US Agricultural Redesign Proposed

As I have been saying one way orthe other, modern agriculture is improving in many directions while slowly beenharnessed to a true common good however that is properly defined.  The natural vision is utopian but alsorealistically achievable with a mastery of local incentives and manpowerresources in such a way as to produce willingly the best possible outcome.

It needs to become possible tostrip a woodlot of fallen wood every two to three years or so.  It needs to be possible to fill that openwoodlot with a variety of animals and to manage the harvest of thoseanimals.  It needs to be possible toestablish rich pasture land with occasional shade trees to promote a variety offodder.

The crop lands themselves need tobe beneficiated with biochar to stabilize the fertilizer loading.

All this needs to be worked in cooperationwith one’s neighbors toward a common goal that improves each others operations.

The revelation that organic can match industrial cropping is a harbinger of the future.

Researchers propose 'whole-system redesign' of U.S. agriculture

MAY 05, 2011

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/researchers-propose-whole-system.html

Incremental improvements to agriculture have been which haveincluded adoption of two-year crop rotations, precision agriculturetechnologies, classically bred and genetically engineered crops, and reduced-or no-tillage management systems.

US David researchers are recommending innovative agricultural systems such as organic farming,grass-fed and other alternative livestock production systems, mixed crop andlivestock systems, and perennial grains. And it would requiresignificant changes in market structures, policy incentives and public fundingfor agricultural science, according to the report.

Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century (570pages)


Modern American agriculture has had an impressive history of increasingproductivity that has resulted in affordable food, feed, fiber, and morerecently, biofuel crops for domestic purposes and agricultural exports.Although the U.S.domestic and international markets are much larger than they were in the 1900s,farmers of the 21st century produce enough agricultural products to meet thecurrent demands of both markets on the same acreage as a century ago. Inaddition, the average percentage of disposable income spent by U.S. consumerson food has declined from about 21 percent in 1950 to 9.4 percent in 2004.

Although small and medium-sized farms represent more than 90 percent of totalfarm numbers and manage about half of U.S. farmland and other farm assets, U.S.agriculture has become increasingly dependent on large-scale, high-input farmsthat specialize in a few crops and concentrated animal production practices formost U.S farm products. In 2007, the largest 2 percent of U.S. farms wereresponsible for 59 percent of total farm sales. Large farms have rapidlyincreased their share of total U.S.farm production value, while midsized commercial family farms that areimportant to rural community social and economic life are declining in number andimportance. These trends can be partly attributed to technical innovations,economies of scale, and the increasing consolidation of food processing,distribution, and retailing sectors.

Many modern agricultural practices have unintended negative consequences, orexternalized costs of production, that are mostly unaccounted for inagricultural productivity measurements or by farm enterprise budgets. Loss ofwater quality through nitrogen and phosphorus loadings in rivers, streams, andground water contributes to dramatic shifts in aquatic ecosystems and hypoxiczones. Agricultural pesticides can contaminate streams, ground water, andwells. Excessive use of certain pesticides could be harmful to agriculturalworkers and might pose food safety risks. The nutrient density of 43 gardencrops (mostly vegetables) has been shown to have declined between 1950 and 1999in the United States,suggesting possible tradeoffs between yield and nutrient content.Agriculture contributes to total greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly carbondioxide (CO2) from synthetic agrichemical production, nitrous oxide (N2O) fromsoil management activities, and methane (CH4) from enteric fermentation. Somemodern agricultural practices adversely affect soil quality by affecting soil physical,chemical, and biological factors through erosion, compaction, acidification,and salinization. They also reduce biological activity as a result of pesticideapplications, excessive fertilization, and loss of organic matter. Industrialconfinement of livestock systems is associated with the decline in a number ofminor breeds and the accelerated development of genetically similar hogs,poultry, and beef and dairy cattle. Concerns have been raised about the welfareof animals that are kept in large-scale confinement operations. Although on-farm productivity hasbeen increasing, the aggregate value of net farm income received by farmers hasnot changed dramatically over the last 40 years, primarily due to rising pricesof external inputs, including cost of hybrid and genetically engineered (GE)seeds, fuel, and synthetic fertilizers. More than half of U.S. farm operators work off-farm tosupplement their income and to obtain health care and retirement benefit plans.The profitability of many U.S.farms, especially large grain producers, is partly determined by federalgovernment commodity support programs.

Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainability has been described as the ability to provide for core societalneeds in a way that can be readily continued into the indefinite future withoutsignificant negative effects. Accordingly, measuring progress towardsustainability will be inherently subjective if different groups in societyhave different goals and objectives for agriculture. Even with broad agreementfor certain goals, the relative importance assigned to one goal over anotherwill be highly contested. Developing a widely accepted vision of whatagricultural sustainability should be is beyond the scope of this report. However,four generally agreed-upon goals help define a sustainable agriculture:

Satisfy human food, feed, and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs.

Enhance environmental quality and the resource base.

Sustain the economic viability of agriculture.

Enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers, and society as a whole.

The committee concluded that if U.S. agricultural production is to meet thechallenge of maintaining long-term adequacy of food, fiber, feed, and biofuelsunder scarce or declining resources and under challenges posed by climatechange and to minimize negative outcomes, agricultural production will haveto substantially accelerate progress toward the four sustainability goals.Such acceleration needs to be undergirded by research and policy evolution thatare designed to reduce tradeoffs and enhance synergies between the four goalsand to manage risks and uncertainties associated with their pursuit.

Measuring Progress Toward Sustainability

Sustainability is best evaluated not as a particular end state, but rather as aprocess that moves farming systems alonga trajectory toward greater sustainability on each of the four goals. For thisreport, the committee’s definition of sustainable agriculture does not make asharp dichotomy between conventional and sustainable farming systems, not onlybecause farming enterprises reflect many combinations of farming practices,organization forms, and management strategies, but also because most types offarming systems can potentially contribute to achieving various sustainabilitygoals and objectives. Pursuit of sustainability is not a matter of definingsustainable or unsustainable agriculture, but rather of assessing whetherchoices of farming practices and farming systems would lead to a more or lesssustainable system as measured by the four goals.

Finding ways to measure progress along a sustainability trajectory is animportant part of the experimentation and adaptive management process. 

If U.S.agriculture is to address the challenges both incremental and transformativechanges will be necessary. Therefore, the committee proposes two parallel andoverlapping efforts to ensure continuous improvement in the sustainabilityperformance of U.S.agriculture: incremental and transformative. The incremental approach is anexpansion and enhancement of many ongoing efforts that would be directed towardimproving the sustainability performance of all farms, irrespective of size orfarming systems type, through development and implementation of specificsustainability-focused practices, many of which are the focus of ongoingresearch and with varying levels of adoption. The transformative approach aimsfor major improvement in sustainability performance by approaching 21st centuryagriculture from a systems perspective that considers a multiplicity ofinteracting factors. The transformative approach would involve:

Developing collaborative efforts between disciplinary experts and civil societyto construct a collective and integrated vision for a future of U.S.agriculture that balances and enhances the four sustainability goals.

Encouraging and accelerating the development of new markets and legalframeworks that embody and pursue the collective vision of the sustainablefuture of U.S.agriculture.

Pursuing research and extension that integrate multiple disciplines relevant toall four goals of agricultural sustainability.

Identifying and researching the potential of new forms of production systemsthat represent a dramatic departure from (rather than incremental improvementof) the dominant systems of present-day American agriculture.

Identifying and researching system characteristics that increase resilience andadaptability in the face of changing conditions.

Adjusting the mix of farming system types and the practices used in them at thelandscape level to address major regional problems such as water overdraft andenvironmental contamination.

Soil and plant tissue tests, nutrient management plans, and precisionagriculture technologies help farmers increaseproductivity, input-use efficiency, and economic returns, by reducing unnecessaryuse of agricultural fertilizers, pesticides, or water. Experimental andlong-term field studies suggest that the impacts and economic benefits of thosepractices and tools can be variable across time and space.

Manure, compost, and green manure, as often used in organic systems, can reducethe need for synthetic fertilizer and hence reduce the energy used forfertilizer production. Many farms featured as case studies in this report makesuccessful use of on-farm inputs for soil fertility (for example, animal andgreen manure), which insulates them from fluctuations in costs of syntheticfertilizer. Published studies, however, show variable results as to whethersystems using commercial fertilizers or systems using cover crop-based oranimal manure-based nutrient management have higher profits. Those studiesoften do not include environmental costs and benefits. Because the release ofnutrients from manure, compost, and green manure depends on various factors,including temperature, soil properties, and microbial activities in soil, theirapplication has to be timed appropriately to maximize nutrient uptake byplants, and hence productivity and net economic return.

Integrated pest management (IPM) research has identified promising options forimproving soil suppressiveness and inducing crop resistance to some diseasesand pests in addition to classical biological and ecological pest management.The need to study weeds, diseases, pests, and crops as an interacting complexhas been recognized. Adoption of IPM has been reasonable on some crops, butoverall IPM use is lagging despite its potential for reducing chemical use.

Livestock genetic improvement can contribute to improving sustainability byincreasing feed-use efficiency and by selecting traits to improve animal healthand welfare. Improvements in feed conversion through genetics, nutrition, andmanagement have reduced manure and nutrient excretion per unit animal productproduced and reduced land required for production.

Business and Marketing Strategies

Diversification of farm enterprises can provide multiple income streams forfarming operations. Producing a range of farm crops and animal products canenhance the stability and resilience of farm businesses andcan decrease the volatility of farm income. Studies that document the economiceffects of modern strategies for enterprise diversification are sparse.

In addition to using production strategies that reduce costs, farmers canincrease their farm-level income by increasing the value of their productsthrough sales to niche markets (such as organic or health-food markets) or byselling their products directly to consumers (direct sales) to obtain a largerproportion of the consumers’ dollar spent on the product and to gain controlover the prices they get for their products.

Practices for Improving Community Well-being

Diverse farm systems, diversified landscapes (for example, inclusion ofnon-crop vegetation), and farming practices that improve water and air qualitycan contribute to community and social well-being. Some direct marketingstrategies, such as direct sales at farmers’ markets, community supportedagriculture, farm-to-school programs, and agritourism, connect farmers to thecommunity and can contribute to community economic security, but lackunderpinning research and extension.