How to sustainably feed 10 million people?

Question 1

What are the 4 components to sustainably feed 10 million people?

Answer 1

Food production (quality and quantity, resiliency of crops to climate change)

Greenhouse gas emissions (transport, livestock, agricultural practices)

Food management (food waste, feed for animals, distribution amongst countries)

Land management (urbanization, deforestation, lack of new agriculture lands)

Question 2

By 2050:

a) 34% more people on earth to feed. 56% more crop calories to feed 10 billion people by 2050. 70% of the population will be in __ __ compared to 49% in 2010.
b) Spread of prosperity across the world, especially in __ and __.
c) __ demand for eggs, meat, and dairy.
d) Boosting pressure to grow more __ and __ to feed more cattle, pigs, and chickens.
e) Roughly __ the amount of crops we grow by 2050.
f) GHG emissions: 11 gigaton GHG mitigation gap between expected agricultural emissions in 2050. Target level needed to hold global warming below __C.

Answer 2

a) urban centres
b) China, India
c) increased
d) corn and soybeans
e) double
f) 2C

Question 3

How did we get there? (agricultural techniques)

Answer 3

transformation in plant breeding, development of fertilizers and agrochemicals, mechanization of agronomic practices, development of global food businesses.

Question 4

Fill in the blank: economic situation

a) Continuous maximization of growth in ___ (hence production)
b) ___, which in theory provides for poverty relief through trade. In practice, it often diverts local agriculture and land use toward food exports to developed countries. Pursue ___ and ___.
c) High supply chain throughout of production and consumption inevitably leads to ___. Reducing the resilience necessary to cope with ___ ___ and gross disruption caused by the effects of climate change and plant pests and diseases.

Answer 4

a) consumption
b) Globalization, growth and monopoly
c) waste, global shocks

Question 5

Name environmental impacts of agriculture (6)

Answer 5

1. Destruction of forests and grasslands for new agricultural land is a major cause of biodiversity loss.
2. Depletion of non-renewable resources such as ancient ground water.
3. Pollution of land, water courses and oceans by agrochemicals and animal waste
4. Degradation of the soil upon which it depends
5. Being dependent upon intensive fertilization from fossil-fuel nitrogen fixation. It is intrinsically unsustainable because it breaks the natural biological nitrogen cycle.
6. Resource cycles of carbon and phosphorus are also incomplete, and ultimately limits to net primary production.

Question 6

What are the 3 main components of food inequalities?

Answer 6

1. Increasingly efficient cereal production was at the expense of crop diversity (high levels of malnutrition)
2. Gross inequality in access to food across the globe has persisted. (Excessive consumption in the developed world)
3. Current agri-food system is flawed way to provide food in both developed and developing countries

Question 7

T/F: Intensive agriculture has neglected and even disrupted the biology and natural capital on which the food production system had been historically based

Answer 7

True

Question 8

What are the solutions to agricultural problems (2)

Answer 8

We have most of the tools to do so. Lack of knowledge and technology are not the principal problems: the problem is thinking that the solutions are purely technical, a philosophy that has dominated agri-food research for the last century and given rise to the failed policies that have resulted.

Question 9

Discuss mitigating climate change

Answer 9

Agriculture will have to adapt to climate change, but it can also help mitigate the effects of climate change, and useful synergies exist between adaptation and mitigation.

Question 10

How to limit growth in the demand for food and agricultural products?

Answer 10

Food: Reduce food waste and loss. Shift to more sustainable diets (especially in western countries). Switching from grain-fed beef to meats like chicken, pork, or pasture-raised beef could free up substantial amounts of food across the world.

Agricultural products: Divert from bioenergy. Only 55% of the world’s crop calories feed people directly (36% is fed to livestock, 9% is turned into biofuels and industrial products)

Question 11

How to maintain outputs with reduced inputs (agriculture)

6

Answer 11

1. Increase livestock and pasture productivity
2. Improve crop breeding, resulting in yield growth
3. Plant existing cropland more frequently
4. Adapt agricultural practices to the additional pressures of climate change
5. Using high-tech, precision farming systems
6. Non-conventional farming

Question 12

Name 3 alternative methods for agriculture

Answer 12

• Agroforestry: Improve soil and water management. These practices also produce crops that are more resilient in the face of pests and extreme weather
• Intercropping and polyculture
• Urban agriculture (community based)

Question 13

How to protect and restore natural ecosystems (5)

Answer 13

• Link productivity gains with protection of natural ecosystems
• Limit inevitable cropland expansion to lands with low environmental opportunity costs
• Conserve and restore peatlands
• Avoid further deforestation
• Reforest non-productive or abandoned agricultural areas

Question 14

How to reduce GHG emissions from agricultural production? (7)

Answer 14

Reduce enteric fermentation (methane) through new techniques

Reduce emissions through improved manure management

Reduce emissions from manure left on pasture

Reduce emission from fertilizers by increasing nitrogen use efficiency

Adopt emissions-reducing rice management and varieties

Increase agricultural energy efficiency and shift to non-fossil energy sources

Implement realistic options to sequester carbon in soil.

Question 15

What are some policy changes necessary to make agriculture more sustainable?

Answer 15

• Economic growth does not automatically ensure reduction of malnutrition and hunger, the source of growth matters does too
• Consider joint measures between countries to be better prepared for future shocks to the global system (Coordinate action in case of food crises, reform of trade rules, joint finance to assist people affected by a new price spike or localized disasters)
• Governments have to be willing to take measures that might alienate the industry
• Consumer action and government policy have to work together to bring about change
• Incentives in agriculture should encourage the environmental and health linkage and promote sustainable practices
• Legislative powers need to be used when necessary to mandate by law adherence of agri-businesses to indicators of sustainable practice (reduction of all the environmental impacts of food production, promotion of human health, elimination of operations which lead to food waste)

Question 16

Discuss Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS)

Answer 16

Connection to food has been severed and continues to be
(Sovereignty allows for reconnection with land and culture, self-determination and development of new policies that benefit their communities)
Indigeneous food systems include all of the land, soil, water and air, as well as culturally important plant, fungi and animal species that have sustained indigenenous peoples over thousands of years of participating in the natural world
Foods and food systems that are indigeneous to a place thrive and are most sustainable as well as being regenerative.
Traditional foods also promote better health

Question 17

What are some of sustainable agriculture key points?

a) On whom does the burden fall?
b) Social aspects of the agri-food system, such as equality of access, culture ethics and justice should not be secondary to free market economics and technology
c) Need for governmental collaboration on a global scale (Recognition by governments that environment, agriculture, food and public health are an integrated system, that has to be considered as a whole)
d) Realisation of the complexity, diversity, connectivity and unpredictability of the agri-food system. (Biological ecosystem, physical geography, climate and human behaviour and global socio-economic political system.)