It's all about soil

Today, it's all about soil and its role in helping us fight climate change. In my previous posts, I have addressed the misfortunes today's agricultural soil faces due to the use of fertilisers in modern farming. Before chemical fertilisers come into play, healthy soil is packed with microorganisms, retaining nutrients and moisture to grow plants. Healthy topsoil organic matter sucks up atmospheric nitrogen, converting it to ammonia and nitrates that is consumed by the plants. This biological cycle breaks down as soon as soil is treated with synthetic fertilisers, leading to topsoil loss and the release of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas causing global climate change. So how do we stop this disastrous cycle?

Michael Pollan (author, journalist and professor of journalism at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism) and Debbie Barker suggest that there is a way to make the soil work in favour of climate change mitigation.

(Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com)

But firstly, with the help of Pollan and Barker, let us take a closer look at what exactly has happened to our soil across the globe. Their article in the Washington Post explains: the industrialization of farming has allowed farmers to grow more crops more quickly. But modern techniques have also wreaked havoc on the earth, water and atmosphere. Intense plowing, for example, has introduced more oxygen into the soil, boosting the microbes that convert organic matter into carbon dioxide. The quest to wring every last dollar out of fields has put pressure on farmers to rely on chemical fertilisers. This often leaves fields more bare between growing seasons, allowing carbon to escape into the air. Scientists estimate that cultivated soil has lost 50 to 70 percent of its carbon, speeding up climate change.' Industrialised farming is also having a detrimental effect on water security, especially in places that are already experiencing acute water scarcity. The chemical treatment and extensive plowing of soil causes the ground to absorb water less efficiently. Any water that the soil cannot absorb becomes runoff, taking some of the chemicals and fertilisers with it to the nearest water body. This contaminates rivers, lakes and seas while putting human water supply sources at risk.

This all starts to sound very apocalyptic (as talking about climate change tends to do from time to time) but Pollan and Barker do suggest there is something we can do. It's called 'cover crops'. To all the farmers out there, try this! Cover crops (beans, rye and oats for example) are planted in between vegetable rows, keeping as much of the crop field covered and using up as much photosynthesis potential as possible. Cover crops also help to keep nitrogen and other nutrients in the soil, making it a favourable environment for the 'main crops' to grow without needing fertiliser treatment. Additionally, cover crops can be grown throughout the year to ensure the field never sits empty, leaving the soil exposed and wasting photosynthesis potential.

In reality, growing cover crops may be more difficult than it sounds. Pollan and Barker explain that current federal policy in the United States ensures that farmers do not waste their time growing crops they cannot sell, limiting growing season for cover crops. In order to allow carbon friendly farming, these policies need a revisit.

(Source: https://broadforkfarm.files.wordpress.com)

In addition to the cover crop strategy, a switch towards organic fertilisers instead of synthetic nitrogen ones should be encouraged. Research at UC Berkeley shows that 'applying a single layer of compost, less than an inch thick, to rangelands stimulates a burst of microbial and plant growth that sequesters dramatic amounts of carbon in the soil - more than 1.5 tons per acre.' All these practices fit into a lifecycle of a sustainable, organic and self-sustaining farm. Cattle are used to graze the fields, cattle manure is used to fertilise the crops and fields, plant growth increases due to manure fertilisation and the process starts again. In the meantime, cattle are fed with organic grass rather than corn, leaving out the industrialised, fossil-fuel intensive corn production from the equation. Sounds too good to be true?

Unfortunately, it probably is, for the moment. At a global level at least. As world leaders gather in Paris over the next week to address the global action plan on climate change, food production and food related climate change does not seem to be on the list of priorities. Transport and energy sectors will likely to take the front seat at the conference. However, I do hope that when the next climate change conference comes along, agriculture induced climate change will have a central seat at the table. In the mean time, change will have to come from local and government level. It seems to me that changes that can be done in the agriculture sector to slow down climate change are just too good to miss out on. But hey, that's just me.

Until next time,

Laura

Vlog: Soil, scale and other videos you should watch

Today, simply a list of videos you should watch, think about and show your friends. Enjoy!

Michael Pollan at 2014 New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference

Informational video by L'institut de recherche pour le developpement (IRD)

2014 New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference Panel discussion with Patrick Holden, Danielle Nierenberg, Ron Shaich, Jack Sinclair and Michael Pollan

Peter Lehner at TEDxManhattan

All the videos above raise so many interesting questions, I will get to them in the next few posts. Next up, soil!

Until next time,

Laura

Dangers of a standardised diet

When you walk down a city supermarket isle almost anywhere in the world, it will rarely feel like the shops are lacking in variety. When strolling through the America's king of supermarkets, Walmart, one can find 150 different ice cream flavours, hundreds of varieties of chocolate and about 30 kinds of potato chips. On the surface, the ginormous supermarkets of our time house a sea of choice but in reality the variety of base ingredients and recipes is very limited. In fact, humankind has weeded out the often most tasteful and pleasant varieties and kept the ones that are most easily transportable and least vulnerable to disease. This has led us to be highly dependable on a handful of base ingredient varieties- the Cavendish banana, the Granny Smith apple and others. And all those 'basics' have evolved to be the optimal breed of vegetable, fruit or even meat for commercial cultivation and use. 

Simran Sethi, the author of 'Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love’, writes on food standardisation and how climate change threatens our current way of eating. Sethi accurately points out that we are all moving towards a global ‘standard diet’, often taking America as the role model. And as it turns out, the standard diet is largely made up of the basic ingredients that have come to dominate the food industry: corn, soybeans, rice, palm oil. Sethi writes: ‘globally, foods have become more alike and less diverse. As the amount of food around the world has shrunk to just a handful of crops, regional and local crops have become scarce or disappeared altogether. Wheat, rice and corn, plus palm oil and soybeans, are what we all eat now—the same type and the same amount.’

The statistics are astonishing: the FAO’s research suggests that 95 percent of the calories consumed across the planet come from 30 species. Out of the 300 000 edible plant varieties, we only use and cultivate 150. In fact, 75 percent of world’s food produce comes from 12 plant species and 5 animals. This standardisation has an obvious negative effect on biodiversity, with local plant species disappearing to make room for the megacrops. Additionally, by depending so heavily on just a handful crops and animals, the global food industry is putting itself in a very vulnerable position when it comes to climate change. If the world continues to warm, bringing along more climate extremes and changing seasonal cycles, many of these megacrops may be in danger.

Our standardised diet is making us put all our eggs in the same basket, both figuratively and literally. And unfortunately, it is not only climate change that is affecting our basic megacrops. We also need to be on the lookout for crop diseases. One of the current biggest worries in the agribusiness is wheat rust, an airborne fungus that has quickly spread from Africa to East and Central Asia, Middle East and Europe. Wheat rust is a powerful fungus dubbed as the ‘polio of agriculture’ which threatens to wipe out the wheat crop on a global scale, putting our current wheat intensive diet in danger.

In conclusion, to protect the planet’s biodiversity and ensure that we do not lose some of the most important ingredients in our food system, a more balanced and locally sourced diet is sought. Locally sourced, seasonally balanced and diversified diets will embrace the local biodiversity and benefit us in many other ways (check out the previous posts on local/organic topics).

PS. To all the food lovers, 'Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love’ is a powerful and delicious read, a true eye opener.

Until next time,

Laura

Weekday vegetarian

In the spirit of today's announcement by the WHO that proves the link between processed meat and cancer, we should all take a second to consider becoming vegetarian. But it is easier said than done right? I can completely relate to that! So how about becoming half vegetarian or better yet, a weekday vegetarian? Graham Hill, the founder of LifeEdited and an advocate for sustainability and minimalism, teaches us how!

'We all know the arguments that being vegetarian is better for the environment and for the animals - but in carnivoruous culture, it can be hard to make the change. Graham Hill has a powerful, pragmatic suggestion: Be a weekday veg.'

Are you up for the challenge?

Until next time,

Laura

Can a smaller plate help you reduce food waste?

Apparently so, according to recent research. The following infographic points out that our dinner plates have actually grown by 51% since 1900. Those bigger plates are pushing us to serve ourselves bigger portions because the ration between food and plate surface we are trying to achieve. From the work of mathematician and psychologist Joseph Delboeuf we can read that container size affects how we perceive the amount of food we serve. In essence, a bigger plate equals a bigger portion.

And the portions have been growing with the plates since 1900. Even modern cookbooks incorporate larger portions when composing recipes for dinner dishes. While we serve ourselves more, we are more likely to send some of that food into the trash can once we are finished. In 2010 the US threw away 141 trillion calories, an equivalent of us throwing 20 oranges into the bin every day.

So the next time you are cooking dinner or having a house party, think of using smaller plates and containers when setting the table and preparing the food. Of course you don't want to scare off your guests by serving soup from an espresso cup but you get the idea.

Until next time,

Laura

Bird's Eye View of Meat Factories

I came across these horrific satellite pictures collected by Mishka Henner who was initially looking for satellite images of oil fields, but discovered something just as disturbing. The seemingly beautiful and colorful lakes are cesspools of animal and chemical waste. Interestingly enough, these photos are rather controversial as many US states are protected by what they call 'ag-gag' laws which ban all undercover photography, video and sound recording in farms. They say these are in place in order to protect the farmers from unwanted intruders, but in my opinion, they work better to cover up the animal cruelty and environmental disaster that is ongoing inside closed doors of these factories.

These cesspools are a result of an unnatural growth cycle of the cattle, where their natural growth of about 5 years to slaughter weight has squeezed into 12 to 14 months. The diet of the cattle has been switched from grass to corn, protein and fat supplements. This ,combined with the fact that land per cattle ration in these factories is exceptionally low, means that factory produces a considerable amount of waste that naturally would be used as fertiliser. But due to the chemical composition of manure produced by factory cows, it  cannot be put to any good use and needs to be disposed of. And in come the cesspools, where all this chemical waste will just sit and damage the local water supply and air quality, causing disease within local human, animal and natural populations. Have a look at the photos:

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

The answer to this environmental disaster lies within the larger de-concentration of meat factories and food production in general. 'Farms' need to become farms again. The unnatural processes taking place in the factories are the root cause behing the photos above and rather than thinking how to sustainably dispose of the toxic waste, we should be thinking how to avoid creating it in order to arrive at a truly promising solution. Our meat production should be pasture-based, allowing the cattle's manure to be distributed so that the soil would be able to absorb it, making it a valuable fertiliser and creating a healthy lifecycle between the animal and the soil it feeds on. The road there is bumpy, but more on that later!

Here is the link to the initial article where all the photos are from: http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/unbelievable-photos-show-factory-farms-destroying-the-american-countryside/

Till next time,

Laura

The Return

Hello again! It has been 6 months since my last post here and I have decided that it is time for me to return. What have I been up to in the last 6 months you ask? Since April: I managed to get through my last exam period in UCL, spent an amazing summer travelling and enjoying myself, started a new job in London, graduated from UCL Class of 2014 and found a new home in East London. After some big changes in my life I felt like it was time to come back to The Big Hungry Planet to catch up on the last 6 months and look forward to the next. This blog started off as a piece of coursework supporting my studies in UCL in one the geography modules: Global Environmental Change. When I first learnt that one of my chosen 3rd year modules has a blog as a gradable coursework, I was a little dubious. I had grown used to our traditional ways of assessment through essays, problem sets and written examinations. But soon after starting my discussions in The Big Hungry Planet, I became inspired and passionate about my chosen topic and found myself looking forward to researching and writing my weekly posts. This sparked a real interest and even though I have been away for 6 months now, I never forgot this space here. 

In the spirit of my return, I think the best way to revive and refresh this place is to turn to a topic that is very close to many of our hearts and morning routines: coffee. In the process of warming the planet and polluting our resources, it is coffee production that might be at risk with advancing climate change. In short, us coffee lovers, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. 

(Source: http://charlestoncoffeeexchange.com/)

The historical home of coffee of the most delicious coffee beans, Ethiopia, is already facing a change in its climate with more extreme weather events and dramatic shifts in precipitation balance. Even though there are more than 120 varieties of coffee beans, only 2 of them are used to make the black golden drink so many of us love. This low genetic variety, with increased pressure from climate change, make these species extremely vulnerable to pests and infections. Without powerful pesticides (and we know how unfortunate these are to the health of the climate from previous discussions) that may jepordise the quality and taste of the beans, we may need to find ourselves a new morning ritual. In addition to being an essential kick-starter to our day, the coffee industry employs about 25 million people worldwide, mainly in the tropics, making it essential for the livelihoods around the world. 

Here is a short clip about the future of coffee:
'A study conducted by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in collaboration with scientists in Ethiopia, reports that climate change alone could lead to the extinction of wild Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) well before the end of this century...'

Till next time,

Laura