How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of agriculture

1. How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address The Environmental and Human
Health Harms of industrial agriculture.
Leo Horrigan, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker
Center for a livable future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland,
USA

2. The Union of Concerned Scientists said…
 That industrial agriculture views the farm as a factory with inputs and outputs, The
goal is to increase yield and decrease the costs of production, usually by
exploiting economies of scale.

3. The Industrial Agriculture System…
 The industrial agriculture system consumes natural recourses at very unsustainable
rates and contributes to many forms of environmental degradation.
 Fossil fuels Water
 Top soil Phosphorus
 Air pollution Water pollution
 Soil depletion Diminishing biodiversity
 Fish die offs Animal die offs

4. The Industrial agriculture system…
 Meat production contributes disproportionately to these problems because of the
need to feed grain to animals to produce meat, instead of feeding it to humans.
This is one example of a loss of energy in the agriculture system.

5. The Industrial Agriculture System…
Industrial agriculture depends on expensive inputs on the farm.
 Pesticides
 Fertilizers
 Farm equipment
 Fuel
Many of these generate mass quantities of waste that harm the environment and are
a key part of the unsustainable system in use.

6. The Industrial Agriculture System…
These inputs are a large investment and concentrate on large scare production, which
creates problems in our food systems.
 This drives out small scale producers.
 Creates unfair competition
 Normalizes the industrial model which the developing world adopts.

7. The Industrial agricultural system
Some of the energy related issues to the Industrial agriculture model are
 Monocultures, eroding biodiversity and creating the need for “nutrients”
(fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, fungicide etc.…)
 Massive use of polluting fertilizers and the need for the creation of these recourse
intensive devices.
 Water, being consumed at an unsustainable rate, needs to be pumped and
transported.
Again the problems are more inherent when the output is meat.

8. The Industrial Agriculture Model…
As parts of the developing world adapt the Industrial agriculture model, it creates
inequities and changes dietary habits change to maintain the production of the
industrial agriculture model.
 Since 1950 meat consumption has doubled among the worlds riches 20 percent
but the worlds poorest did not increase consumption
 In China countrywide meat consumption nearly doubled in the 1990s.

9. The Industrial Agricultural Model…
Resource intensive agriculture in considered unsustainable for these two main
reasons.
 Much of the consumption is non renewable (fossil fuels in particular).
 And the consumption of renewable resources is happening faster then the rate of
regeneration.
The average farms uses 3Kcal of Fossil energy in creating 1 Kcal of Food energy, In
feedlot beef production the ratio is 35:1. This does not include transportation and
storage energy.

10. Sustainable Agriculture Systems
 Based on small scale, profitable farms.
 Use few off farm inputs.
 Integrate plant and animal production where appropriate.
 Maintain a biotic diversity.
 Use technologies appropriate to the scale of production.
 Take advantage of renewable energy resources.

11. Sustainable Agriculture Systems…
The transition of to a sustainable sustainable method of production would create a
closer producer consumer relationship, meaning more direct marketing of local foods.
Localized marketing strategies create less transportation from the farm too the plate.

12. High Yield Low cost?
 Over the past 50 years farmers have become heavily dependant on synthetic
chemicals.
 In 1920 US farmers were producing 30 bushels of corn per acre.
 In 1999 they were producing 134 bushels per acre that’s a 350% increase.
These high yields come with great costs to the environment, socially and ecologically.
Low prices give us the sense that food comes cheap, but it does not include the cost
to clean up farm pollution.
 For example costs of government subsidies to agriculture, in 1996 the Us
government spent 68.7 billion on agricultural subsides.

13. High Yields Low Cost?
Studies have shown that farm consolidation leads to the deterioration of rural
communities.
We have found depressed median family incomes, high levels of poverty, low education levels, social and economic
inequity with ethnic groups, etc., …. Associated with land and capital concentration in agriculture . University of
California.

14. Environmental Impact
 Fertilizers In 1998, the world used 137 million metric tonnes of chemical fertilizer, which is a ten fold increase since 1950. Chemical
fertilizer’s increase the acidity of soil until it impleads plant growth. Fertilized crops show less biologic activity then plots that are
organically fertilized.
 Pesticides Each year the world uses around 3 million tonnes of pesticides coming from 1600 different chemicals, increased pesticide
use can be attributed to mono-cropping which makes crops more venerable to pests. High volume use reflects the imprecise nature of
these products. It is only estimated that .1% of pesticides reach the target pests leaving the bulk of the pesticide an impact on the
environment. Since the massive use of pesticides plants and animals are known build a resistance to such applications, pesticide
resistance has increased from <20 in 1950 to 500> as of 1990.
 Soil and land Land degradation is a serious issue facing agriculture today, since WW2 poor farming practices have damaged about
550 million hectares an equivalent to 38% of the farmland is use today.
 Water Agriculture diverts water from other sources to create unsustainable irrigation systems, these irrigation systems cause runoff
which is harmful. The US environmental agency blamed current farming practises for 70% of the pollution in the nations rivers and
streams. Agriculture accounts for 2/3s of all water use worldwide.
 Water use in irrigation is extremely inefficient, the FAO estimates that crops use only 45% of irrigation water. In the case of Chinas
Yellow river, only 30% of the water extracted for irrigation actually reaches crops, while agriculture extracts 92% of the water from the
river.

15. Agriculture and Energy
Again… converting grain into meat creates a large loss of energy.
 Conservative estimates are that cattle require 7 kg of grain to create 1kg of beef.
Compared to 4kg for pork and just over 2 kg for chicken
Fossil fuel energy is also a major input to industrial agriculture.
 The food production system accounts for 17% of all fossil fuel use in the US, and the
average US farm uses 3Kcal of fossil energy to create 1Kcal of food energy.
 Fossil fuel energy in feedlot production is 35:1 Kcal for beef protein produced.
 In addition the transportation process to get the food to your plate is very intensive
because of transporting processing and packaging food require large amounts of fuels,
this does not include refrigeration.

16. Agriculture and Energy
 Most vegetable shipments travel about 1600 miles (2574 Km) from Maryland
 Most fruit 2400 miles (3701 Km)
Some estimated food energy inputs for processing various foods are.
 575Kcal/Kg canned fruit and vegetables .
 1815Kcal/Kg for frozen fruits and vegetables.
 15,675Kcal/Kg for breakfast cereal.
 18591Kcal/kg for chocolate.
Processing accounts for 1/3 of the energy use in the US food system.
 Each calorie of processed food produced consumes about 1000 calories of energy.
 In likelihood the food system has become more energy intensive.

17. Agriculture and global warming
Agriculture is directly responsible for about 20% of human generated emissions of
green house gasses according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
Changes in land use contribute about 14% of the total human generated emissions of
greenhouse gasses.

18. Unsustainable Agriculture
Unsustainability in agriculture is not a new issue, civilizations have risen and collapsed
because of their farming practices.
Todays agriculture is considered unsustainable because it is eroding natural recourses
faster then they can regenerate.
Its also heavily dependant on high energy inputs such as fossil fuels.

19. Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable agricultures long term goals are not to minimize inputs while maximizing
outputs like our current system, the goas of a sustainable system are to
 maintain topsoil, biodiversity and community preservation.
 Take into account environmental health, economic profitability and equity.
 Recognize natural resources and the environment an not only an economic
activity.

20. Sustainable Agriculture
Methods of sustainable Agriculture
 Crop rotation
 Cover crops
 No till and low till farming
 Soil management
 Diversity
 Nutrient enrichment
 Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
 Rotational Grazing

21. Questions
That industrial agriculture views the farm as a factory with inputs and outputs, The goal is
to increase yield and decrease the costs of production, usually by exploiting economies of
scale. What do you think this means?
Do you think methods of production in agriculture change diet patterns ?
Did you find the comparisons of energy relevant? Were they easy to understand?
Do you believe there are energy issues related to factory farming?
What do you think are the biggest energy related issues related to industrial agriculture?
In what ways can we adjust the current agricultural system to lower its energy demands ?
Do you think it is possible to make changes in the current agricultural system?