National Security is Dirt… and Knowledge

Presentation by John Wiener<john.wiener@colorado.edu>

Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Miami 13 Mar 2012

Presented by Keith Ingram who is NOT responsible for errors or offenses!

The full set of slides and text references will be posted. Presentations cited: <www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/>

Research assistant: Alexandra Martin, Kenyon College“Speaker’s notes” area has additional discussion and

references.

Disclaimer and Explanation• The knowledge part of this argument is two kinds: YOURS,

and the local craft ecological knowledge of the thousands of farmers we have lost and will lose if we don’t change course… See National Research Council 2010: Towards Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century… (free download)

• Will proceed here with text about the larger issues affecting US agriculture and some slides about some under-appreciated problems…

• This presentation builds on earlier arguments in 2011 at the Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop. The website <www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/> includes other presentations as well as links to others.

Source: USDA ERS, last accessed 14 February 2012:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/AgProductivity/

How could we think there is a problem for U.S. agriculture? We seem to be doing fine!

Expanding on Wiener CPASW 2011 Conclusions(www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/)

• Vulnerability to loss of financial, social, and human capital in viable small and mid-scale agriculture is already driving local stewards --“family farms”-- extinct

• Vulnerability of soils to increased variability and extremes, including precipitation intensity, is increasing for monoculture on high-input, high-yield, high-externality, high-risk treadmill, and is among threats to sustainability of land and water quality

• The “small” is vulnerable because it is financially not viable; the “large” is vulnerable to increasing threats of herbicide dependence and resistance, and erosion not economically recognized…

Erosion Prospects: Worse• Soil and Water Conservation Society, 2003: Increased precipitation intensity

could undo all the progress since creation of SCS! AFFIRMED: Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society…

• CCSP SAP 3.3 (2008,p. 4) : “Extreme precipitation episodes (heavy downpours) have become more frequent… and now account for a larger percentage … intense precipitation… (the heaviest 1%...) in the continental U.S. increased by 20% over the past century while total precipitation increased by 7%...”

• Cumulative impacts increase sharply with more frequent and closer extreme events including synergy of stresses of different kinds

• Increased ET from warmer temperatures – changes in “natural” vegetation communities, range vulnerable, fire frequencies … And soil quality impacts!

• Seasonality changes – longer growing season – weeds? Invasives… • NEW: Environmental Working Group, 2011, “LOSING GROUND” – Iowa farmers

working hard to patch (but not repair) gully erosion for equipment needs…• Indicates may be severe underestimates of erosion on industrial ag. land• Rental of ~31 MA Conservation Reserve Program highly erodible land ends• (grisly numbers provided in Wiener CPASW 2011 and others; many sources.)

Bifurcation of US Farming: Two Kinds of Problems

• For the small operations with 63% of US Farmland but only 16% of sales…– Urbanization– Rural residential development– Inability to finance climate and weather response

• For the industrial conventional, not only the usual erosion – probably grossly under estimated; now herbicide resistance…

This is there the best land and water is or was, and the extreme rates of land conversion out of farming -- probably very difficult or uneconomic to return to agriculture

Affecting the “small ag” 63% of farmland…

Rural Residential Developmenteats farmland every year…

“Farms….But not supportingthe family.This is“Ranchettes”and horseproperties

Urban land acreage quadrupled from 1945 to 2007, increasing at about twice the rate of population growth over this period.

Land in urban areas was estimated at 61 million acres in 2007, up almost 2 percent since 2002 and 17 percent since 1990 (after adjusting the 1990 estimate for the new criteria used in the 2000 Census).

The Census Bureau estimates that urban area increased almost 8 million acres (13 percent) during the 1990s. Census estimates based on the previous criteria indicate that urban area increased 9 million acres (18 percent) during the 1980s, 13 million acres (37 percent) during the 1970s, and 9 million acres (36 percent) during the 1960s.

Estimated rural residential acreage outside urban areas increased to 103 million acres between 2002 and 2007.

In percentage terms, this 9-million-acre (10-percent) increase is about a third of the 21-million-acre (29-percent) increase over the previous 5-year period (1997-2002) and reflects the downturn in the residential housing market that occurred during the mid 2000s.

USDA ERS 2011: Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2007:

Cropland may about the same in area but IS IT THE SAME QUALITY?

The “smoking gun” : the displacement of farming from the places first chosen by the Euro-Americans settling in…

So… productivity gains from?• Productivity gains from huge increases in inputs• Productivity gains from breeding and then radically accelerated

breeding with genetic understanding and modification• Productivity gains from initial soil fertility in newly cultivated

lands• Serious questions of sustainability… see:– International Assessment of Agricultural Science and

Technology for Development (2009)– National Research Council (US) 2010, Towards Sustainable

Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century– United Kingdom Office of Science, 2011, Foresight

But, the farm business looks pretty good right now… It would be nice to take time to reviewsome of the price squeeze problems driving the middle size farms out, but right now:THIS DEMONSTRATES THE LACK OF FINANCIAL SIGNALING THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONGWhy mess with a good thing?

What about the big producers?Progress in erosion control from reduced tillage was coming along … slowly, given the factthat it was clearly advantageous to producers as well as public interests…

But… this is at serious risk!

Why care about corn and soy and cotton? Aside from their importance to producersand consumers, by 2008, fully 63% of US corn, 68% of cotton, and 92% of soy wasGMO Glyphosate-resistant (dominantly “Roundup-Ready” ™)…

Back to pre-emergent herbicides, post-emergents…. Tillage… Stay with the packageBut make the package more complicated…

Citations omitted – great resource

American Society of AgronomyCrop Science Society of AmericaSoil Science Society of America

No surprises tothe CPASWfolks

habitat of soil biota… diversity … abundance

downpours… increased soil erosion…

affect soil chemistry and biology…

water retention capacity… soil organic matter…

impacts of intense rainfall and drought…

See also Crop Science Society of America,2011, Position Statement on Crop AdaptationTo Climate Change.

The response to herbicide-resistant weeds?• Return to tillage• “Stack” herbicide resistance traits into the

crops: back to 2, 4-D and “dicamba” – on with the show!

• New packages: the seed, and the glyphosate and the additional second herbicides and maybe additional treatments pre-emergent, post-emergent? “Burn-off” between crops with additional herbicides?

• “evolution will win” – but what damage will we do?

National Security Threats• Conventional agriculture soils not only at risk from input

dependence but also increasing soil erosion from return to tillage as well as increased herbicide use in global competition with short-term incentives

• Small agriculture at risk from financial vulnerability, implying inability to respond to changed conditions, and land conversion to other uses…

• Increased intensity of precipitation – no surprise to the CPASW audience – threatens dangerous interactions with these increased exposures and decreasing ability to protect inherent fertility of soils…

• And we haven’t started on soil micro-ecology and long-term fertility impacts from climate interactions with our agriculture and urbanization externalities…

Role of Weather and Climate Information• Critical need for improved crop rotations and cropping

systems to increase soil defense – calls for knowledge about changed seasonality of high-intensity events and soil-relevant conditions (frost dates etc) FOR SMALL AG not using commercial services used industrially. Need policy change to provide this as a public good!

• Need for short-term weather forecasts to begin education and orientation to higher intensity issues – the model may be NEMO – Non-point Education for Municipal Officials program.

• NOAA and Allies – YOU FOLKS – may have to step into this until USDA reorients toward long-term issues for the small ag majority, including transition toward sustainable, and moving the industrial toward less vulnerability…

• CAN CLIMATE AND WEATHER INFORMATION CATALYZE RESPONSES TO THE THREAT TO LONG-TERM SECURITY?

A Way Forward?• Following Wiener CPASW 2011...• Re-Design a Ditch: an example of thinking at the LANDSCAPE

SCALE; ideally, one also thinks regionally… (see notes)• Private property: Can owners self-organize for self-defense and

to maximize the value of their resources for the long term?• Features: – Green conservation areas to function as habitat conservation

plan; – purple buffers/trails for recreation, amenity; – orange is new urbanism concentration of development; – biodeisel canola for self-fueling and for urban partner/part

owner…• Project in progress; part 1 of report posted.• Wanted: Transformational change, not business as usual!

Locator MapBessemer Ditch isadjacent to andEast of Pueblo,Colorado

The alternative? “Development” of some of the best former farm land in the US