Tech | June 11, 2011 | 19 comments

WSU soil scientist joins expert panel calling for transformation of U.S. agriculture

source: http://www.wsunews.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=26019

JanforGore
A group of leading scientists, economists and farmers is calling for a broad shift in federal policies to speed the development of farm practices that are more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Writing in the journal Science, they say current policies focus on the production of a few crops and a minority of farmers while failing to address farming’s contribution to global warming, biodiversity loss, natural resource degradation, and public health problems.

“We have the technology and the science right now to grow food in sustainable ways, but we lack the policies and markets to make it happen,” says John Reganold, a Washington State University soil scientist and the Science paper’s lead author.

Starting in the late 1980s, Reganold pioneered several widely cited side-by-side comparisons showing organic farming systems were more earth-friendly than conventional systems while producing more nutritious and sometimes tastier food. His Science co-authors include more than a dozen other leading soil, plant, and animal scientists, economists, sociologists, agroecologists and farmers.

The Science paper grows out of several national efforts to address concerns about farming’s impact on the environment, including the landmark 1989 National Research Council report, Alternative Agriculture, which recommended greater research and education efforts into sustainable farming. All the authors of the Science paper wrote the council’s 2010 update, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century.

The paper is particularly critical of the Farm Bill, which is slated for renewal next year. While only one-third of farmers receive payments under the bill, it has an outsized influence on production. It does little to promote sustainability, write the authors, while “distorting market incentives and making our food system overly dependent on a few grain crops mainly used for animal feed and highly processed food, with deleterious effects on the environment and human health.” Environmental impacts, says Reganold, include overdrawn aquifers, eroded soil and polluted water.

Meanwhile, he says, agricultural research and the field of “agroecology,” which adapts the principles of nature to farming systems, are finding new ways to grow abundant and affordable food while protecting the environment, helping farm finances, and contributing to the well-being of farmers, farm workers and rural communities.

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19 comments // WSU soil scientist joins expert panel calling for transformation of U.S. agriculture // Video

  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • In order for any sustainable system to be effective, we first need to break the monopoly big ag has with this government and the USDA on a federal level, and push for sustainable methods of farming and for CSAs on a local level. Agriculture has to become an important issue again, because this is now with biodistress about our very survival. This is one area as well where the Obama administration has let us down.They plant an organic garden at the White House while Obama continues to sleep with Monsanto, ADM, Cargill and the very companies manipulating markets, prices, seeds, and stripping away all that is good about agriculture. In farmer's hands it thrives. In corporation's hands it is all about monoculture. We need to break the fossil fuel monoculture chokehold this "privitization" of our food has caused. The question at this point is, how? Boycotting, education, activism, all good ways to start. Then of course, voting out those who support this type of environmental and economic destruction, although, on that score there are just too many political partisans on all sides who can't see beyond politics to the moral imperative. That too is a huge hindrance to going where we need to go to preserve the ecosystems of this planet.

    • 1 year ago
  • hombre76
    • 0
      hombre76  

    • As with anything agg related I must remind people that High Rise aggriculture would solve a lot if not all the current out door problems we face with the current method. food for thought.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • treewolf39
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • treewolf39:

      I recently read, "The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century" by Dr. Dickson Despommier (St. Martin's Press, 2010), and looked this up.

      "Although there are at present no examples of vertical farms, we know how to proceed--we can apply hydroponic and aeroponic farming methodologies in a multistory building and create the world's first vertical farms. Some parts of the world are rapidly moving toward such a scheme already, especially those countries--the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, China, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Japan, to name a few--that are running short of aradle farmland and have the resources to contemplate replacing the accepted traditional agricultural paradigm with something new and more efficient. (p. 23)

      There are some really cool designs in the works for Seattle and Chicago shown in the book.

      This simple, elegant idea--food grown in population centers needing little transportation and no plowing, pesticides or fertilizer--could drastically reduce carbon emissions and water usage/pollution.

    • 1 year ago
  • letsliveinpeace
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  

    • Masanobu Fukuoka's classic, "The One-Straw Revolution" had a huge impact on me when I first read it back in 1982.
      No till farming. Straw mulch. Clover for fertilizer. Symbiosis.
      So smart, simple, easy and effective!
      And it works really well!

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • treewolf39
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  
    • treewolf39:

      Thank you for sharing these wonderful videos!

      I've applied his ideas to leaves, raking most of them under bushes and keeping them in the vegetable and flower gardens (oak leaves are best because they don't get slimey). Since I've been doing this everything is thriving and I don't have to mulch the next year. I pity my neighbors who spend dozens of hours raking, leaf-blowing and bagging every the Fall and then have to buy mulch every Spring.

      Another thing I've done is divert all my downspouts into the gardens by disconnecting them from the pipes leading to the street sewers. WOW do most plants LOVE it (but not pines)! It's called a Rain Garden and replenishes the water table.

    • 1 year ago
  • snoskier
  • Rainiermec
  • thedirtman
    • +3
      thedirtman  

    • I'm feeling pessimistic about the future of agriculture in America. Here is why:

      Budget cuts will affect agriculture
      DANIEL LOOKER
      04/12/2011 @ 3:59pm
      Business Editor
      Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the compromise agreement to trim 2011 federal spending will speed up some cuts that the administration had already proposed for 2012 and will give his agency about six months to determine exactly how to put them into effect before the federal fiscal year ends in September.
      Vilsack told North American Agricultural Journalists Tuesday morning that more than $3 billion of the cuts to this year budget will come from USDA. They include about $800 billion in conservation programs, he said, as well as cuts to the Forest Service for fire suppression.
      Vilsack expressed frustration that some of the same members of the House who want to cut USDA spending had also asked for more money to deal with the pine beetle infestations in western forests, which are creating an even greater danger of fires.
      Vilsack doesn't disagree with the need to reduce federal spending, but said Congress isn't asking the question of how important services need to be met by the private sector.
      "Who's going to do that work? Because it still needs to be done," he said.
      Some of the cuts include nutrition programs.
      Later, when NAAJ met with Congressional leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, said that cuts to ag programs add up to about $1.5 billion.
      They include a $350 million reduction in spending on the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, he said, which means the program is likely out of money for the rest of this year.
      The compromise agreement on budget cutting incloudes $25 million to crop insurance that was going to be used to fund a new program that gives rebates to farmers with a record of few claims against insurance.

      http://www.agriculture.com/news/policy/budget-cuts-will-affect-agriculture_4-ar1...

    • 1 year ago
  • wally60
    • +3
      wally60  

    • fertalizers and pesticides are killing the planet.no one cares as long as monsantos and the other corperations get rich.where i live we use flood irrigation
      what a waste of water the farmers do the same thing they have been doing for
      centuries.you have to change the culture

    • 1 year ago
  • snoskier
    • +2
      snoskier  
    • wally60:

      Maybe. In my area progress is being made. Not perfect, but much of this is sensationalized. Eventually we will achieve our goals, but don't drink the koolaid and expect instant results. This is a process, and we need to keep pushing toward the goal.

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • JanforGore
  • artemis6
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