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Syria: Climate Change, Drought And Social Unrest
Syria’s current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a brutal and out-of-touch regime and a response to the political wave of change that began in Tunisia early last year. However, that’s not the whole story. The past few years have seen a number of significant social, economic, environmental and climatic changes in Syria that have eroded the social contract between citizen and government in the country, have strengthened the case for the opposition movement, and irreparably damaged the legitimacy of the al-Assad regime. If the international community, and future policy-makers in Syria, are to address and resolve the drivers of unrest in the country, these changes will have to be better explored and exposed.
Out of the blue?
International pundits characterized the Syrian uprising as an “out of the blue” case in the Middle East - one that they didn’t see coming. Many analysts, right up to a few days prior to the first protests, predicted that Syria under al-Assad was “immune to the Arab Spring.” However, the seeds of social unrest were right there under the surface, if one looked closely. And not only were they there, they had been reported on, but largely ignored, in a number of forms.
Water shortages, crop-failure and displacement
From 2006-2011, up to 60% of Syria’s land experienced, in the terms of one expert, “the worst long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago.” According to a special case study from last year’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR), of the most vulnerable Syrians dependent on agriculture, particularly in the northeast governorate of Hassakeh (but also in the south), “nearly 75 percent…suffered total crop failure.” Herders in the northeast lost around 85% of their livestock, affecting 1.3 million people.
The human and economic costs are enormous. In 2009, the UN and IFRC reported that over 800,000 Syrians had lost their entire livelihood as a result of the droughts. By 2011, the aforementioned GAR report estimated that the number of Syrians who were left extremely “food insecure” by the droughts sat at about one million. The number of people driven into extreme poverty is even worse, with a UN report from last year estimating two to three million people affected.
This has led to a massive exodus of farmers, herders and agriculturally-dependent rural families from the countryside to the cities. Last January, it was reported that crop failures (particularly the Halaby pepper) just in the farming villages around the city of Aleppo, had led “200,000 rural villagers to leave for the cities.” In October 2010, the New York Times highlighted a UN estimate that 50,000 families migrated from rural areas just that year, “on top of the hundreds of thousands of people who fled in earlier years.” In context of Syrian cities coping with influxes of Iraqi refugees since the U.S. invasion in 2003, this has placed additional strains and tensions on an already stressed and disenfranchised population.
Climate change, natural resource mis-management, and demographics
The reasons for the collapse of Syria’s farmland are a complex interplay of variables, including climate change, natural resource mis-management, and demographic dynamics.
A NOAA study published last October in the Journal of Climate found strong and observable evidence that the recent prolonged period of drought in the Mediterranean littoral and the Middle East is linked to climate change. On top of this, the study also found worrying agreement between observed climate impacts, and future projections from climate models. A recent model of climate change impacts on Syria conducted by IFPRI, for example, projects that if current rates of global greenhouse gas emissions continue, yields of rainfed crops in the country may decline “between 29 and 57 percent from 2010 to 2050.”
This problem has been compounded by poor governance. The al-Assad regime has, by most accounts except their own, criminally combined mismanagement and neglect of Syria’s natural resources, which have contributed to water shortages and land desertification. Based on short-term assessments during years of relative plenty, the government has heavily subsidized water-intensive wheat and cotton farming, and encouraged inefficient irrigation techniques. In the face of both climate and human-induced water shortages, farmers have sought to increase supply by turning to the country’s groundwater resources, with Syria’s National Agricultural Policy Center reporting an increase in wells tapping aquifers from “just over 135,000 in 1999 to more than 213,000 in 2007.” This pumping “has caused groundwater levels to plummet in many parts of the country, and raised significant concerns about the water quality in remaining aquifer stocks.”
On top of this, the over-grazing of land and a rapidly growing population have compounded the land desertification process. As previously fertile lands turn to dust, farmers and herders have had no choice but to move elsewhere, starve, or demand change.
by Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell
This article was also posted on Climate Progress, with an addendum by Joe Romm
More at the linkSyria’s current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a... more-
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Montana EXXON spill pipeline may have carried tarsands bitumen crude
An Exxon Mobil pipeline that ruptured, leaking oil into Yellowstone River, may have sometimes carried a heavier and more toxic form of crude than initially thought, federal regulators said on Thursday.
The U.S. Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration spokeswoman Patricia Klinger said her office had learned that the pipeline may have been used to carry heavier crude.
"I just found out that apparently, and the regional folks just found out, there is an interconnect on the pipeline that possibly does carry some oil out of Canada," she said in response to a question about tar sands crude in the pipeline.
That a pipeline thought to transport only "sweet," low sulfur crude could have carried so-called tar sands crude from Canada raised concerns by health and environmental officials, even as Exxon officials said the heavier oil was not flowing through the Silvertip pipeline when it broke on July 1.
"The actual crude in the line at the point of the incident was a blend of crudes from Wyoming," Exxon spokesman George Pietrogallo told Reuters in an email on Thursday.
Exxon was responding to a question about whether tar sands crude had ever flowed in the pipeline. Almost all the oil produced in Canada's Alberta fields is from tar sands.
The chemistry of tar sands oil, derived from tar sands or bitumen and sweet crude is significantly different, said Ronald Kendall, head of the environmental toxicology department at Texas Tech University.
"Tar sands oil is in itself heavier oil and it contains more compounds that are toxic and may contain heavy metals like lead," Kendall said.
In a July 6 email to Reuters, Exxon spokesman Kevin Allexon said the crude carried by the pipeline "does not originate from Alberta" but from fields on the Montana-Wyoming border. On Thursday, Exxon revised that.
"The pipeline carries a variety of different production fields in the U.S. and Canada," Pietrogallo said in the email.
'HELL NO'
Tar sands crude may cause more wear and tear on pipes because of its chemical makeup, including corrosive and abrasive agents, said Tom Finch, the pipeline administration's technical services director for the western regional office.
Federal inspectors were trying to determine if transport of tar sands crude could have triggered internal corrosion that may have played a role in the rupture, he said.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer faulted Exxon for failing to tell the state exactly what kinds of crude ran in the pipeline or spell out what hazardous chemicals were in the mix now contaminating riverside properties.
"Since they dumped that oil into the river that the state owns and manages, since they have spread oil in a film across 150 separate properties, since the film is over fishing access sites and state parks, we thought it would be appropriate to know what it is," Schweitzer said.
Richard Opper, head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said he was surprised to learn the pipeline buried in the streambed of the Yellowstone may sometimes have moved tar sands crude from Canada.
"If the question is, did we know it was carrying tar sands oil? Hell, no," he said in an interview on Thursday. "If companies are changing the kinds of materials in pipelines to mixes that make them more likely they will leak or rupture, that raises huge concerns."
Exxon has apologized for the spill, which it estimates at 42,000 gallons, and pledged to restore a river prized for its near pristine waters, scenic beauty and abundance of wildlife.
EPA officials are analyzing the chemical fingerprint of the oil which, depending on its source, could contain anything from benzene, a known carcinogen, to hexane, a toxin that can damage the human nervous system.
More at the linkAn Exxon Mobil pipeline that ruptured, leaking oil into Yellowstone River, may have... more-
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Rising waters complicate clean up of Yellowstone River
Just look at this EXXON flunky saying, we understand... we understand.... we understand. Excuse me, but you don't understand anything but $$$$$$$$$$. Once again a major spill and the one in charge KNOWS NOTHING. Doesn't know how it happened, how far it has gone, what it has done, what people are being exposed to. Cover up and backtracking. That's all we get from these amoral bastards.
And personally, I don't give a damn how many people they say they have on this now putting diapers down...STOP POLLUTING OUR WATERWAYS!Just look at this EXXON flunky saying, we understand... we understand.... we... more-
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UPDATE: Floods coming to Louisiana: Mississippi River rising: floods throughout Southwest
Heartbreaking. The pictures tell the story.-
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Flood water heads south to "last place on earth that needs high water"
The swollen Mississippi River rolled south Wednesday, swamping emptied-out towns and businesses and threatening untold damage to areas still recovering from a series of natural disasters.
Authorities and residents braced for the days ahead in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.
"I went through (Hurricane) Katrina," said Lynn Magnuson of New Orleans. "I would not wish flooding on anyone, and this city is the last place on Earth that needs any more high water."
The river crested Tuesday at Memphis, just short of a record set in 1937.
The Mississippi in Memphis measured 47.8 feet Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service.
In Natchez, Mississippi, the river surpassed its record early Wednesday, exceeding 58 feet. Forecasts predict the river will crest in Natchez on May 21 at an overwhelming 64 feet.
Mississippi already has had to close some casinos at Tunica, a key economic driver in that part of the state, as floodwaters seeped in.
About 600 people in the Tunica community of Cutoff have been driven from their homes, said Larry Liddell, a county spokesman.
"We're just watching and waiting," he said.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said flooding could affect as many as 3 million acres in his state. Some 500 National Guard members have been mobilized so far, and 21 parishes have issued emergency declarations.
The river's crest is expected to begin arriving in Louisiana next week. The flooding would be a major setback in the southern part of the state.
"After hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike -- as well as the oil spill -- Louisiana can ill afford another large-scale disaster," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat. "Billions of dollars in property is at stake, not to mention the threat to human life."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it was closing a major lock that allows for the transfer of barge traffic between the Mississippi and the Red River Basin.
On Tuesday, the Corps opened 44 more gates to the Bonnet Carré Spillway in Norco, Louisiana, north of New Orleans, sending millions of gallons of water rushing into Lake Pontchartrain and, eventually, the Gulf of Mexico.
In addition to 28 gates opened Monday, it may consider opening an additional 38 Wednesday, according to John Young, the Jefferson Parish president.
Mississippi mayor: 'It's very painful'
Neighborhoods swallowed by rising river
Flood victim: 'It smells like sewage'
As the swollen waters inch closer, anxious Louisiana residents are demanding answers.
In postings on Facebook pages operated by the Corps, some have demanded answers about when certain spillways will be opened and what other areas are facing flooding.
In Arkansas, the Farm Bureau estimated damage to the state agriculture could top $500 million as more than 1 million acres of cropland are under water.
In Helena, Arkansas, the river was above 56 feet Wednesday. Flood level in Helena is 44 feet.
cont.The swollen Mississippi River rolled south Wednesday, swamping emptied-out towns and... more-
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Mississippi River cresting; Louisiana prepares for rising waters
The Mississippi River crested this morning as authorities turn their attention downstream to Louisiana, where residents are preparing for more of the historic flooding that has devastated numerous communities.
The National Weather Service said the Mississippi River has reached 47.85 feet according to the Associated Press.
The river is will likely to stay to that level in the couple of days, officials said.
Residents of Vidalia, La., have been warned to start working on an evacuation plan. City officials have already evacuated the hospital. Vidalia is directly located across the river from Natchez, Miss.
Officials said the river is expected to crest at a record level there on May 21. Businesses owners and residents have been preparing for the worst by filling sandbags Monday.
"I've been through several floods. And this is the big one. And I am very nervous," said Carla Jenkins, a business owner in Vidalia.
Record flooding is expected in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and the Mississippi cities of Vicksburg and Natchez.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan on opening three major spillways in Louisiana today and possibly the Morganza and Atchafalaya Spillway near Baton Rouge.
Memphis Keeps Close Eye on Flood Waters
In Memphis, the river has crested, but the danger of flooding has not disappeared. While the river's maximum elevation may have been reached, officials said they will continue to monitor the levees.
"We're going to wait until the water goes down a whole lot more and then we'll celebrate success," said Cory Williams of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Authorities expected the levees will protect the city's landmarks, Graceland and Beale Street.
cont.The Mississippi River crested this morning as authorities turn their attention... more-
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Floods raise concerns for the Gulf, drinking water
The Ohio and Mississippi River levels were falling Wednesday at the site where engineers blasted holes in a Missouri levee to relieve pressure. But unleashing torrents of water across 35 miles of farmland in what has already been a terrible flooding season could carry other consequences.
One risk, scientists cautioned, is fertilizer runoff from the flooded farm country along the Mississippi. As it moves downstream, they predicted it would contribute to the largest-ever summertime depletion of oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico, posing a substantial risk to marine life.
The concern is that the water is likely pulling up components of fertilizers—notably nitrogen and phosphorus—and washing them downstream toward the Gulf, helping slash oxygen to levels marine life can't survive, said Nancy Rabalais, a marine scientist who is executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium on the Gulf coast.
Those chemicals act as nutrients in the Gulf, intensifying the growth of microscopic plants. Microbes eat away at those plants. In the process, they consume oxygen, reducing it to levels that kill marine life.
In the days leading up to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' breach of the levee near Birds Point, Mo., authorities began removing fuel and other chemicals stored in tanks in a 35-mile long floodway bordering the Mississippi River, said Karl Brooks, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency region that includes much of the Midwest.
In addition to the effects in the Gulf, another concern has begun to emerge: drinking water. Much of the Midwest gets its water from rivers, and scientists say they'll be monitoring to see whether the floodwaters show elevated levels of nitrate, a derivative of nitrogen in fertilizers. Nitrate can cause sickness, particularly in infants, the EPA says.
Water-treatment plants filter out nitrate to government limits. But "the faster the water moves across the land, the more sediment it picks up, and the more nitrate and other pollutants," said John Downing, a professor at Iowa State University specializing in inland-water issues.
James Kopp, chemistry manager for the water division in St. Louis, said nitrate levels of water filtered in the city don't appear to be any higher than in a normal May—a month when nitrate levels are typically elevated because of spring runoff.
Not far from the breached levee, some 3,800 Western Kentucky residents have evacuated their homes as the Mississippi River and its tributaries continue to rise.
Kentucky, along with Tennessee, Mississippi, and other Southern states have been urging evacuations and bracing for what state officials say could be near-record crests of the Mississippi River in the coming days after the intentional breach of a flood wall upstream in Missouri.
Heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday brought as much as four-and-a-half inches of rain to Kentucky and have contributed to flooding that has already hit low-lying parts of the state; in addition, authorities expect the Ohio River to crest on Thursday, and the Mississippi River to do so on Friday.
The levee breach sent water rushing across the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway, and water levels Tuesday dropped as much as three feet from expected levels on the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill. The Corps blew a second hole Tuesday and was preparing Wednesday to blow a third, to let the water drain back into the river.
Springtime flooding is natural along the Mississippi, as melting snow and ice and seasonal rains swell the river. But in recent years some floods have gotten more severe, and their ecological effects heightened.
Officials probably won't have a sense of how the flood affected the area until the weekend, when they expect rushing water will have slowed enough so they can enter the area and begin environmental testing, said the EPA's Mr. Brooks. "Until we see what the landscape looks like, it's going to be hard to know how extensive that is," he said.
This week's flooding comes one year after the country's largest-ever offshore oil spill sent 4.1 million barrels of crude into the Gulf ecosystem.
For decades, summertime oxygen levels in a large swath of the Gulf spreading out from the mouth of the Mississippi have plummeted to levels that have killed fish, shrimp crabs and other marine life. The oxygen depleted areas, known as dead zones, began to appear in the early 1970s, also the time when chemical-fertilizer use was intensifying on Midwest farms, said Ms. Rabalais, a dead-zone expert.
Even before the latest flooding, high water levels along the Mississippi earlier this year were creating signs of an earlier—and larger—than normal dead zone in the Gulf, she said. Now, she said, scientists are predicting a Gulf dead zone this year far larger than the prior record—an 8,500-square-mile dead zone in 2002.
cont,The Ohio and Mississippi River levels were falling Wednesday at the site where... more-
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Second environmental review of Keystone XL tarsands pipeline leaves many groups unsatisfied
On April 22, the U.S. State Department released a supplemental environmental review for a proposed pipeline that would funnel 700,000 barrels of oil per day 2,750 kilometers (1,710 miles) from Canada’s tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The department completed the supplemental review after its initial draft, released in April 2010, was given the lowest possible rating of “inadequate” by the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the year since, U.S. senators, state representatives, and various national, state, and local interest groups also have requested a more detailed review of the safety of the Keystone XL pipeline and its effects on land use and water resources. The route proposed by TransCanada, the project developer, cuts across the High Plains Aquifer System, one of the world’s largest aquifers and the water source for 2.8 million people and nearly 5.3 million hectares (13 million acres) of irrigated farmland.
However, the supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) has not alleviated those concerns, especially in Nebraska where the $US 7 billion pipeline would cross two primary units of the High Plains Aquifer—the Ogallala and the Sand Hills.
In a written statement, Nebraska’s Republican Senator Mike Johanns questioned the conclusions in the supplemental EIS.
“I was pleased that the State Department issued a supplemental EIS, which I had requested months ago,” Johanns wrote to Circle of Blue. “There is still much to review in the document, but the bottom line is that the State Department’s position doesn’t seem to have changed much. The State Department still thinks the best route goes through the Sand Hills, and I think that’s wrong.”
Though the supplement incorporates minor changes to the location of storage tanks and the intensity of pumping pressure, the new information “does not alter the conclusions reached in the draft EIS regarding the need for and the potential impacts of the proposed project,” according to the State Department’s supplemental EIS.
The State Department is the permitting agency because the pipeline crosses international boundaries. The department has already approved two pipelines from the tar sands to refineries in the U.S., both originating in Hardisty, Alberta. The 992-mile Alberta Clipper line ends at Superior, Wisconsin. The 1,600-kilometer (2,151-mile) Keystone line has terminals in Illinois and Oklahoma. The combined capacity is 1.4 million barrels per day, but the U.S. currently only imports 1.1 million barrels a day from the tar sands.
Potential for Pollution
The areas of greatest concern for water resources—pipeline spills and the location of the proposed route—seem to have been given superficial treatment, said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, the international director for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a tar sands specialist.
“My feeling is that, rather than really going into detail in areas and fleshing them out, they spent a lot of time and pages explaining why they didn’t need to go more in-depth,” Casey-Lefkowitz told Circle of Blue. She continued, saying that the State Department “seems to take the stance that an accident or spill is unlikely, so we don’t need to worry.”
But when it comes to unlikely accidents linked to energy sector, there are two striking examples over the last year: the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and the Fukushima partial meltdown in Japan. And, lest it be overshadowed by those monumental bookends, last June there was a spill from a pipeline carrying tar sands oil in southwestern Michigan, where more than 800,000 gallons of oil flowed into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River from a pipeline owned by Enbridge, a Canadian company.
To understand the potential for a pipeline spill, the physical properties of tar sands oil are important.On April 22, the U.S. State Department released a supplemental environmental review... more-
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China responds to explosive growth, pollution and water scarcity in latest five year plan
In an era of economic turmoil that has produced massive unemployment, accelerated industrial decline, and sowed fear and doubt across much of North America and Europe, China last week offered a much different lesson on growth and development.
The 12th Five-Year Plan comes in the midst of a massive and politically popular economic transition that is rapidly converting China’s economy from its previous focus on export-related revenue to one devoted to building domestic markets. In the latest draft of its new 12th Five-Year Plan to manage the world’s fastest growing industrial economy, China’s leadership called for restraining the runaway growth that is raising the incomes of more than 400 million people, but is also drawing China ever closer to a potentially calamitous confrontation over energy, water, and the quality of the nation’s environment.
The 12th Five-Year Plan, submitted for review on March 5 at the start of China’s annual plenary session in Beijing and adopted on March 14, sets a new limit on energy consumption in order to spur efficiency and conservation measures. But it also envisions record high levels of water use, which is expected to rise to 620 billion cubic meters (163 trillion gallons) by 2015—up from 599 billion cubic meters (158 trillion gallons) in 2010—and as much as 670 billion cubic meters (177 trillion gallons) by the end of the decade. The restraints on coal production, which supplies 70 percent of the nation’s energy and is the largest industrial consumer of fresh water, will serve to keep water use from climbing even higher.
In public statements and in interviews with Chinese media, the nation’s top leaders said the central focus of the new Five-Year Plan is to curb inflation and provide investments and guidance that improves the quality of life by ensuring the continuing development of manufacturing, transportation infrastructure, domestic production, the energy sector, research, science, health care, and education. But the leaders asserted that the 12th Five-Year Plan, the master economic blueprint that charts China’s development through 2015, also is meant to reckon with the damage that the nation’s modernization is causing to air, land, and water, a steadily diminishing resource.
From 2000 to 2009, total water reserves in China dropped 13 percent, and water scarcity is especially evident in the northern and western provinces, where China’s major coal reserves lie. By calling for limits on energy production, China’s leaders are apparently mindful of the dangerous choke point developing between the nation’s surging economy and its demand for opening new coal reserves in the dry provinces that cannot currently be tapped because of water shortages.
“The 12th Five-Year Plan period is crucial for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and for deepening reform and opening up and speeding up the transformation of the pattern of economic development,” said Premier Wen Jiabao in a statement.
Largest and Fastest—Is Restraint Possible?
But it is not at all clear that China’s provincial and industrial leaders—never mind the hundreds of millions of workers benefiting from modernization—will be eager to comply with the goals of the new development strategy.
China now has either the fastest growing or largest markets in the world for coal, cars, steel, cement, glass, residential housing, rail construction, clean energy equipment, highway development, power plant construction, and grain production, just to name a few.During extensive reporting in December for the Choke Point: China series, Circle of Blue found a nation that grumbles about pollution, inflation, and corruption, but also is tremendously enthusiastic about modernization and the economic opportunities it has provided.
The restraints on economic growth described in the 12th Five-Year Plan come in the midst of a massive and politically popular economic transition that is rapidly converting China’s economy from its previous focus on export-related revenue to one devoted to building domestic markets.
Just to name a few, China now has either the fastest-growing or the largest-markets in the world for:
•Cars
•Steel
•Cement
•Glass
•Residential housing
•Rail construction
•Fossil fuel energy
•Highway development
•Power plant construction
•Grain production
Over the next five years, China will continue to build one of the world’s largest water transport projects, the world’s largest highway and high-speed rail networks, and the world’s largest network of hydropower dams. China also will continue to construct the world’s largest industrial manufacturing installations, or “bases,” to produce the components and plants that generate energy from coal, wind, solar, and nuclear power.
Conservation and Efficiency Stressed
The 12th Five-Year Plan calls for reducing annual economic growth to seven percent a year (down from about 10 percent in each of the last four years), restraining the growth in coal production to three percent a year (down from more than 15 percent annually since 2000), and limiting water consumption.
cont.In an era of economic turmoil that has produced massive unemployment, accelerated... more-
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Vanishing Farmland: How It's Destabilizing America's Food Supply
Food security. Sounds boring, eh? It's not something talked about very often, but the fact is America's rising population is creating no small amount of peril in the food-supply chain. Farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate as farms are sold off and developed into suburban housing, shopping malls and transportation systems.
The American Farmland Trust is the only national environmental organization devoted entirely to preserving farms. On its Web site are the following statistics:
• The nation lost farm and ranch land 51 percent faster in the 1990s than in the 1980s.
• We're losing our best land -- most fertile and productive -- the fastest.
• Our food is increasingly in the path of development.
• Wasteful land use is the problem, not growth itself.
Julia Freedgood, managing director of Farmland and Communities, of the Farmland Trust, told me in an interview, "We're losing about a million acres a year, so over the course of the last 30 years since American Farmland Trust has been in existence, that's about 30 million acres."
There's a healthy debate evolving in environmental circles about disappearing farmland and whether the loss could become so great as to threaten our ability to feed ourselves. Some environmentalists see farmland loss as largely an East Coast phenomenon.
Caroline Niemczyk, a board member of the Trust for Public Land, told me in an interview, "In the East Coast it's really a problem. We have enormous stretches of farmland in the Midwest and the far West, and that's of all types ranching, and citrus production in California, vegetables. We've got a lot of mixed use in the Mississippi Valley, but we are finding in the East Coast that it's harder and harder to maintain what really have become small family farms."
Other environmentalists say farmland supply in the West is also on the decline. They agree that while vacant land is still more widely available in the West, it is not prime farmland. Farms are being paved over in California more quickly than in most eastern states. In California, which used to host an abundance of prime farmland, one of every six acres developed in California since the Gold Rush was paved over between 1990 and 2004.
Most environmentalists see something called smart growth as the solution, which Freedgood describes as smarter urban planning: "What we need is to actually to have better cities, more livable cities, tighter-knit communities, more compact development, make more land available for farming so that we can feed more people."
The concept of smart growth became trendy in the 1970s. In the intervening 40 years, Americans have done nothing but tear up farmland for development in ever larger chunks to feed our voracious appetite for housing first, and worry about food production later. We're gluttons for suburban sprawl. On the other hand, our political will for smart growth is nonexistent. A large percentage of what has been developed, never to be reclaimed, was built close to or on prime farmland. The reason was early American farmers needed to quickly transport fresh crops from farms to markets in more heavily populated areas. As cities grew over time, they expanded and consumed the best farmland.
This trend is exacerbating even today. In the 1990s, according to the Farmland Trust, prime land was developed 30 percent faster, proportionally, than the rate for non-prime rural land. Marginal farmland depletes a greater percentage of natural resources than prime land when it is farmed. It requires more water and irrigation to grow crops and produces a lower yield.
The Farmland Trust also reports some 86 percent of U.S. fruits and vegetables and 63 percent of dairy products are produced on prime farmland in urban-influenced areas, or near cities. That means much of that land will soon be consumed by development, too, if present trends continue. According to Freedgood, we're already short of what we need to meet America's appetite for fresh produce: "There's new data from the economic research service that shows that we're 13 million acres short of fruit and vegetable production to meet everybody's daily requirements."
As the supply of prime farmland and fresh produce dwindle, Americans in turn grow more and more dependent on imported foods. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we now import 79 percent of fish and shell fish, 32 percent of fruits and nuts and 13 percent of vegetables.
When we import more food, we increase our trade balance deficit, we spend much more food money on fuel for transportation, and we rely more heavily on other countries -- so disruptions in those markets affect our food prices and supply chain. We are not yet at the point where we are so dependent on foreign foods we could starve if we suddenly lost access to overseas markets. But as Freedgood points out, there's one problem few people consider when the topic of imported food is raised:
"There's a high correlation between . . . lack of food access and obesity, and if you're not producing enough fruits and vegetables and the price of fruits and vegetables is expensive, then those aren't the foods that people are choosing to eat. They're choosing to eat the cheap foods that tend to be really high in calories and salt and sugar and so on."
Any Volvo-driving, Brie-eating yuppie can tell you urban farmer's markets are all the rage and there seem to be more of them than in prior decades. But locally grown food still comprises a very small percentage of fresh foods sold on a national scale. So with dependence on foreign foods rising and development of prime farmland growing ever more rapidly, what else can be done to prevent over-development of farmland? The sad answer is, nothing the American populace seems to want to stomach right now.Food security. Sounds boring, eh? It's not something talked about very often, but... more-
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