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)

Economics in Context

I think economics is a great tool for understanding business and business behavior but I get frustrated when it is taken out of context. Economics is a new social science and had is kind a fluffly science at best. Economics shines when it is used as a tool to better understand our behaviors around choice AND put context. I've always thought of economist sort of like meteorologist. A meteorologist spends his educational years learning about all the different clouds, pressure systems, psychical land structures  etc and how they will affect the outcome of the weather. If you live in Southern California on the ocean you meteorologist often predicts your weather fairly accurately. They can see the storm and there isn't a whole lot of things that are going to change the outcome. But it gets more complicated when you add mountains, other bodies of water, shifting convergence zones, etc. All this applies to the economist.

The fact that if you ask 5 different economist what they think about a given situation and you get 5 different answers is something that as future business people we need to understand. I believe successful business not only considers the economics of there situation but of the psychology, history, science, etc that will affect heir business. I mean really,  McDonald put a lot of psychology and science into that Big Mac meal and super sized the fries!

Economics is not accounting. Accounting's purpose is to track and provide financial information to evaluate past performance and make future decision. Economics is a social science dedicated to figuring out how we as a complex individual make decision regarding scarcity. When an economist makes a prediction or interprets a series of recent events they have imperfect information and as a result their own belief system and education translates informs their predictions or interpretations. Accounts can spin their information as well but it is based on numbers that have been tracked and collected. Yes, 'creative  accounting' is a realy thing but somewhere there are real number gathered. The point is economist are often smart people but they are often interpreting imperfect information gathered from imperfect sources.

I'm excited to continue looking at economics through the lens of sustainability and in the context of everything else that makes us human. Keynes in 1930 thought by 2030 we would have done away with this obsessive drive to collect and gather wealth. I'm excited to continue this search for ways to use wealth as a tool for our overall well being. Economics is just a tool to be used in context.

The Good Life: Ikigai and Mortality ("well being" and mortality)
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-life/200809/ikigai-and-mortality

Dan Buettner: How to live to be 100+
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html

What is the point of our Food System Anyway?

Is our food system meeting our expectations? What are our expectations? Do we have any? How do we measure and rate the system’s success? Is it a successful system?

I believe these are important question to ask at the individual level, at the city level, at the national level and at the global level.   If we do not put intentions behind our food decisions we are defaulting to create a system that is good at providing cheap, convenient, and shelf ready foods because that is what we are buying.  Unlike many industry sectors you can chose if you participate or not but most of us are not farmers growing everything we eat and thus are using the food system to provide for us.  As individuals we can influence the way business provide us foods and we can influence the priorities that our city and state governments set regarding food, and as cities and state can influence national policy and so on and so on up to the global level.

In the article The City that Ended Hunger (http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=351) the City of Belo Horzonte in Brazil city administrators made a policy that food was a right that everyone should have access to. When the city shifted its goals around food it was able to help facilitate increased access not buy providing more handouts but encouraging direct farmer to city marketing. The City administration subsidies selected healthy produce at the farmers stands. They also created local People’s Restaurants were anyone could come eat regardless of need.  While I have gone into great detail here the shift from quantity of food to the right of everyone to had profound effects on the City. Belo used many creative and innovative ideas because it was tasks with the responsibility to ensure everyone’s right to food.

Restaurante Popular in Belo Brazil

In Norm’s blog The Processed Food Industry And Coronary Capitalism
(http://abnormalecon.blogspot.com/2012/02/processed-food-industry-and-coronary.html) he mentions that a system of “pure capitalism” doesn’t exists because if it did we wouldn't have the big market failures we see in the food system  i.e. obesity and hunger.  If pure capitalism isn't the solution because we live in the imperfect world than it is up to us as evolved human thinkers to set goals for our food system and provide it the intention and direction that it needs. It turns out that just not thinking about it and letting the magical world of business do it for us hasn't worked. This isn't to say business doesn't play a role, it actually plays a huge role it will be the driver and the foundation of the new food system but it will be guided by a higher goal that we as individual have imposed on it.

Imagine if we all decided that our food system was only successful if everyone had access to quality, nutrient dense, sustainability grown foods.  We currently would get a big fat F on our grade card. We would need to create new creative solutions to reach this goal. Food would undoubtedly become more expensive because we would begin to pay the true cost but if we pair this with the idea that food is a right and hunger is unacceptable we will get creative. We are a capable and innovative species... when we decide it matters to us.

THE FARM BILL: policy on your plate

I just got back from grocery shopping. I’ll soon be fixing a meal but first I want to take a moment to explore this idea of business and policy in the context of the Farm Bill.  After all the products available and the prices I paid at the grocery store are directly affected by this 79 year old bill. 

I am currently on the Food Team but I admit I am not intimate with every detail of the Farm Bill and doing a little research for this blog I realized why;  the 2008 Farm Bill was 1,770 pages.  The Farm Bill is a very complex policy document that covers many aspects of our food system not just farming.  The Farm Bill is updated and re-enacted every 5 years. The first farm bill was in 1933 and started by Henry Wallace, President Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture. The original idea was to help mitigate the low prices of crops during the Greet Recession. The government would take of the market the commodities when prices where to low and then resold later when prices recovered. The government was able to make money on this program and many farmers benefited. This also led to farmer instituted grain reserves providing flexibility of when they sold their crops. Today the government pays directly to the farmers the difference of what food processors pay and what farmers need to be economically viable. 

The current and proposed Farm Bill covers many topics, called titles. These include: 

• Title I, Commodities : Payment and loan programs for 20 farm commodities.
• Title II, Conservation : Conservation programs, wetlands protection, grasslands protection, farmland protection and incentives for farmers to improve environmental stewardship.
• Title III, Agricultural Trade and Aid : Food aid 
• and meeting World Trade Organization obligations.
• Title IV, Nutrition : Food stamps, child nutrition and supplemental food.
• Title V, Farm Credit : Farm ownership loans and emergency credit.
• Title VI, Rural Development : Grants for rural businesses and small communities, expanding rural broadband access.
• Title VII, Research : Agricultural extension services, research on all areas of food production including biotechnology and organic production.
• Title VIII, Forestry: Funding for various U.S. forest service projects including community forestry.
• Title IX, Energy: Funding for bioenergy projects and research as well as federal procurement for biobased products.
• Title X, Miscellaneous : Includes crop insurance, disaster assistance, animal welfare/inspections and country of-origin labeling.

The largest part of the Farm Bill is our food assistance program (SNAP). The second highest funded title is the commodities support (see the info graphic below). This support of commodities has many hidden cost including the increased obesity rates in our country. (see info graphic provided by takepart.com)

Another thing I was interested in regarding this current Farm Bill was the expansion of Farm Insurance Programs.  In an article, A Risky Proposition: Crop Insurance in the Face of Climate Change, Julia Olmstead talked about the missed opportunity to tie insurance coverage and sustainable farming practices. Most farmers are interested in their soil health and long term sustainability but often the current system is working against those goals. Tying government backed insurance to the sustainable practices a farmer as incentive for farmers to take the appropriate measures to protect soils, water, and general environment.  This is currently not part of the 2012 Farm Bill.  This is a missed opportunity and hopefully we can figure out other ways to create this sort of incentive. 

There is also, although small, continued local food systems support and recognition of the value of small to mid-size farms in the current version of the unauthorized 2012 Farm Bill. These included programs to diversify crops, support small farmers marketing with marketing, creating infrastructure to help small and mid-size farmers reach urban centers, data collection regarding local food system, and programs for beginner farmers. 

The recent news around the passing of the next Farm Bill suggest it will either be passed by the end of the year as part of the larger budget discussions or the Farm Bill will not be passed until April 2013. The 2008 Farm Bill is currently expired and has not been renewed. 

References: 

A Fair Farm Bill for America: A series of papers on the 2007 Farm Bill. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.  Found at http://www.iatp.org/files/258_2_97623.pdf

Infographic reference: http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/06/07/farm-bill-infographic

A side by side comparison of the 2008 and the new 2012 Farm bill can be found http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42552.pdf

A Risky Proposition: Crop Insurance in the Face of Climate Change. Julia Olmstead. Found at http://www.iatp.org/documents/a-risky-proposition-crop-insurance-in-the-face-of-climate-change

NYT Articles: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/11/10/us/politics/ap-us-fiscal-cliff-farm-bill.html?ref=farmbillus&_r=0 & http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/11/05/business/05reuters-usa-politics-farmbill.html?ref=farmbillus

Creating Community does NOT equal Social Equity

so·cial

of or pertaining to human society, especially as a body divided into classes according to status: social rank.

eq·ui·ty

the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality:the equity of Solomon. Synonyms: disinterest, equitableness,impartiality, fair-mindedness, fairness, justness,evenhandedness, objectivity; justice, probity. Antonyms:bias, discrimination, inequity, injustice, partiality,partisanship, prejudice, unfairness, unreasonableness;injustice.

com·mu·ni·ty

a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharingcommon characteristics or interests and perceived orperceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the largersociety within which it exists (usually preceded by the  ): thebusiness community; the community of scholars.

I remember not too long ago sitting around at a staff meeting with my boss and talking about our office values, goals, etc. We are a community based architecture firm on Capitol Hill. A lot of our conversation focused around our connections to our neighborhood. How we, as designers, wanted to created spaces that foster and encouraged community. We wanted to create community that was open to all and full of diversity. As a quick exercise my boss asked each team member to talk about what community meant to them. The answers were as you might expect; support, trust, shared values, shared proximity, shared goals, shared history, etc. She pointed out after we all shared that community and creating community does not equal social equity. Creating community was about finding people that often had shared values and social equity was about making space for everyone within a community.

Let’s take a moment here for a quick history lesson. Social equity is a newer word in the sustainable vernacularly and is popularly defined as equal opportunity for all in a safe and healthy environment. It has gained popularity after the President's Council on Sustainable Development, in 1996, defined Social Equity as "equal opportunity, in a safe and healthy environment" in their report.  Today it is considered vital third element in the three legged stool of the sustainability.

So if a community is people with shared histories, things in common, a family, or a group of friend then it is clear that just by creating community we are not ensuring all human beings social equity.

Creating community can foster social equity but there needs to be awareness and intention to allow all human beings to participate in the new community. I think we as future leaders in the new sustainable economy need to be aware of our own mental models of community as we strive for social equity with in our communities. I believe social equity can be at odds with our personal ideas of community. Community by its definition is about creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ which is the opposite of a club that everyone can belong to. Before I go too far let me be clear there is absolutely nothing wrong with creating communities based on common histories, shared values, geographic location, etc., we just can’t call that creating social equity. A truly social equitable community would not be comprised of all like mined individuals or individuals who have shared histories.  In the end a truly socially equitable community would likely take many of us out of our comfort zone and challenge our mental models of community. It would be the community of the globe.

I think as individuals and as a society we need to be aware the communities we create and the barriers we place on who is allowed into them. Again, I don’t think we must always have socially equitable communities at every level of our life or at every level of society.  What we need is that every individual and every discrete community has the same social opportunity to have expression in our society.  

I realize this is a long rant for what some might consider not a big issues but I challenge you to listen to the how ‘social equity’ and ‘creating community’ are often used interchangeably. They are not interchangeable.

Oh, and how the heck does this relate to economics you ask.. well let me tell you! Fostering both communities and social equality (and understanding the difference) for individuals, groups, and communities to express themselves will develop positive human capital. Empowered expressive people are no longer liabilities but rather assets to society. They contribute to society as equals making the whole system stronger.

“Social Equity is the cornerstone of Social Capital, which cannot be maintained for a few at the expense of the many.” (wikipeda.com)

EcoDistrit Summit Recap: will it pencil out?

This week I attended the EcoDistricts Summit Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and I can’t tell you how many times I heard the phrase “it may be a good idea but will it pencil out.”  Coincidentally this week’s BGI topics centered on the bottom line and the metrics we use to evaluate a successful business’s bottom line. The EcoDistrict Summit experience has definitely  renewed my desire to not only understand personally the metrics for a projects or business financial success but also to continue to empower others to learn these tools and use to use them for good! The next paragraphs are a brief recap of the EcoDistricts Summit in context of the bottom line.

While I haven’t personally attended a lot of conferences I felt this one was pretty good. There was a diverse global representation of people, an engaging keynote speaker, a wide variety of professionals, and a pretty good diversity of topics and issues addressed in the breakout sessions. The Summit’s one weakness is the broad overarching topic itself: EcoDistrict but I’m not sure that can be helped.

EcoDistrict is loosely defined as an area that is more than one building but not more than a city sharing resources in the collective pursuit of sustainability. You can immediately see how this gets messy.  Sustainability is a complex idea; it is more than just protecting our natural resources it also includes fostering social equity and financial security for all.  On a building scale the ideas of sustainability are more focused on the environmental footprint of that building; example metrics/certifications include Living Building Challenge, LEED, Evergreen Standards, etc.  But when you move to the neighborhood scale a collection of LEED buildings does not automatically make a neighborhood sustainable.  We can all agree that if a neighborhood has social inequalities and financial disparities it is not sustainable.  The good news our human brain is capable of dealing with complex ideas and issues. This one is no different.  As I ranted about in my blog las week complex messy problems are the spark of innovation!

“Fix the cities fix the world.” This is maybe my favorite quote of the weekend. It represents this idea that if we can make changes for good in our own communities we make changes for good in our nation and our world.  We have to remember there is no cookie cutter option that can be applied to every city or every neighborhood. Each ‘district’ has to come up with what works for them socially, financially, and environmentally. At the summit we learned about some great Swedish examples of EcoDistricts planning and implementation.  Malmo’s Wester Harbour is one of their shining examples (http://www.malmo.se/English/Western-Harbour.html).  One fact I think is worth passing along is that Sweden has continued to increase their Gross National Product while reducing Carbon Emission. They've learned lessons and improved their technology and now share it through their special Swedish Sustainable brand SymbioCity (http://www.symbiocity.org/en/). It is both informative and inspiring, and I recommend checking it out.  But again, the big take away from their presentation is this is not a ‘plug and play’ way to build a sustainable neighborhood. Sweden has much higher energy prices and is an important trigger point to spur developers towards high energy efficiency. In the U.S. we need to get creative and find different triggers.  We need to find triggers that get us to the place where the bottom line still ‘pencils out.’ My opinion our trigger may be valuing the human and environmental capitol in the bottom line. If human and environmental capitol are valued upfront as investments in the project those investments will pay off later with financial rewards. But a few individuals need to think outside the box and take a few risk to prove to everyone this kind of bottom line thinking will pay off.

The keynote speaker at the conference Carol Colletta, executive director of ArtSpace, talked about place making. The top three things she listed that create place for people are (1) the social fabric, (2) the aesthetics of the place, and (3) it’s distinctiveness.  I want to take a moment to expand on her third point as it was a topic that came up a lot at the conference as a way to engage the community. Example after example project success depended on citizen involvement. Citizens felt more engaged when they had a sense of place and that sense of place was derived from something distinctive about their collective neighborhood.  One example given was a web platform that citizens could engage public agencies by posting what they thought should be done to enhance the city in different location. When the city acted on one of the unique ideas by adding a spray park to a neighborhood park it instantly became a place of pride for the neighborhood. It then spurred even more citizen involvement, continued funding and innovation in the neighborhood.

I was struck at the conference by a few participants who are still hoping for the magic bullet that will make their idea reality. This magic bullet is often either some public or private grant money. This type of waiting around hoping for funding is a function of the grantor/grantee system. It is not an empowering way to think about creating change. A great example of creating change that is not grant dependent is ioby.com. The co- founder of ioby.com, Erin Barnes, spoke at the conference and she shared some great examples of small demonstrative projects that got citizens excited about change and used crowd sources as a tool to start the momentum. I won’t go into examples here but again check it out (ioby.com) along with this great pdf guide about Tactical Urbanism (http://issuu.com/streetplanscollaborative/docs/tactical_urbanism_vol_2_final?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222). These are both powerful tools to get beyond the doom and gloom of ‘we have no funding, so I can’t make a change.’ Start small, demonstrate, and make a case for your idea by showing people exactly what is so awesome about your project!

Another speaker at the forum was Mark Edlen of Gerding Edlen, a Portland based developer company. Mr. Edlen said the formation of his company was based in his own personal ethic not about the profit.  In fact many of the decision his company has made over the years went against conventional wisdom but years after those decision were made they are considered the new standards. Today Gerding Edlen is a successful development company that is asked to participate in projects across the nation. I think this is a great example of the benefits Bob Willard talked about in his book The New Sustainability Advantage. It’s a company that is not only profitable because it manages risks, invests wisely but because its foundation is rooted in sustainable culture; their tag line is People-Prosperity-Planet.  As a private property developer they are truly benefiting from their sustainable advantage in all 7 of the advantages Willard addresses: (1) increased revenue and market share, (2) reduced energy expenses, (3) reduced waste expenses, (4) reduced material and water expenses, (5) increased employee productivity, (6) reduced hiring and attrition expenses, and (7) reduced risk.  I think Gerding Edlen is a great example of several innovative thinkers with passion and ethics  made it ‘pencil out.’

I think too often the saying ‘it just won’t pencil out’ is a cop out. It’s a way of saying, yes, that is a brilliant idea, but it is too hard to think about ways to make it happen.  Often as individual or communities groups with great ideas we can be talked out of our idea by someone the bank, grantor, financial consultant simply saying ‘it won’t pencil out.’ This is why we all need to take control over our own knowledge. If we have a basic understanding of bottom line metrics we can challenge the experts by pointing out non-traditional revenue streams and sustainable savings helping them realize that our brilliant idea will ‘totally pencil out!’