The answer for meeting global food needs, and preserving wildlife
is improving the productivity of the soil. This can be done in an
environmentally sound, sustainable and profitable way only by improving
the structure of the soil and its biological "life support systems"
composed of microorganisms and other life forms. By improving what
scientists now call "soil quality", the capacity of the soil to take in
and hold water, nutrients, and support healthy root development, is
maximized. While the processes through which a farmer can improve soil
quality are many and complex, the goals, the end result, is simple -- a
soil that takes in water more swiftly, holds it longer, supports more
complex nutrient cycles, thereby increasing the supply of essential
nutrients and lessening dependence on fertilizers which, while necessary
for sure, entail an unavoidable degree of loss and inefficiency, and cost
the farmer money and a society energy and capital. Such soils also are
more amendable to microbial and other biocontrol processes, and
non-chemical weed management; again, the mechanisms through which such
systems control pests, and reduce pest pressure are complex, but just
because science has not figured them out yet does not mean they do not
exist or are unimportant.
So Dennis, we agree on many things, but not on whether the
solution to the world's food problem is fundamentally an
ecological/biological challenge or one requiring the skills and systems
of an engineer/chemist. Of course all skills can and must be drawn upon
and woven into practical steps to get from here to there. But the world
will be better off, I believe, when the paradigm governing the direction
and nature of those steps is rooted in biology and natural
cycles/systems. Pardon the puns.
Re policy -- Ann, nicely argued and correct. Policy has played
an important role in shaping agricultural systems from Canada, to Cameron,
to Indonesia, and will probably play a bigger role in the future as
pressure/competition for resources and clean water grows. I doubt that
gov't can compel sustainable agriculture. Gov't is pretty inefficient at
synthesizing information and adpating to dynamic systems and unique
circumstances -- the nature of farming.
What gov't and policy can do is direct public and private
investment toward different forms of infrastructure -- knowledge, tools,
material handling techniques, regualtions and marketing systems,
financial instruments and institutions, technical and human services. We
have conventional ag today because that is where policy has directed
investment in infrastructure. The economic "advantages" of current ag
systems is not a function of their underlying biological soundness; they
are profitable because the have co-evolved with policies and instituions
designed to bring them into widespread use, something a generation of
scientists, leaders and farmers sincerely thought was the right and good
thing to do. New knowledge eventual prevails, and it will in this debate
as well. But until the infrastructure needed to support sus ag is put
into place in a serious way, sus ag systems will remain a minor
contributor to the overall food system. The changes needed would
include, for example, redirecting all public money supporting research to
prove atrazine is more/less hazardous than simazine then alachlor than
metolochlor than the sulfonylureas, and instead using 90% of public weed
science funding to support work on reduced and non-chemical integrated
weed management systems. Private companies making herb. can and should
pay for the research needed to sustain their place in the market; it is
the Republican thing to do moreover (don't hold your breathe).
Instead of doing research on fertilizer technology, which again
the private sector can and should do, public money should be supporting
work on green manures, composting technologies, the biochemistry of
disease suppressive soils. Instead of allowing a product like BST to
take up 100's of millions in public and private capital, other options
toincrease the efficiency of dairy production, like forage-based rations
and rotational grazing, should receive the lion's share of attention and
investment. But today investment patterns are controlled by companies
and institutions with money, income streams and political power. The sus
ag world has none of the above, and until that changes we will be
frustrated by the reality that success, solid science, and generally
being right is not enough.
But given the tide in the political arena, corporate subsidies
are vulnerable, as are lax environmental and food safety policies that
force people, communities, and state/local gov'ts to deal with the
unanticipated and unwanted effects of modern farming systems. Hog lagoon
spills, herbicides throughout the midwest, fish kills in the cane fields,
all are telling people something is not right with this picture, as
wonderful as American agriculture is. But change will be slow because
most people do not care, and receive mixed messages about what is right
and wrong with current agricultural systems. Farmers will ultimately
drive the change, and will get serious when they realize they have not
been served well, or even honestly by those whom they view as their
natural allies and supporters -- in academia, business, and government.