Farming needs 'climate-smart' revolution, says report

Richard Black BBC News 28 Mar 12;

Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns.

Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from scientists and policymakers.

Its final report was released at the Planet Under Pressure conference.

The commission was chaired by Prof Sir John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser.

"If you're going to generate enough food both to address the poverty of a billion people not getting enough food, with another billion [in the global population] in 13 years' time, you've got to massively increase agriculture," Sir John told BBC News.

"You can't do it using the same agricultural techniques we've used before, because that would seriously increase greenhouse gas emissions for the whole world, with climate change knock-ons."

Farming is probably responsible for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, although the figure is hard to pin down as a large proportion comes from land clearance, for which emissions are notoriously difficult to measure.

Although there are regional variations, climate change is forecast to reduce crop yields overall - dramatically so in the case of South Asia, where studies suggest the wheat yield could halve in 50 years.

"We need to develop agriculture that is 'climate smart' - generating more output without the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions, either via the basic techniques of farming or from ploughing up grassland or cutting down rainforest," said Sir John.

The techniques needed in different regions vary according to what is appropriate, said Dr Christine Negra, who co-ordinated the commission's work.

"In places where using organic methods, for example, is appropriate or economically advantageous and produces good socio-economic and ecological outcomes, that's a great approach," she said.

"In places where, using GMOs, you can address food security challenges and socio-economic issues, those are the right approaches to use where they've been proven safe."
Waste matters

The commission's recommendations go a long way beyond farming methods, however.

It says the economic and policy framework around food production and consumption need to change to encourage sustainability, to raise output while minimising environmental impacts.

Farmers need more investment and better information; governments need to put sustainable farming at the heart of national policies.

Prof Tekalign Mamo, who advises the Agriculture Ministry in Ethiopia, said models already existed for many of the transformations needed.

One, highlighted in the report, is Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, inaugurated in 2003 with the involvement of the government and international partners.

"One [aspect of it] is household asset building, so people don't deplete their resources in times of chronic food shortage," Prof Mamo told BBC News.

"Another is working on community assets such as building small-scale irrigation or watershed development; the communities own such activities and also allocate free labour, and the government provides incentives like food or cash for those participating.

"It has lifted about 1.3 million of the population from poverty and into food security, and at the same time they also conserved and rehabilitated the environment."

India's guarantee of employment in rural areas, Vietnam's progress with no-till rice farming (which reduces greenhouse gas emissions from soil), and moves to give women secure land ownership in five southern African countries are also highlighted in the report.

But it also recommends changes in developed nations - for example, around food waste.

"The less we waste food, the less food we have to produce, the less greenhouse gases are emitted," noted Dr Negra.

Before last December's UN climate conference in South Africa, the commissioners had advocated incorporating sustainable agriculture into the UN climate convention's discussions.

The eventual decision - to start talks on a "work programme" - is viewed by the commission as being weaker than it might have been.

The commission was established by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the global network of institutions working on food and poverty issues.

The Planet Under Pressure conference is a four-day gathering of academics, campaigners and business people in London designed to inform policymaking in the run-up to the Rio+20 summit in Brazil in June.

Food Security Focus Fuels New Worries Over Crop Chemicals
Carey Gillam PlanetArk 28 Mar 12;

Analysis: Food Security Focus Fuels New Worries Over Crop Chemicals Photo: Joe Skipper
A grove of star ruby grapefruit is sprayed by a worker in a grove in Vero Beach, Florida December 1, 2010.
Photo: Joe Skipper

Scientists, environmentalists and farm advocates are pressing the question about whether rewards of the trend toward using more and more crop chemicals are worth the risks, as the agricultural industry strives to ramp up production to feed the world's growing population.

The debate has heated up in the last several weeks, with a series of warnings and calls for government action including a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Critics say they fear the push to increase global crop production is translating into mounting health and environmental dangers. As usage expands in some areas, agricultural chemical residues have turned up in water supplies and air samples of U.S. farming communities.

The concerns are rooted in two converging trends:

Growing global demand for food, fuel and livestock feed is pushing many farmers to apply more herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers to crops, hoping to boost production.

At the same time, some favored technologies are starting to lose their edge. Some growers have found they must use more chemicals to combat the very weeds and crop-damaging pests that biotech seeds were engineered to address.

"Production is growing," said Pat Sinicropi, legislative director at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, an organization of municipal water interests. "The pressure on agriculture is mounting to squeeze as much yield out of their land as possible, which is driving more and more chemical use."

Few would dispute that misuse of agricultural chemicals can harm health and the environment. The debate has focused on when that line is crossed, with industry saying U.S. regulatory oversight is already strong enough to ensure safety.

"With any technology there is risk," said Jim Borel, executive vice president of DuPont, which has projected strong growth in sales of insecticide, herbicide and pesticide products. "People tend to focus on either the problems or worse yet the fears that people create about potential problems.

"But," Borel said in an interview, "if we are going to feed 10 billion people in the next 40 years we have to essentially double agricultural production. We all have to work together. We have to be eyes wide open around the challenges and the risks."

Those on the other side of the debate agree that increasing crop production is necessary.

"To feed a growing world population, we have to intensify crop production, but we can't do so at the expense of the natural resource base," Teresa Buerkle, a spokeswoman for the North America office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

SCIENTISTS SPEAK UP

Where industry says regulation is adequate, critics say it is often lacking. They want the government to do more in-depth examination of the impacts of the chemicals in use and change the incentives that encourage farmers to grow more corn and other chemically intensive crops.

One concern is the level of nitrogen fertilizer run-off into water sources. A study released March 13 by researchers at the University of California, Davis, said fertilizers and nitrates from agriculture are contaminating the drinking water for more than 200,000 residents in California's farming communities.

That study came as a separate coalition of water authority officials, pollution control administrators and sustainable agricultural groups calling themselves Health Waters Coalition asked Congress to address excessive use and runoff of agricultural fertilizers in the new Farm Bill.

The group cited data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicating that more than 50 percent of rivers, streams, and lakes and nearly 60 percent of bays and estuaries are impaired because of excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus.

"Nitrogen pollution is considered by scientists among the handful of most serious impacts on the environment that humans cause. It has been increasing," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a plant pathologist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a scientific policy group.

"More and more scientists are speaking up."

Insecticides are also a concern. Twenty-two U.S. plant scientists co-authored a letter March 5 warning the EPA about a biotech corn that is losing its resistance to plant-damaging pests and could trigger "escalating use of insecticides."

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group, has taken its concerns to court, filing suit against the EPA on February 23.

The NRDC accuses EPA of not adequately addressing the health threats of 2,4-D, an ingredient in the Agent Orange defoliant used in Vietnam that prompted lawsuits from veterans and others who later contracted cancer. The chemical now is being increasingly used to help fight back "super weeds" that resist glyphosate, also known as Roundup.

NEW PRODUCTS, OLD WORRIES

2,4-D is an herbicide that's been registered for use in U.S. crops since 1948 but may now come into far more widespread usage as Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical, seeks government approval for biotech crops engineered to thrive despite dousings of 2,4-D.

Complaints of ties to cancer have dogged the chemical for decades but U.S. regulators have said that research data is insufficient to make a direct link.

A scientific study published in January in the journal BioScience noted that nationwide herbicide use could see a "profound increase" if the new biotech crops being developed see the same rate of adoption that Roundup Ready crops.

Roundup use became so pervasive after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans 16 year ago that last summer, researchers with the Geological Survey said significant levels Roundup were detected in air and water samples in Iowa and Mississippi. More than 88,0000 tons of glyphosate were used in the United States in 2007, up from 11,000 tons in 1992, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Critics of 2,4-D fear a similar rise in the use of that herbicide.

"EPA is dragging their feet on this issue," said Gina Solomon, senior scientist with the NRDC. "They need to grapple with the science and the current situation where U.S. agriculture is on the cusp of the vast increase of the use of this chemical."

FARMERS TAKE PRECAUTIONS

Farmers are well aware of the poisonous possibilities of the chemicals they use, and must get trained and approved every year to apply pesticides, and take a range of precautions.

Life-long farmer Dennis Schwab knows the risks. As a corn grower in the top U.S. corn state of Iowa, 61-year-old Schwab has become an expert in the array of toxic chemicals used to fight bugs, weeds and disease.

"Our exposures are higher than the general population ... yeah we are concerned about it. But we recognize pesticides are a necessary part of raising crops today," he said.