Here's a guest post from Rodale Institute CEO Tim LaSalle.
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Tom Philpott is right to highlight the tremendous ecological debt we've built up by depending on nitrogen fertilizer to run our crop production system. Depending on mined and fossil-fuel produced nitrogen for our food is no more sustainable than depending on peaking oil and mountain-top removed coal for our energy.
There's no more "cheap" food and fuel, because, really, there never was. The huge irony -- currently obscured by the psychological jolt of widespread shortages of food and fuel -- is that we were just learning of how not cheap industrial food has been:
1. The Pew Foundation report on industrial livestock production tells the U.S. public that environmental, human health, and livestock treatment short-cuts that made factory farming seem like such a sweet way to get cheap protein simply can't go on.
2. A global collection of analysts concluded earlier this year that "advanced" farming using high-production technologies has failed to account for the resulting human and environmental costs. Place-specific improvements must take into account traditional wisdom, social implications, and basic water and biodiversity impacts, said the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
3. Even after years of cajoling, state regulating, and badgering by environmentalists, the more than 40,000 Pennsylvania farms located within the Chesapeake Bay watershed discharge 46 percent of the nitrogen and 58 percent of the phosphorus in these waterways. They're facing stronger regulation, but no new paradigm of how to produce the crops and meat their buyers demand.
Regenerative organic farming does not use synthetic chemical fertilizer -- a product without residual benefit -- depending instead on a biologically vibrant soil ecosystem that makes timed-release nitrogen available to crops.
Important parts of this system are:
- Legume crops that interact synergistically with specific soil bacteria to convert free nitrogen from the atmosphere into forms that crops can utilize;
- Crop rotations to balance fertility needs from year to year;
- Cover crops which are incorporated into field surface to increase soil organic matter;
- Compost (made from crop residue, animal manures, and other organic matter) as a soil amendment to improve soil health and biological activity.
It's like Thomas Friedman said recently of the "big idea" to suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax this summer: "[This] proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious -- the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout."
We, as a country, have not yet begun to fight for a more sane way to grow the food we need to feed ourselves and to have our farms prosper. The crisis of nitrogen fertilizer supply and affordability is real, but the biggest part of the answer is not to haul or manufacture tons more to support our corn habit, but to simply ask:
What food and feed crops would do better on the fertility we can grow in ways that improve soil, don't pollute as much, and keep lots more carbon in the soil that non-organic methods?
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Comments
View as Flat
Sam Wells Posted 7:24 am
25 Jun 2008
Onward through the fog
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:55 am
25 Jun 2008
What really worries me though is phosphorus - another essential nutrient - the "P" in N-P-K.
Unlike nitrogen (which can be obtained from the air or via N-fixing bacteria), the supplies of phosphorus are limited. Once the phosphate deposits have been mined out, that's the end of phosphorus fertilizers, the end of modern agriculture.
Estimates of phosphorus deposits are hazy - we might have 50, 100 or 200 years before phosphorus "runs out." The problems begin much sooner, however, since phosphorus will be getting harder and more expensive to mine. Just as with oil, we go after the easier deposits first. And just as we will have Peak Oil, so too with phosphorus. We published one analysis which concluded that we are at or near Peak Phosphorus.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had an excellent interview on the subject.
Links and comments here:
http://energybulletin.net/node/45534
It would be a wonderful topic for writers/journalists in agricultural sustainability. Not much has been written about it.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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davedenali Posted 10:45 am
25 Jun 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:14 pm
25 Jun 2008
The nitrous oxide emitted from chemical fertilizer use equals the GHG effect of 2/3 of the CO2 absorbed by the crop fertilized.
If the methane produced from fertilizer and manure run off were turned into biogas fuel instead (in a biogas digestor), would offset 20 times the CO2 produced from burning it for energy.
And the organic fertilizer from biodigestion would replace chemical fertilizer, halting the nitrous oxide release.
So if 5% of our CO2 emitting energy use came from biogas produced from manure and biomass, then that would offset all of our CO2 emissions.
As solar and wind take over from fossil fuel and conservation reduces energy use, that 5% portion shrinks drastically, so it would become practical to offset the rest of unavoidable CO2 emissions, like fuel for plugin hybrids or aircraft.
A sufficient source of fertilizer exists in human urine alone to produce all thje food humans need. The soil ammendment of fertilizer and partially digested biomass would revive our soil as a natural carbon sink.
With energy and ag policy like this, GHG and high ebnergy prices would pass into history with very little climate effect. We have 10 to 20 years, lets get on this yesterday!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wiscidea Posted 2:54 pm
25 Jun 2008
Will phosphorus "run out" shortly after cheap oil disappears, regardless of whether there is still phosphorus to mine? And how might this affect the distribution of crops being grown?
We'll be in an awful postion, as a species, if our prime ag land is half a globe away from our prime phosphorus mines.
What should I be doing in my garden and future orchard right now to conserve phosphorous?
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:35 pm
25 Jun 2008
One of the biggest things that would help is cycling back into the soil the things we now dispose of as "wastes" -- food scraps, garden clippings, urine, feces (harder to do), etc.
The graduate student in the ABC interview I mentioned above is doing research in systems used by communities to collect urine for farmers. There are trials going on in Sweden and Switzerland, I think.
The fascinating book "Humanure" has a cult following, and I think it is downloadable online.
There are also techniques which minimize the waste of fertilizer applied by farmers onto fields.
The plus side of high fertilizer prices is that they make us do "the right things" - not waste so much and begin thinking of compost and manure as a source of nutrients.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:42 pm
25 Jun 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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ndunne Posted 7:13 pm
25 Jun 2008
Once we crush the republicans in november, there'll be plenty of phosphorus to go around.
Manures have a decent amount of P too, especially poultry manure. Not sure how sustainable manure is, though, unless it's coming from a sustainable farm.
NJD
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MAD MAC Posted 7:57 pm
25 Jun 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Erik Hoffner Posted 11:26 pm
25 Jun 2008
"Regenerative farming practices, local knowledge and regionally appropriate technology favored over biotech and industrial agriculture" :
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080418/fp1
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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MAD MAC Posted 2:47 am
26 Jun 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Erik Hoffner Posted 3:28 am
26 Jun 2008
A larger share of the cost of growing organically vs industrially is labor. But the world you describe of 7 billion people would be able to supply much labor, right?
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Earl Killian Posted 5:48 am
26 Jun 2008
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Earl Killian Posted 6:02 am
26 Jun 2008
In 1910 the population of China was 410 million. That was 43 per km2.
In 2007, the world was 45 persons per km2. It might be feasible to feed the world with 1910 Chinese agriculture. However, you might not like it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:21 am
26 Jun 2008
It's all part of an ecological cycle. Since nutrients are lost at each step in the cycle, the end products (wastes) can never supply enough nutrients by themselves to keep the cycle going.
Consider the steps in the cycle:
Soil has nutrients (N, P, K in particular) that were formed by geological and other long-term processes. Rocks breaking down, for example. N-fixation by some plants.
Plants use nutrients to grow. After the plants die, most of the nutrients are returned to the soil as it decomposes.
Animals eat some of the plants. Their poop and carcasses return many nutrients to the soil.
We eat plants and animals. Unfortunately our modern civilization diverts many nutrients away from the soil. Most of our urine and feces - prized by earlier civilizations - goes to the ocean. Much food waste becomes garbage which is burned or buried in such a way that it will ever decompose. Biofuels cause nutrients to be burned - thus, by their very nature, biofuels are unsustainable on a large scale. Even our corpses, burnt or buried in non-decomposable containers, remove nutrients from the cycle.
Nutrient shortages were a big deal in the 19th century, with wars being fought over guano and old graveyards being dug up for the bones.
Cheap energy saved us in the 20th century. The Haber-Bosch process enabled us to create nitrogen synthetically (at great expenditure of energy). Cheap energy made it possible to mine and transport other minerals.
With the end of cheap energy, what do we do? Other posters describe the problems and possible solutions. The discussion is just beginning...
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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amazingdrx Posted 8:36 am
26 Jun 2008
Nitrogen is no problem because we can always grow nitrogen fixing green manure crops to add to our biodigestion process.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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MAD MAC Posted 7:12 pm
26 Jun 2008
Victory in Pattani
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314159265 Posted 7:54 pm
26 Jun 2008
From a scientist's perspective, current industrial agriculture is the height of primitivity and stupidity. Heck, we can't even do sustainable ag in the Amazon forest: the farming there being degenerated to the most primitive form of prehistoric agriculture (slash and burn soil exploitation), which the pre-Columbian inhabitants' technique was vastly superior to (their 500y old terra preta soil still being fertile; being mined and sold to gardeners).
Jobless? Hungry? Grow your own! Bored and unhappy? Go play with plants and animals! Getting rid of biophobia can also cure other civilisation neuroses.
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:56 pm
26 Jun 2008
MAD MAC: slave laborerers working collective farms? The US is NOT, NOT going to go back to small farms unless there's an economic collapse and world war. You can't go backwards.We most definitely could go back. Return to a decentralized agrarian mode is common in history (e.g. fall of Rome).
You seem to believe that life on small farms is a terrible fate. That's only true if you're exploited. Otherwise, the life of the small farmer has been held to be honorable and rewarding.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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John former Marine Posted 10:07 pm
26 Jun 2008
How is it that a $100K farm tractor, tons of sprayers and equipment, seed, fertilizer, and pesticides can cost less than the old way of doing things? It can't. The way the system is build up, however, farmers don't get paid for growing crops, they get paid subsidies. If conventional agriculture was indeed cheaper than organic, then they'd be doing it our way everywhere in the world.
Cheap oil enables this unsustainable form of agriculture. It will come to an end soon enough.
Shu pas a vende.
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wiscidea Posted 10:24 pm
26 Jun 2008
Industrial farming is probably "less expensive" because, like a lot of of our large industries, it externalizes huge costs by...
... depending on a tax payer supported military to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuel, dumping chemicals in the air and water and expecting the rest of us to pay for treatment for various illnesses caused by those chemicals, destroying soil and expecting federal and state angencies to find quick fixes to repair the damage, using the Mississippi and other rivers as open sewers while those dependent on clean rivers and clean oceans are forced to abandon their jobs... and, until very recently... they could move on to new land once the older land was exhausted.
Dumping your messes on other people is no longer a viable option. Exhausting the land and moving on to new territory is no longer possible. Soil is eroding, on average, about twice as fast as new soil forms. Industrial agriculture simply is not sustainable.
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John former Marine Posted 11:56 pm
26 Jun 2008
Shu pas a vende.
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:07 am
27 Jun 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:43 am
27 Jun 2008
Recycling fertilizer provides clean biogas energy (to backup a renewable smart grid) as well as GHG offset that can halt comate disaster.
Curtailing methane and nirtous oxide release offsets CO2 emissions. It's just that simple.
Factories can produce agricultural robots instead of the farm machinery now in use.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:23 am
27 Jun 2008
Even with wonderful farming practices, soils will have problems with nutrient depletion. For one thing, crops take up nutrients which are then sold and eaten elsewhere. So there's a constant stream of nutrients leaving the farm.
Interestingly, this became a big issue in the 1800s with the growth of big cities. We had the twin problems of stinking sewage in the city, and nutrient depletion in the countryside. It's a little known fact, that Karl Marx was obsessed by this problem. (Liebig, Marx, and the depletion of soil fertility: relevance for today's agriculture).
Some of the solutions I've heard proposed:
Improve the soil. Good humus, soil structure and soil ecology (micro-organisms) keep nutrients bound up, so they aren't washed away (especially K and N; P is not very mobile).
Grow green manure. Raising crops with deep roots brings minerals up from down below. These crops are left in the field to decompose (or are taken to other fields).
Apply rock dust. Popular with many organic farmers.
Bring in compost and organic material from elsewhere. Return urine and humanure to the soils.
Apply some synthetic fertilizer when first changing from chemical to organic farming. Primes the pump, apparently. Suggested by several organic farmers I respect.
It was in reading an essay by the great Seattle food writer Angelo Pellegini that I first got a clue about the historic importance of nutrients. As a boy growing up in Italy in the early 20th century, Pellegrini earned money by following horses and picking up their horse droppings to sell to grateful gardeners.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Hal 9000 Posted 8:32 am
27 Jun 2008
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MAD MAC Posted 7:37 pm
29 Jun 2008
And it will be very bad for the environment as well.
Cities are good for the environment, because they compact a lot of people into a small space. Well, unless your organic methods are going to provide sufficient food for the peoples living int he cities, then it won't work.
We'll see how it shakes out. With the increasing cost of oil, that will be directly felt across the board, in food production, in clothing, etc.
But America will not become an agrarian society unless the global economy collapses. If that happens, expect massive war, massive violence (probably not good for the environment) and massive death across the planet. It won't be a gentle or willfull transition, nor can it be.
Victory in Pattani
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Erik Hoffner Posted 1:13 am
30 Jun 2008
Richard Heinberg has estimated that this country could feed itself with 400,000 new farmers tending smaller acreages. Not a very scary number. And like others have said above, it's a good life growing things. I managed 2 organic farms a decade ago, and it was a great experience.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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amazingdrx Posted 1:33 am
30 Jun 2008
Many could be CSAs. There is a growing grassroots movement to include dairy, poultry, and meat production in CSAs.
Local cooperative non-governmental socialism is a good thing. Co-existing right alongside good old fashioned family farm/local business competitive capitalism.
All those farms and many existing ones could produce clean GHG free energy and fertilizer too. Energy/ag policy reform would allow these new farms to respond to real free market demand.
Subsidies for corporate ag and energy need to be redirected to level the market for consumers and producers. So they can decide if they want local organic food without below cost corporate food shutting local farms and businesses down with unfair competition.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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MAD MAC Posted 1:04 am
01 Jul 2008
Victory in Pattani
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314159265 Posted 1:44 am
01 Jul 2008
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