By any account, American agriculture is a tremendous success story. The problem is that this success is precariously balanced on a set of three crumbling ‘pillars’ whose degradation could reverse this course and put us on the path to less, rather than more food production and security.
Much has changed about American agriculture – and enabled vast increases in productivity and profitability since the Great Dustbowl that inspired the iconic American Gothic painting. In fact, according to Cornell University, in the 25-year period between 1950 and 1975, while “… the acreage in farming dropped by 6 percent and the hours of farm labor decreased by 60 percent, farm production per hour of on-farm labor practically tripled, and total farm output increased by more than half.” New forms of farm mechanization drove less need for labor and greater existing farm hand productivity. The discovery of DDT and other effective pesticides increased the amount of saleable crops per harvest. The use of chemical fertilizers doubled between 1940 and 1944.
Sounds great, so what is the problem? Unfortunately, our impressive agricultural success has been built on three pillars, and those pillars are in trouble.
Cheap oil – Farmers and our food distribution system use oil in every aspect of modern agriculture, from powering the tillers and seeding machines that plow the earth and plant the seeds, to petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides that feed and protect the crops, to fueling the trucks that transport the harvest over hundreds and thousands of miles to the grocery store. As our oil supplies dwindle and the price of oil increases, these oil-dependent inputs will be increasingly seen as economically impractical.
Unlimited, pure water – Currently in the United States, 80% of the water we use goes to irrigate our crops, and in some Western states that number reaches 90%. The problem is that this water is becoming dangerously scarcer, as well as more polluted by the very agriculture that it seeks to nurture. In early 2009, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared that California, arguably the most productive farming state in the country, was facing an unprecedented water crisis. “No matter what we might want, it is very likely that there will continue to be serious constraints on the volume of water available to all California users, including agriculture.” This is not a problem that is going to go away.??Groundwater reserves, such as the massive Ogallala Aquifer, supply 40% of the water we use to irrigate our crops. But according to a recent GeoJournal issue titled “Water and Agriculture” , “The accelerated use of agricultural chemicals over the past 20 to 30 years has profitably increased production but has also had an adverse impact on ground water quality in many of the major agricultural areas. The pollution of ground water, related Read more…
by nateswartphoto
