mention is why this scares me so much.  Just as we have heavy metal pollution landing in pristine northern waters (such as Isle Royale in the middle of Lake Superior) from coal plants in the Four Corners area because of wind patterns and long-distance deposition, it seems atrazine is spreading all over, whether used locally or not.  It has been banned in European countries, and seems unlikely to last in the US.

    Permalink

  7. foodprovider's avatar

    foodprovider Posted 4:23 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    Yardener....You make a good point.  Some chemicals do reduce the microbial activity in the soils.  Some reduce the harmful microbe while some are nonselective.  For the most part, a grower doe not use what is not needed.  It is not economical to use a product, whether it is what you call a chemical or a natural product, if it does not improve yield and quality to the crop grown.  As far as all the chemicals making the soil sterile and useles requiring greater amounts of chemicals is bogus.  I am a farmer.  I grow food so you can eat.  I grow fiber so you can be clothed, I grow fuel so you can heat your house, drive your car, and cook your food.  I began farming in 1996.  Since then I have doubled my yields without doubling my use of chemicals.  The amout of fertilizer i use id less today than in 1996.  The amount of insecticides is less today that in 1996.  The amount of herbicide i use today is less than 1996.  My soil produces more crops on less.  How can that be, if we are piosoning our lands and sterilizing them?  The loss of soil due to erosion has all but dissappeared.  The organic matterial has increased upto 2 points!  The water holding capacity has increased and the earthworm populuations has increased.  BTW..I am not organic either.  But I am sustainable!  My Farm will be a productive farm for generations.  No farmer will knowingly abuse his farm, and that includes his livestock.  A farm, just like any other business is driven by economics.  If producing food without synthetic plant nutrients and without synthetic pest control measures is what you are demanding.  Make it economically worthwhile.  I dis grow soybeans for direct human consumption until it became a money losing proposition.  And for all of you that think farming should be like they rememebr their grandparents doing it,  those days are done.  It's economics.  The only way to survive is to become economically viable.  The US enjoys the lowest food costs in the world.  Less than 10% of your income goes for food.  Less tha 10%.  One last thing, do you know who sets the price for the grains, meats, vegetables and dairy products you eat?  It is not the producer.  It is you, the consumer.

    Permalink

    1. Yardener Posted 4:33 pm
      01 Sep 2009

      How big is your farm FoodProvider?

      Permalink

      1. Matt D Posted 5:28 pm
        01 Sep 2009

        Zing! if his farm is "small" he's a hobby gardener and if it's "big" he's part of the multnational conspiracy!  Any dummy can write a book explaining why Creationism is real or vaccines cause autism.  If you want to actually contribute to the sustainability of agriculture (or dedicate your career to it like some of us), you'll need to wade into the primary literature and learn the nitty gritty details.Good point about the Land Institute though! The fact that my postings refer to multiple viewpoints proves I'm an absent-minded partisan!

        Permalink

      2. foodprovider's avatar

        foodprovider Posted 7:03 am
        02 Sep 2009

        My farm consists of 130 milk cows, another 320 head of youngstock along with 400 acres of corn, 160 acres of soybeans and 300 acres of alfalfa. It is not big by some standards, but also not small.  I would consider our size about average for the type of operation we are in.

        Permalink

  8. Yardener Posted 6:54 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    And if it's medium? Then what? Just more dirty bong water sarcasm? Is that all you've got to contribute? That and your assumptions?

    Permalink

  9. bblunder Posted 10:46 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    Wow, its great to see a blog about agriculture that insults farmers. It really makes us feel like we are truly stewards of the land. According to this blog, I am the single most destructive power in the universe. Wow, now that is something I can brag about.The most impressive thing about this whole discussion is the emotional tie to organics and sustainability - it is very cult like. Don't try and look at it from another angle, folks, 'cause only one way is right. NOTE SARCASM.I have organics as part of my acreage. I have them because they make me money. Essentially, I can sell them for 3 times higher price to some person who thinks that organic agirculture is going to save the world. TO those people, thank you - your money is always good. I spray my organics with organically approved chemicals that cost 6 times as much as soft chemistries. This probably doesn't benefit any large chemical company at all... Why do I spray, this is why: Have you ever had your entire livelihood resting in the fate of nature? If the answer is no, then you will have no idea to have your house, your farm, your children's college tuition, and your retirement involved in one season. If you wonder why sprays are used - there you go. Trust me, we rather not spray - it costs us money for both the tractor and chemical. But when i take my produce to the market, and the consumer sees a spot and doesn't buy my goods, it makes that extra money for the spray seem reasonable.See, we farmers try to let nature do its thing, and hope we can reap the reward. Its funny how this blog says differently. I use conservational practices (Oh wait, the new word is Sustainable Practices), just as my neighbors do - who aren't organic. We use compost, we use fertilizers - i just have to import my fertilizer from Chile (Chilean nitrate) for my organic block while they get theirs from the US. Oh, by the way - READ YOUR SOIL MICROBIOLOGY TEXTBOOK - compost and manures also add to NOx emissions through a process of denitrification.I will say this to the author: go back to your little CSA farm and continue to think that growing 25 boxes a week is enough to make a living. I have to pack out over 250 and cover markets to ensure that i can pay for my employees, expenses, and pillaging the land. You see, in Calfiornia, I don't get suckers like you to volunteer at my farm - I have to pay for my Hispanic laborers 'cause all the surrounding white people are too damn lazy to work hard for $10-$12 an hour. I am glad that your little experimental farm has a luxury that I will never have. And NO, you can not volunteer at my farm - I had enough of those people around to screw things up (There is no good way to fire a volunteer).Lets see about my soil analysis. As foodprovider has stated, my numbers will back up his/hers. Over the past 5 years my soil organic carbon has increased from 0.5% to 2%. My reliance upon nitrogen additives have diminished. I use integrated pest management practices to reduce my sprays, and I have the added luxury of using solar panels to help run my electric pumps. OH, wait - that was the information from my conventional acreage...You are right, looks like I am pillaging the land! 

    Permalink

  10. bblunder Posted 11:00 pm
    01 Sep 2009

    Few more questions: how can we all believe the scientists that propose global warming, but disbelieve the scientists (many at the same institutions) that say GMOs are not harmful to consume?The second is this: Truly name a soil sterilant. Atrazine is broken down by bacteria, albeit slowly. Methyl Bromide actually stimulates strains of Pseudomonas sp., Glyphosate is a phosphonate acid which is actively broken down by bacteria. These chemicals have nothing on the chemicals used to develop paints for yoru cars and houses, smelt the metal used in your vehicles and homes, and generate the elctrons that you have wastefully used in writing your blog. The last conservative estimate I have read indicated by University of California Scientists is that emissions by farms account for 16% of the total emissions contributing to global warming. The 40% number is probably due to the fact that to farm, you have to clear and till land which exposes soil carbon to oxygen, thus producing more CO2.But lets assume ag is responsible for 40%...what about the other 60%...where did that come from, the moon? I will gladly give 40% of my energy and resources so I could eat, it is sad to think that food does not have the same worth to you.  

    Permalink

  11. Tyler Durden Posted 1:05 am
    02 Sep 2009

    To anyone who advocates using chemicals for any reason:  Chemicals poison the Earth and everything living on it.  The fact that you might temporarily be able to grow more food on a certain plot of land by poisoning forms of life that are competing with your plants is not a legitimate excuse for poisoning everything.  Nor are your financial problems a legitimate excuse for doing that.  This has nothing to do with organic agriculture saving the world, but instead has to do with chemical agribusiness destroying it.  There are plenty of organic farmers who make a living farming that way.  Poisoning the Earth to grow food is immoral.

    Permalink

    1. foodprovider's avatar

      foodprovider Posted 7:43 am
      02 Sep 2009

      Tyler:Organics is a choice.  You may choose to live your life "organically".  That is fine with me.  Maybe you have money that you don't know what to do with.  There are millions of ppl out there that do not.  Their biggest worry is where and when their their next meal will be.  As far as your statement on "chemicals poisoning the earth and everything living on it", I won't disagree with that statement about certain chemicals, but taken out of the context of your comment it appears you are targeting ag chemicals.  What makes a poison? Some of the basic elements of life can be a poison if they are used in excess.  Simple table salt, water, oxygen, asprin, etc etc.  So, if we follow your thoughts, we shoudl outlaw water, oxygen, salt or asprin because they cen be piosonous?  I know, now I sound rediculous.  As far as other life forms competeing with plants.  Lets look at other plants that choke out desirable plants (weeds, and not the kind you may smoke either, although that may be quite a lucrative crop), crop are just like people, the less stress they have, the more productive they are.  That also goes for the pathogens, and insects that attack the crops.  Some of these carry diseases that are deadly to humans and animals.  So, you would rather have a food on your plate that is infected with an acutely hazardous pathogen that can severely harm you?  That not only pertains to grains. fruits and vegetables, but meats also.  You brought up finacial.  Intresting.  I'm not sure how I should respond to that comment, and yet be nice.  I am not an economist, but i do know that if I do not make a profit, I will be in the soup line looking for my next meal, and I probably will not be so fussy as to what it is.  Again, millions of people in this world starve everyday, and I do not mean miss a meal or two, I mean starve to the point of death.  Your final comment...Yes, I also know of many organic growers who make a decent living.  I also many who don't.  Let me ask you a question...How do you know that the food you are eating really is organic?  Do you believe it is just because somebody told you it is? IS organic sustainable?  Doesn't organic practices invlove more use of fossil fuels?  What about some composted materials that carry potentially harmful pathogens?  Let me add a final comment, Organic has not been proven to be any more nutritious than conventionally produced food.   You have made a choice to eat organic, that is your choice.  Just like a religion.  Don't deprive someone from eating because of your choice.

      Permalink

  12. bblunder Posted 8:47 am
    02 Sep 2009

    Tyler Dudren: I wont be as nice as foodprovider: YOU ARE A MORON."Chemicals poison the Earth and everything living on it" What are you, five years old?What the heck do you think dyed the clothes you are wearing, painted the car you are driving, saves your life from a bacterial infection, allows you to be unconscience when the doctors cut on you? I could go on and on. Oh sure, those aren't "chemicals"...maybe because they benefit YOU.Bacteria, fungi, and insects produce chemicals every millisecond of the day because that is how they evolved. The chemicals I use are either mimics of the chemicals they produced, or are the exact same chemicals produced by the bacteria, fungi, etc. And by the way NO organic farmer makes a living without using chemicals...manure and compost contain chemicals, cover cropping with legumes allows the legumes and associated Bradyrhizobium/Rhizobium spp to produce chemicals, copper sulfate is a chemical.Please tell me how I can not use chemicals?
    I got an idea...I can move my farm every three years like the indigenous people did a thousand years ago. That means I have to cut down native vegetation, farm the ground intensively, destroy it, and move on. No more national parks, no more forested hillsides, no more WILDLIFE as 300 million people need to eat. Whats the next argument..."But we are overpopulated." Well, here is my solution to anyone who says that: take a gun and kill yourself...and let someone else who is hungry consume the colories that would have been designated to you. EVERYBODY has the right to eat.
    It is easy to see people like you, Tyler Dudren, have NEVER been hungry, NEVER been without food, and NEVER been without the basics needs of life. That is because of PEOPLE LIKE ME. 

    Permalink

    1. foodprovider's avatar

      foodprovider Posted 9:34 am
      02 Sep 2009

      You are right..I was WAY too nice.  Besides that i can't spell the big words without looking them up. 

      Permalink

  13. memeri Posted 10:16 pm
    06 Sep 2009

    This article is not a defense of industrial organic, which is not sustainable. It is a push for a more information / labor - intensive approach. The problem with food production today is not the "chemicals," it is monocultures and centralization. Substituting inputs doesn't solve it. Tom is not insulting farmers here. There is a need for educated, committed farmers who really know what they're doing to manage productive ecosystems. If you laugh at that language, you insult farmers. Maybe we need 10 times as many farmers as we have now. Would that be a problem?Incidentally, I question the wisdom of someone who states confidently that orgainc food has not been proven to be more nutritious than conventional (ignore for now whether 'nutrition' is the only thing that matters) while saying that for every study that says one thing there is another that says different, or that studies from the same institution often give conflicting results. While these are true, I can say, as a biologist with decades of continuing experience producing and evaluating peer-reviewed research, it is generally easy to tell which studies are reliable and which are weak, flawed, or slanted in favor of a funder. Someone who implies you can settle a question by counting publications is either in over their head or being intentionally deceptive.Finally, I am simply bewildered whenever a farmer goes off about how 'conventional' farming methods are our only hope to feed the world, that you boutique farmers have the luxury of a choice to keep growing zuccini for yuppies or maybe flit away and do some other thing, while real farmers have to worry about supporting their family, and that is one scary life because one bad year and the kids' college education evaporates and its off to the soup kitchen. What's wrong with this picture? Tom is a successful farmer. His farm is small: more of those is more productive farms, right? We can despise the likes of Tom, who don't know financial insecurity as farmers -- some kind of purple heart, or we can catch a clue, get to work, and multiply his success. We may scoff at two-bit crackpots like Salatin, but as he will happily tell you, his farm out produces almost everybody else's, per acre. Their farms are small, their lives are not easy, but they aren't on that financial precipice. Laugh at stupid little CSAs, then try to find one with slots available.

    Permalink

Add a Comment

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Hello, Visitor!    Why not register?

Viewed
More
Commented
More
Advertisement