Agriculture 2050

What will Agriculture look like in 2050 when?   Demand for food is expected to roughly double by 2050 because of population growth and increasing consumption of calorie- and meat-intensive diets. (Mueller 2012). When you consider that agriculture is currently the number one source of environmental degradation continuing with agriculture as usual for the next 40 years could have some significant and unchangeable consequences to the earth.

I’m a bit of an optimist, I do think that by 2050 we will have made some progress towards our looming agriculture crisis. What I’m most interested in at this moment, 2012, is what are the most impactful steps regarding our agriculture practices that will change our current trajectory towards climate crisis. As Mueller suggested in his report we need to stop expanding the footprint of agriculture and become more efficient in our agriculture practices (2012 Mueller). In an article in GreenBiz Gunther reviews some of the short coming of Organic; it takes up more land contributes to deforestation, water is not addressed, and organic cost more. In other words, he (and other researchers) are suggesting organic alone is not a sustainable way to farm.  Maybe the future of agriculture is indoors and up as suggested in an article in the The Future of Agriculture May Be Up.  It is also possible the future of agriculture will rely on convincing the growing population to eat a plant based diet.

As the two artciles written by Gunther in Greenbiz, One titled Why organic food isn’t as green as you think and the other The organic farming debate is about more than just yields, he presents both sides of why organic may not be enough to safe us  but also why organic may be the only way to proceed into the future. I think in the end he is correct, the solution is probably a combination of multiple solutions.  Feeding the hungry of the world is more complicated than just growing more wheat, corn, and soybeans which are the crops that when grown organically yield almost 25% less. Just making us more productive in growing these commodity grains is, in my opinion, not the solution to feed the world in 2050. It turns out for vegetable farming there is less of a difference in yield between organic and conventional. Vegetables are the foods that will provide nourishment (not just calories) to the future world. Food is medicine. If we go down that path of just increasing commodity grains in order to feed our world we are likely to to see increased hunger in some part of the world and obesity in others. Future agriculture should be sustainably grown and nutritious food. Each region needs to take more responsibility to grow their own food. If Americans ate local first, we could relieve the stress that is being put on other parts of the world. I don’t think every item eaten needs to be regional but we need to change the paradigm. What if we each of us adopted the reality that food from other regions is a treat, a splurge, and not what we should feed ourselves every day.  I still struggle with how to market the idea of constraint to a general consumer. It seems telling a consumer you should have less choice is a hard sell. That said, I don’t think it is an impossible sell. It is a path to health and personal empowerment.  Some of us are already trying hard to find  ‘food rules’ that allow us to function in our world of abundance (take for example every fad diet out there: Paleo, South Beach, Vegan.. these are all modern day solution to an abundance problem and often unethical practices in our food system). All this abundance for some while sadly others do not have enough to eat. The future of our food system must be one that values feeding individuals rather than it being cheap. Cheap, high calorie foods are designed to appeal to our animal instincts and look where that has gotten us so far.  And let me be clear, I believe we go here through no fault but our own.

As we’ve heard time and time again feeding our world is not about production (even with a growing population) it is about distribution. I, as well as others, would also argue it is about reducing waste in the system, changing American and emerging economies eating habits (yes, I’m talking about more plant based diets), creating food resilient and food dependent regions, and reducing water and nutrient waste in agriculture practices. Just growing more on more land to meet the current and future demand is only going to hasten our global warming disaster.

 My last thought for today is about empowering women around the world to be part of the agriculture of 2050. This infographic speaks for itself.  

Oh wait, one more. I also haven’t made it all the way through this series made by UC Davis but so far a fair representation of f current and possible future agriculture.  http://www.uctv.tv/series/9-Billion-Mouths-to-Feed-The-Future-of-Farming-652 


Mueller, N. D., Gerber, J. S., Johnston, M., Ray, D. K., Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (2012). Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management. Nature, 490(7419), 254-7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1124363860?accountid=1038

Head, Lee Ann (2012). Why 'organic' needs a re-brand. Retrieved from: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/08/03/why-organic-needs-re-brand?page=0%2C1

Gunther, Marc (2012). Why organic food isn’t as green as think. Greenbiz.com. Retrieved from: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/05/09/why-organic-food-isnt-green-you-think

Gunther, Marc (2012 May) The organic farming debate is about more than just yields.  Greenbiz.com Retrieved from: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/05/14/organic-farming-debate-about-more-just-yields

Fletcher, Own (2012 Oct) The Future of Agriculture May Be Up. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443855804577602960672985508.html

Backyard Chickens: Cost Analysis

So in early 2011 my housemates and I got chickens. We got them as little chicks, raised them, made them a coop, continue to feed them, and in return we get eggs. See the post on my other blog (that i don't use often) Edible Dirt:  http://www.edibledirt.com/wordpress/  You'll find some fun pictures and some of the decisions we made when our chickens where just chicks.

Top 3 questions I get about the chickens are:
(1) Do the eggs taste different?
(2)  How much does it cost to get started?
(3) How much does each egg cost you?

Questions one: YES, the taste way better. They are richer and full of flavor. Our chickens get super fancy local feed and they get to run around in the yard eating bugs so the eggs are full of good stuff. Nothing like the store bought.

Question two and three: The following graph is my attempt  to answer questions number two and three. And for fun I've also posted screenshots of the excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the information non the graph.

Some of the biggest assumptions to note are:

• Depreciation and Cost of Money are not factored in my analysis
• Buying new chickens to augment the flock as the current hens age, while a real possibility, is not factored in this analysis
• My value of the eggs is based on the most expensive eggs I can buy at the CoOp ($7 dozen) 
• Labor cost are not factored in the graph (although they are addressed as an alternative break even in the excel spreadsheet) 

Below is how I came up with the numbers.

(if anyone is interested in seeing the excel spreadsheet pdf just let me know and I'll be happy to email it to you.  Below are screen shots of the calculations if you zoom in you should be able to see the numbers, sorry they are not the easiest to read)