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Itdoesn t have to be industrial

farms versus small, organic ones.Theres another way.

A Five-Step Plan to

By Jonathan Foley

Photographs by George Steinmetz and Jim Richardson

27

(FOOD)

When we think about threats to theenvironment, we tend to picture carsandsmokestacks, not dinner. But thetruth is, our need for food poses one ofthe biggest dangers to the planet.

Agriculture is among the greatest contributorsto global warming, emitting more greenhousegases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and air-planes combined-largely from methane releasedby cattle and rice farms, nitrous oxide from fer-tilized fields, and carbon dioxide from the cut-ting of rain forests to grow crops or raiselivestock. Farming is the thirstiest user ot ourprecious water supplies and a major polluter, asrunofffrom fertilizers and manure disrupts frag-ile lakes, rivers, and coastal ecosystems acrossthe globe. Agriculture also accelerates the lossof biodiversity. As we've cleared areas ot grass-land and forest for farms, we've lost crucial habi-tat, making agriculture a major driver of wildlifeextinction.

The environmental challenges posed by agri-culture are huge, and they'll only become morepressing as we try to meet the growing need forfood worldwide. We'll likely have two billion

more mouths to feed by mid-century-morethan nine billion people. But sheer populationgrowth isn't the only reason we'll need morefood. The spread of prosperity across the world,especially in China and India, is driving an in-creased demand for meat, eggs, and dairy,boosting pressure to grow more corn and soy-beans to feed more cattle, pigs, and chickens. Ifthese trends continue, the double whammy ofpopulation growth and richer diets will requireus to roughly double the amount of crops wegrow by 2050.

Unfortunately the debate over how to addressthe global food challenge has become polarized,pitting conventional agriculture and global com-merce against local food systems and organicfarms. The arguments can be fierce, and like ourpolitics, we seem to be getting more dividedrather than finding common ground. Those whofavor conventional agriculture talk about how

High in the Peruvian Andes, Estela Candor grows five different varieties of potatoesto sell in the market, along with a yellow tuber called mashuathat she cooks for her family.

Small farmers like Candor grow much of the food for people in the developing world.JIM RlCNAFIll.'iON

35

Agriculture's FootprintFarming of both livestock and crops is the largest human endeavor on

Earth, using more than 38 percent of ice-free land. Our next largest impact:erosion caused by agriculture, building, logging, and mining.

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modern mechanization, irrigation, fertilizers,and improved genetics can increase yields tohelp meet demand. And they're right. Mean-while proponents of local and organic farmscounter that the world's small farmers could

increase yields plenty-and help themselves outof poverty-by adopting techniques that im-prove fertility without synthetic fertilizers andpesticides. They're right too.

But it needn't be an either-or proposition.Both approaches offer badly needed solutions;neither one alone gets us there. We would bewise to explore all of the good ideas, whetherfrom organic and local farms or high-tech andconventional farms, and blend the best of both.

I was fortunate to lead a team of scientistswho confronted this simple question: How canthe world double the availability of food whilesimultaneously cutting the environmental harmcaused by agriculture? After analyzing reams ofdata on agriculture and the environment, weproposed five steps that could solve the worldsfood dilemma.

STEP ONE Freeze agricultifres footprintFor most of history, whenever we've needed toproduce more food, we've simply cut down for-ests or plowed grasslands to make more farms.We've already cleared an area roughly the sizeof South America to grow crops. To raise live-stock, we've taken over even more land, an

area roughly the size of Africa. Agriculture'sfootprint has caused the loss of whole ecosys-tems around the globe, including the prairies ofNorth America and the Atlantic forest of Bra-

zil, and tropical forests continue to be cleared atalarming rates. But we can no longer afford toincrease food production through agriculturalexpansion. Trading tropical forest for farmlandis one of the most destructive things we do to

Jonathan Foley directs the Institute on theEnvironment at the University of Minnesota. fimRichanison's portraits of farmers are the latest inhis body of work documenting agriculture. GeorgeSteinmetz's big-picture approach reveals theliiiidscrtpes of industrial food,

the environment, and it is rarely done to benefitthe 850 million people in the world who are stillhungry. Most of the land cleared for agricul-ture in the tropics does not contribute much tothe world s food security but is instead used toproduce cattle, soybeans for livestock, timber,and palm oil. Avoiding further deforestationmust be a top priority.

STEP TWO Grow more on farms we've gotStarting in the 1960s, the green revolution in-creased yields in Asia and Latin America usingbetter crop varieties and more fertilizer, irriga-tion, and machines-but with major environmen-tal costs. The world can now turn its attention toincreasing yields on less productive farmlands-especially in Africa, Latin America, and easternEurope-where there are "yield gaps" betweencurrent production levels and those possible withimproved farming practices. Using high-tech,precision farming systems, as well as approachesborrowed from organic farming, we could boostyields in these places several times over.

STEP THREE Use resources more efficientlyWe already have ways to achieve high yieldswhile also dramatically reducing the environ-mental impacts of conventional farming. Thegreen revolution relied on the intensive-andunsustainable-use of water and fossil-fuel-

based chemicals. But commercial farming hasstarted to make huge strides, finding innovativeways to better target the application of fertilizersand pesticides by using computerized tractorsequipped with advanced sensors and GPS. Manygrowers apply customized blends of fertilizer tai-lored to their exact soil conditions, which helpsminimize the runoffofchemicals into nearbywaterways.

Organic farming can also greatly reduce theuse of water and chemicals-by incorporatingcover crops, mulches, and compost to improvesoil quality, conserve water, and build up nu-trients. Many farmers have also gotten smarterabout water, replacing inefficient irrigation sys-tems with more precise methods, like subsurfacedrip irrigation. Advances in both conventional

42 jjtFUTUREOFFUOD 43

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A World Demanding MoreBy 2050 the world's population will likely increase by about 35 percent.

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Why? Production will have to far outpace population growth as thedeveloping world grows prosperous enough to eat more meat.

Increase In dailyprotein demandPer capita by 2050

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SOURCE- DAVID TILMAN. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

and organic farming can give us more "crop perdrop" from our water and nutrients.

STEP FOU R Sh [ft dietsIt would be far easier to feed nine billion peopleby 2050 if more of the crops we grew ended up inhuman stomachs. Today only 55 percent of theworlds crop calories feed people directly; the restare fed to livestock (about 36 percent) or turnedinto biofuels and industrial products (roughly9 percent). Though many of us consume meat,dairy, and eggs from animals raised on feedlots,only a traction of the calories in feed given tolivestock make their way into the meat and milkthat we consume. For every 100 calories of grainwe feed animals, we get only about 40 new calo-ries of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10of pork, or 3 of beef. Finding more efficient ways

to grow meat and shifting to less meat-intensivediets-even just switching from grain-fed beefto meats like chicken, pork, or pasture-raisedbeef-could free up substantial amounts of foodacross the world. Because people in developingcountries are unlikely to eat less meat in the nearfuture, given their newfound prosperity, we canfirst focus on countries that already have meat-rich diets. Curtailing the use of food crops forbiofuels could also go a long way toward enhanc-ing food availability.

STEP FIVE Reduce waste

An estimated 25 percent of the world's food cal-ories and up to 50 percent of total food weightare lost or wasted before they can be consumed.In rich countries most of that waste occurs inhomes, restaurants, or supermarkets. In poor

Mariam Keita harvests peanuts on a farm in Siby, Mali. The green revolution's mix of hybridseeds7fertilizers, and irrigation never took off in Africa. But sub-Saharan countries now offer a key

opportunity to boost'global food production, because their yields can be vastly improved.JIM RICHARDSON

»ruruREOFFOOD 45

countries food is often lost between the farmer

and the market, due to unreliable storage andtransportation. Consumers in the developedworld could reduce waste by taking such simplesteps as serving smaller portions, eating leftovers,and encouraging cafeterias, restaurants, and su-permarkets to develop waste-reducing measures.Of all of the options for boosting food availability,tackling waste would be one of the most effective.

TAKEN TOGETHER, these five steps could morethan double the world's food supplies and dra-matically cut the environmental impact of ag-riculture worldwide. But it won't be easy. Thesesolutions require a big shift in thinking. Formost of our history we have been blinded by theoverzealous imperative of more, more, more inagriculture-clearing more land, growing morecrops, using more resources. We need to find abalance between producing more food and sus-taining the planet for future generations.

This is a pivotal moment when we face unpre-cedented challenges to food security and thepreservation of our global environment. The goodnews is that we already know what we have to do;we just need to figure out how to do it. Addressingour global food challenges demands that all of usbecome more thoughtful about the food we puton our plates. We need to make connections be-tween our food and the farmers who grow it, andbetween our food and the land, watersheds, and

climate that sustain us. As we steer our grocerycarts down the aisles of our supermarkets, thechoices we make will help decide the future. D

The Future of Food

COMING IN JUNE

We already eat more farmedfish than beef...

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Geographic Society for theirgenerous support of (hisseries of articles.

46

Where the calories are produced

FEED and FUELfor animals and industry

FOODfor people

100% calories 50% 100%

How global crop calories are used

45% 55%R^D ('ifi%) niirl 1-UPL- I'Ji.,) FOOD

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U. S. MidwestCorn forethanol productionhas jumped from 7 percent ofthe supply in 2000 to about40 percent today.

^ \-'^te^4UNITED, >^ :^^ls'STATES^** ^

M^73%u.s.Top producer of cam-the world's main feed

crop-theU. S. may soonlose its top soybean-grower status to Brazil.

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. -^%BrazilMore than half the soy-bean crop becomesanimal feed. Brazil

leads the world in

sugarcane-ethanolproduction.

.Includes biofuels and other nonfood products

SOURCE. GLOtiALLANDSCAr'ESIHiriATlVE. INS riTUlEON THE E-NVIHONMENT, UMIVEHSITY OF MINNESOTA

Food Versus Feed and FuelPercentages on the map show whether most of the calories in a region's crops

go directly to human consumption (green) or go to animal feed and biofuels (purple).Only 55 percent of the world's food-crop calories directly nourish people. We get another

4 percent indirectly by eating meat, dairy, or eggs from animals raised on feed.

61%EuropeThe EU mandates thatlOpercsntoffuelfortransportation bs fromrenewables by 2020.

58% FOODChinaThe second largest corn producer,China feeds 77 percent of its cornto animals. Humans consume 82percent of the rice-crop calories.

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72%AfricaSmall farmers

grow crops mostlyfor human con-sumption, thoughsome cassava,

yarns, and sor-ghum are divertedto feed livestock.

75%Asia (without China)Most crops, mainly rice, arsgrown to feed people. Palmoil is used for cooking oil andother food products but alsofor cosmetics and feed.

89°/cIndiaMeat consumption,though rising, is lowerthan in much of the

world. Most crops stilldirectly feed humans.

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#FUTUREOI-'FOOD 47

The Future Of (FOOD) natgeofood. com

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