Model Farm Principle 2 - it must be able to produce food for its community within the Planetary Boundaries.

The second principle of the model farm is that it must be able to produce food for its community within the Planetary Boundaries.

The primary environmental challenges facing us today are illustrated by the nine Planetary Boundaries developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, displayed in the figure below (Steffen et al., 2015).

The nine Planetary Boundaries (Steffen et al., 2015)

The diagram colour-codes the nine boundaries to indicate the status of each boundary relative to safe thresholds, beyond which unpredictable tipping points could result in irreversible negative change.

Of particular relevance to agriculture is a paper by 10 scientists from across the world, including Oxford University, who have assessed the contribution of agriculture to the transgression of Planetary Boundaries.  They conclude that agriculture is the human activity most responsible for the transgression of biochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus and the loss of biodiversity (Campbell et al., 2017).

Another Planetary Boundary, strongly affected by agriculture, is receiving attention and is referred to as "novel entities", which are increasing concentrations of chemicals and bio-engineered entities present in the environment (Campbell et al., 2017).  This could place additional pressure on policymakers to control agrochemicals and Genetically Modified (GM) plants. 

The three most important chemicals for cereal production have or are facing bans or restrictions in the UK, chlorothalonil (Impey, 2019), glyphosate (Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, 2019; Harris, 2019, and neonicotinoids (The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, 2018).  There is hope however that enough time will be provided for alternatives to be developed (Impey, 2019).  There is also the risk that alternatives will be shown to be harmful (Siviter, Brown, & Leadbeater, 2018).

References

Steffen, Will, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, et al. ‘Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet’. Science 347, no. 6223 (13 February 2015). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259855.

Campbell, Bruce, Douglas Beare, Elena Bennett, Jason Hall-Spencer, John Ingram, Fernando Jaramillo, Rodomiro Ortiz, Navin Ramankutty, Jeffrey Sayer, and Drew Shindell. ‘Agriculture Production as a Major Driver of the Earth System Exceeding Planetary Boundaries’. Ecology and Society 22, no. 4 (12 October 2017). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09595-220408.

GOV.UK. ‘Farming Rules for Water from April 2018’. Accessed 17 April 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/farming-rules-for-water-in-england.

Impey, Lousie. ‘Analysis: What a Ban on Fungicide Chlorothalonil Would Mean - Farmers Weekly’. Accessed 17 April 2021. https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/crop-management/disease-management/analysis-what-a-ban-on-fungicide-chlorothalonil-would-mean.

Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman. ‘Where Is Glyphosate Banned?’ Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman. Accessed 17 April 2021. https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/where-is-glyphosate-banned-/.

Harris, Lauren. ‘France Bans Monsanto Weedkiller Roundup over Safety Fears’. Farmers Weekly, 16 January 2019. https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/crop-management/weed-management/france-bans-monsanto-weedkiller-roundup-over-safety-fears.

The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP. ‘25 Year Environment Plan’. GOV.UK, 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/25-year-environment-plan.

Siviter, Harry, Mark J. F. Brown, and Ellouise Leadbeater. ‘Sulfoxaflor Exposure Reduces Bumblebee Reproductive Success’. Nature 561, no. 7721 (1 September 2018): 109–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0430-6.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The benefits of "ley farming"

Image
  Two papers demonstrate the benefits of "ley farming" as commonly used in temperate climate organic farming and the negative effects of continuous cropping and synthetic nitrogen on both soil nitrogen and soil organic carbon. This also serves as a reminder about how slow the process of building up soil carbon is, in this case, the ley system took 35 years to increase the SOC from 1.6% to 2.1%. That is 0.5 percentage points over 35 years, or 0.014 of a percentage point per year, which is an annual increase of about 0.9% per year on the original 1.6%. The Paris COP21 initiative, 4 per mille, seeks to increase soil carbon stocks by 0.4% per year  https://www.4p1000.org /. Other points to consider are the methane emissions of livestock needed to produce human food from the 3 years of ley and the external environmental costs of fertilisers. Mulvaney, R. L., S. A. Khan, and T. R. Ellsworth. ‘Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cer
Read more

Realistic increases in soil organic carbon % through land management: 0.5% over 20 years and worth every point

Image
This figure is taken from the PNAS study (Sanderman et al, 2017).  It is yet another hockey stick graph that shows the exponential impact of human activity over the last 300 years.  According to this study, since the period before Land USe Change (NoLU), the world's soils have lost 133 Petagrams (133 billion tons) of soil organic carbon (SOC) from the top 2 m and 37 Petagrams from the top 30 cm.  The total SOC stocks in the top 2m and 30cm before land-use change were 3144 and 899 Petagrams respectively so that losses are of the order of 4% of total carbon for both strata.  It seems reasonable that these losses place upper limits on the sequestration potential of soils. An average silt loam has a density of 1.33 g/cm3, 1.33 tons/m3.  One ha of soil has 3000 m3 in the top 30 cm, so 3990 tons of soil.  A soil with 5% SOC would have had 199.5 tons of SOC/ha.  After land use change it would have had 199.5 tons - (199.5 X 37/899) = 191.3 tons of SOC = 4.7%. At COP21 in 2015 a global proj
Read more

Soya - Feed, Food or Byproduct?

Image
Soya - Feed, Food or Byproduct? When one considers Soya and other grains fed to animals that become human food, it is necessary to consider the degree to which animal feed is actually a byproduct or whether it is grown specifically to feed animals.  These graphs from the international grains council clearly show that of total grains grown worldwide the vast majority goes directly to animal feed, almost 50%. The situation varies between countries.  In the US just as much goes to industrial use as to animal feed with grain for food a fraction of these tonnages, while in India the bulk goes to food with very little being fed to animals or used industrially. Soya presents a more complex picture.  Very little soya is used directly as food or feed.  Soya milk is made directly from soya beans but almost all soya goes to be crushed, a process that separates oil from high protein expeller or meal (46.5% protein).  The crushing process yields about 18% oil and 80% meal.  The latter goes to anima
Read more