The Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

photo by jimmedia on Flickr

      “The farmer is considered simple as a producer who must cut his costs and raise his efficiency by every possible device, even if he thereby destroys – for man-as-consumer – the health of the soil and the beauty of the landscape…What man-as-producer can afford is one thing; what man-as-consumer can afford is quite another thing.  But since the two are the same man, the question of what man – or society – can really afford gives rise to endless confusion.”

from Small is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher (1)

     Deforestation, water contamination, loss of biodiversity, increased greenhouse gas emissions, human poisonings, soil erosion – just a few of the crimes that modern agriculture has been accused of over the past half-century.  And all of these things are true – agriculture does cause these things.  The way that we humans are growing food right now, especially in the West, is definitely harmful to the environment. It’s unsustainable.

     But farmers and others in the agriculture industry may say to environmentalists – “But we feed you!  We couldn’t support the growing global population any other way!”  And they might be right as well.  In the middle of the past century, Malthusian scholars, such as Dr. Paul Ehrlich, predicted that agricultural production wouldn’t be able to keep up with the growing population and that wide-spread famine was imminent. Clearly, there was no global famine in the 1960s or 70s, because agriculture was able to keep up, in a set of advancements referred to as the Green Revolution. Cereal yields in developing countries, especially in Central America and in Asia, sky-rocketed.  But along with increased yields (and, presumably, hundreds of thousands of lives saved) came chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and a growing middle class that is still growing today, and is eating more meat than ever.

     In fact, the production of meat is currently the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, globally.  Livestock production accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. When you combine that with the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions from non-animal agriculture, the total percentage is 30%. As a planet, we produce more greenhouse gases in raising our food than in producing energy (21%) or transportation (14%) (2). Livestock raised on grains are consuming calories that we will probably need for human use in the future.  If everyone on the planet switched to vegetarian diets, there would be a 50% increase in calories available for human consumption (3).

     Obviously, reducing meat production isn’t the only way that our agricultural system should become more sustainable. Jonathan Foley outlines five solutions: stop expanding the area of land that agriculture uses; increase agricultural yields in Africa, central America and eastern Europe; use water, fertilizer and energy more efficiently; reduce meat production; and decrease food waste.  A combination of these solutions, plus others, will be necessary to feed all of the people living on the planet in the next 50 years (3).

     These solutions may seem impersonal and inapplicable to the many people, except for the last two.  I have already discussed meat production, and now I would like to quickly discuss food waste.  Reducing food waste will be important in making sure we have enough food for the future, and here in North America, reducing food waste is certainly achievable.  According to various estimates, 30-50% of the food in the American food system is wasted (that is, it is produced but not consumed by people).  Because crops losses due to natural disasters and pests have been reduced, most of that waste is the fault of consumers, retailers, or restaurant management.  We all want perfectly red apples, unbruised bananas, and crisp lettuce, but few natural products live up to our un-necessarily high standards, and so they are thrown out.  As consumers, we must learn to “settle,” if that is what you wish to call acceptance of natural variation in the size and appearance of natural food products.  But some food waste is inevitable, and so we must also get rid of inedible organic matter by composting, not by filling up yet another landfill – and then use that compost to grow more food.

     Agriculture is necessary to human survival, and must become more efficient to feed even more people. But even as food production and food access must increase, the environmental damage caused by agriculture must decrease.  It’s not an option, or an ideal, or a utopian dream. Sustainable agriculture is a necessity. It is the future.

1. Schumacher, E. F. Small Is Beautiful; Economics as If People Mattered. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010. Print.
2. Fiala, Nathan. "The Greenhouse Hamburger." Scientific American 300.2 (2009): 72-75. Academic Search Alumni Edition. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
3. Foley, Jonathan A. "Can We Feed The World & Sustain The Planet?." Scientific American 305.5 (2011): 60-65. Academic Search Alumni Edition. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.