Sustainable Farming

Is the incidence decreasing or is the internet tired of talking about this? Exhaustive and informative coverage of the crisis by P. Sainath, Jaideep Hardikar and others continues on IndiaTogether.com.

The BBC News website has an excellent feature on the upcoming resource crunch. The main story gives an overview:

...the warning from John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, of a possible crisis in 2030. Specifically, he points to research indicating that by 2030 "a whole series of events come together":

• The world's population will rise by 33%
• Demand for food will increase by 50%
• Demand for water will increase by 30%
• Demand for energy will increase by 50%

He foresees each problem combining to create a "perfect storm" in which the whole is bigger, and more serious, than the sum of its parts.

As far as I can see, that's doesn't include the impact of the lost environmental services due to natural resource degradation and climate change. Considering these aspects, I think we'll face serious crises sooner, especially in the high-population density developing world.

There are accompanying articles with video on the three big aspects of the problem:

• Mega Cities and population growth (Delhi and Mumbai)
  
• Growing demand for resource (China)
• Deteriorating natural resources (Water shortages in California)
  

as well as on possible solutions:

• The changes in life style required
  
• The role of science
• The new agricultural trends and the case for more GM food
  

We have of course survived the previous Malthusian predictions, but this time it might be different:

Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot - the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity - by about 25%. Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.

Looks like an Indian version of the Environmental Protection Agency is on the cards:

According to Jairam Ramesh, environment minister, the Congress party-led government plans to set up an Environmental Protection Agency, modelled on that of the US, which would ensure that standards were implemented and monitored.

It has also sought parliamentary approval for the creation of other new environmental institutions including "green courts" aimed at resolving cases long stuck in the existing, overburdened judicial system.

The new push comes as India finds itself in the spotlight in the run up to December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, where world leaders are hoping to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto agreement. India, China, and other developing countries are under pressure to come up with firmer plans to reduce emissions.

- Financial Times

Let's hope the EPA is staffed with the best environmentalists we can get, and more importantly, it is actually able to enforce its policies.

The Government of India just released a "State of the Environment" report. I can't find the original report, but there is a lot of coverage:

BBC News:

The State of the Environment report says that at least 45% of India's land area is "degraded due to erosion, soil acidity, alkalinity and salinity, water logging and wind erosion".
...
in the past, a combination of rainfall and surface and groundwater supplies were sufficient for the population. But now it says that rainfall has become more erratic, groundwater supplies are becoming more depleted and surface water is becoming more polluted.
...
"with an economy closely linked to a natural resource base", India faces big challenges in the future including a scarcity of water and lower crop yields.

IBN:

...the level of respirable suspended particulate matter--the small pieces of soot and dust that get inside the lungs--had gone up in all the 50 cities across India studied by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Central Pollution Control Board.
...
10 percent of its wild flora and fauna are on the threatened list... The main causes, according to the report, were habitat destruction, poaching, invasive species, overexploitation, pollution and climate change.
...
about 700 million Indians directly face the threat of global warming today, as it affects farming, makes droughts, floods and storms more frequent and more severe and is raising the sea level.

On the plus side:

over two-thirds of the degraded 147 million hectares can be regenerated quite easily, ... and India's forest cover is gradually increasing
...
India contributes around 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. That is about a quarter of the emissions of China and the US. ... Indian per capita emissions are one-twentieth of the US and one-tenth of Europe and Japan.

For the first time, satellite remote sensing of a 2000-kilometer swath running from eastern Pakistan across northern India and into Bangladesh has put a solid number on how quickly the region is depleting its groundwater. The number "is big," says hydrologist James Famiglietti of the University of California, Irvine--big as in 54 cubic kilometers of groundwater lost per year from the world's most intensively irrigated region hosting 600 million people. "I don't think anybody knew how quickly it was being depleted over that large an area."
...
groundwater was being pumped out 70% faster in this decade than the Central Ground Water Board of India estimated it was in the mid-1990s. The apparent surge in withdrawal would have been large enough to turn a once-stable water table into a falling one that demands ever-deeper wells and bigger pumps and may draw in salty or polluted water

- Science Magazine

Also:

The world's food production needs to double by 2050 to feed the world's growing population. But over this period, climate change, reduced access to water and changing land use are likely to make growing crops harder rather than easier.

- BBC News

This is a bit late, but in case you haven't read it, the September 2008 issue of National Geographic has a very interesting feature story about soils around the world, the rapid degradation we're causing, and the efforts around the world to improve farming that did and didn't work out:

In the first—and still the most comprehensive—study of global soil misuse, scientists at the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) in the Netherlands estimated in 1991 that humankind has degraded more than 7.5 million square miles of land. Our species, in other words, is rapidly trashing an area the size of the United States and Canada combined.
...
Journalists sometimes describe unsexy subjects as MEGO: My eyes glaze over. Alas, soil degradation is the essence of MEGO. Nonetheless, the stakes—and the opportunities—could hardly be higher, says Rattan Lal, a prominent soil scientist at Ohio State University. Researchers and ordinary farmers around the world are finding that even devastated soils can be restored. The payoff, Lal says, is the chance not only to fight hunger but also to attack problems like water scarcity and even global warming. Indeed, some researchers believe that global warming can be slowed significantly by using vast stores of carbon to reengineer the world's bad soils. "Political stability, environmental quality, hunger, and poverty all have the same root," Lal says. "In the long run, the solution to each is restoring the most basic of all resources, the soil."

There are, of course, beautiful and poignant photographs accompanying the article.

National Public Radio recently did a two part story on the state of India's 'Green Revolution':

Part 1: India's Farming 'Revolution' Heading For Collapse

The state's agriculture "has become unsustainable and nonprofitable," according to a recent report by the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology. Some experts say the decline could happen rapidly, over the next decade or so.
...
One of the best-known names in India's farming industry puts it in even starker terms. If farmers in Punjab don't dramatically change the way they grow India's food, says G.S. Kalkat, chairman of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, they could trigger a modern Dust Bowl.

Part 2: 'Green Revolution' Trapping India's Farmers In Debt

When India's government launched the Green Revolution more than 40 years ago, it pressured farmers to grow only high-yield wheat, rice and cotton instead of their traditional mix of crops.
...
The system worked well for years, but government studies show that farmers have pumped so much groundwater to irrigate their crops that the water table is dropping dramatically, as much as 3 feet every year.
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Kalkat says only one thing can save Punjab: India has to launch a brand new Green Revolution. But he says this one has to be sustainable.
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The problem is, nobody has yet perfected a farming system that produces high yields, makes a good living for farm families, protects and enhances the environment — and still produces good, affordable food.

Nanak Kheti, a farm of natural farming, is being adopted by farmers in Punjab as a response to ill effects of chemical farming practices:

...during the last four to five years, the soil in several parts of Punjab has been regenerated and rejuvenated, these natural farmers are convinced, so much so that your feet feel happy and healthy on coming in contact with the soil. You can see earthworm castings, which had completely disappeared in the fields, says a visibly happy and proud Hartej Singh of Mehta village in Bhatinda district. "Our farmers will offer you a handful of soil which you will find soft and with all the natural aromas that are associated with the infinite life of our earth. That is the kind of work we are doing," he adds.

Thanks once again to Rachel Nisselson for the tip-off about the NPR story.

Learning a lot of things and connecting with some very good like minded people at the PDC. Here's something I found out a few days ago:

The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment's Role in Averting Future Food Crises was released by the United Nations Environment Programme in February 2009. A short summary is in this press release, the whole report is available for download here (15 MB pdf).

Some highlights:

The natural environment comprises the entire basis for food production through water, nutrients, soils, climate, weather and insects for pollination and controlling infestations. Land degradation, urban expansion and conversion of crops and cropland for non-food production, such as biofuels, may reduce the required cropland by 8–20% by 2050, if not compensated for in other ways.
...
Food prices may increase 30 to 50 per cent within decades, forcing those living in extreme poverty to spend 90 per cent of their income on food.
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Over 80% of all endangered birds and mammals are threatened by unsustainable land use and agricultural expansion.

The report recommends seven strategies to tackle this crisis:

1. Regulate food prices and provide safety nets for the impoverished;
2. Promote environmentally sustainable higher-generation biofuels that does not compete for cropland and water resources;
3. Reallocate cereals used in animal feed to human consumption by developing alternative feeds based on new technology, waste and discards;
4. Support small-scale farmers by a global fund for micro-finance in developing diversified and resilient ecoagriculture and intercropping systems;
5. Increase trade and market access by improving infrastructure, reducing trade barriers, enhancing government subsidies and safety nets, as well as reducing armed conflict and corruption;
6. Limit global warming; and,
7. Raise awareness of the pressures of increasing population growth and consumption patterns on ecosystems.

D V Sridharan is one of modern India's heroes. A retired merchant navy officer, Mr. Sridharan started the website GoodNewsIndia.com in 2000, reporting on numerous grass roots efforts in India. Having covered a wide variety of philanthropic projects, he came to this interesting realization:

My stories were about two broad types. One set of projects was conceived from the beginning to become self-sustaining, which I shall call SS-projects. Holistic land based, environmentally sound projects were of this type. The other type usually served a humanitarian need and required steady inflow of funds. As they seemed to constantly fight a fire instead of ever able to douse it, I shall call them fire fighting or FF-projects. Orphanages, special education centres and gender issues are typical FF-projects.
...
...SS-projects were almost always rooted in caring for resources like water and soil. FF-projects were invariably funded by foreign donors; the corollary being, Indians are not very forthcoming in supporting charitable initiatives. Several of the FF-projects became addicted to seeking money and became notoriously unprofessional in terms of accounting for the funds received and the manner of their use.

By 2006 Mr. Sridharan decided that he needed to do more than just report on good efforts. This resulted in the beginning of project pointReturn to regenerate a "waste-land" and establish a self reliant community on it. He soon started posting regular updates about the logistics of pointReturn. The whole saga is definitely worth reading for anyone who is considering landscape restoration projects.

Along with describing the logistics, Mr. Sridharan continues to write insightful observations and commentary, for example in the articles India, browning, Gandhigram, an interlude, and A spell of inaction.

From 'A spell of inaction':

Deep in its collective heart, India’s political establishment believes rapid industrialisation is the goal to aim for; that an open door trade and investment policy in every economic activity is the way to get there; that income inequalities will be evened out by prosperity trickling down; that the numerous special economic zones created, -often on agricultural lands- will generate jobs and sustained properity; that India in the long run must come to have no more than 5% of its population in agriculture and that until that ideal balance comes about the only thing to do is to manage the inevitable social churning. Policy makers’ further tenets are that unending supply of industrial grade power must be assured for high standards of living; that such a living will create demand for products and services to keep the economy growing; that rising world trade will make all products available everywhere; that all food can be grown by mechanisation and engineered crops or freely imported from global markets;that the environmental costs of modern production processes are inevitable, over estimated and in any case, can be ‘fixed’ with the surpluses that a booming economy will produce.
...
The urban world is formally well informed about inflation, climate change, stock and commodity exchanges,the nation’s budget, recession etc but it can escape the negative effects of these in the shorter term because of the cash in its pockets. Rural India on the other hand, has no formal knowledge of these but directly experiences them- consequences of unseasonal rains and rising costs of farm inputs for instance hit them almost immediately. The remaining question is whether rural India can survive these in the longer term. The answer would be yes, for it is closer to the neglected earth. But the yes is a qualified one. The malign neglect of farming must stop, convictions must grow that natural farming -as against chemical farming- can be profitable.

From Reuters:

Cuts to U.S. farm payments will be directed at farmers and ranchers with large incomes and big sales, and could affect 3 percent of farmers in the United States, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Thursday.

Good news for small(er) farmers everywhere, but it seems unlikely that Obama can get this through the Congress.

Related news.

From the New York Times article - Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research

The growers’ agreement from Syngenta not only prohibits research in general but specifically says a seed buyer cannot compare Syngenta’s product with any rival crop.

This unprecedented level of openness and honesty will certainly reassure everyone that GM crops are

1. safe
2. effective

The reduction in rainfall due to climate change, and the concomitant increasing population, are projected to cause tremendous water scarcity in Asia and Africa in the next 20-50 years, slowing down development and increasing poverty and armed conflict. The Water Wars are already beginning.

At the heart of both natural farming and permaculture is the efficient use of local resources including rainfall. Harvesting rainfall efficiently by improving ground cover as well as by creating small low cost structures to trap water and percolate it into the ground will improve the water availability in most areas of the world.

Large infrastructure projects may be necessary in a small number of extreme cases, but especially in the developing world, they cause massive mismanagement of resources, human displacement, and ineffective alleviation of the water scarcity purportedly being addressed. Drowned Out is an excellent case study of the mismanagement of India's Narmada Dam Project, and also shows how local water harvesting can solve water scarcity in Gujrat.

The video below shows how permaculture transformed of a barren wasteland near Hyderabad (a chronically drought prone area) to a lush tree covered farm in just a couple of years:

In Asia, Africa and South America, approximately 2.5 Billion people depend directly on small farms for subsistence and/or income. The entire population of the developing world - about 5.5 Billion people - depends on produce from small farms for majority of their food. However, small farmers in the developing world face a bleak future, which jeopardizes the long term health, economic, and security scenarios of the majority of the human race.

Traditional agriculture on these small farms is extremely labor and time intensive, and the products are usually of low commercial value. The few farmers who try to adopt modern methods often depend on usurious loans from local moneylenders to buy expensive fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid or genetically modified seeds.

In India, these situations have trapped a majority of small farmers in abject poverty for the past few decades, despite the Green Revolution. The impractically large debt burdens have pushed thousands of farmers to commit suicide over the past decade. In sub-Saharan Africa, the high prevalence of HIV and other diseases has decimated the work-force, making traditional labor-intensive agriculture extremely difficult, and reducing the area under cultivation.

Ironically, it is well known that high biodiversity, multi-crop small farms produce significantly higher total income per unit area than mechanized monoculture. While there is increasing interest in sustainable agriculture practices in the developing world, the adverse trends described above will continue unless sustainable agriculture practices are adopted widely and rapidly.

We need to create community training centers and programs to popularize these practices.