Raising Agricultural Yields Spares Land
Farmland expansion is one of the leading drivers of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions globally. It is not surprising, then, that the question of how to slow or halt the growth in agricultural area has been at the top of the agenda in debates around agriculture. With a global population growing larger and wealthier by the day, finding ways to reduce farmland expansion without relying solely on rich countries moderating their food consumption is essential.
Beyond the Population-Consumption Dichotomy
In general, a large human population leads to less non-human life. Unless you are at the extreme end of the induced innovation spectrum, where larger human populations create such technological progress as to lower impacts, this is hard to argue with. But the following two statements are simultaneously true: a large human population is detrimental to non-human life, and the concept of overpopulation is both scientifically and ethically problematic. Many have understood these problems, but the most common retort today — that the culprit instead lies in overconsumption — is also an idea fraught with issues. There needs to be a different way of thinking about population and consumption that goes beyond this tired dichotomy.
Measuring What Matters
In 80 years—during which our knowledge of farming’s environmental impacts has grown profoundly—the federal government’s basic approach to agricultural sustainability hasn’t changed. Yet this approach—and its impact on consumer preferences, such as for organic food—doesn’t actually incentivize farmers to improve their environmental performance. Rather, it rewards the use of specific practices under the assumption that those practices are universally better for the environment.
What Are the Land-Use Intensities of Different Energy Sources?
Producing energy takes up land—a fact you could be forgiven for forgetting today. After all, the current energy system only occupies about 0.4% of ice-free land worldwide, most of it for hydroelectric power generation, a number dwarfed by agriculture, cities, and other anthropogenic land uses. However, that balance is likely to change. In a new paper published in PLoS ONE, Jessica Lovering, Marian Swain, Rebecca Hernandez, and I study the land footprint of different energy sources, and our results are sobering.
Drivers of Increasing Global Crop Production: A Decomposition Analysis
Since the early 1960s, global crop production has increased by over 250%. The social, economic, and environmental ramifications of this growth in output—including the loss of biodiversity and carbon—are hard to overstate. To understand what lies behind this remarkable development, in 2020, Luke Yates and Barry Brook of the University of Tasmania and I, ran an analysis that breaks down the overall increase in crop production into five components, or drivers.
What Microorganisms Can Teach Us about Decoupling and Limits to Growth
Last week, noted environmentalist George Monbiot declared the imminent demise of farming. He profiled a company that has engineered microorganisms to use hydrogen extracted from water to produce flour. If this technology scaled up, expanded to other foods, and was powered by clean energy, it would theoretically give humanity and the planet something near a free lunch. “We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years,” Monbiot writes. “While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life.”
We’ve Reached “Peak Pasture” for Livestock
In the past 20 years, something remarkable has occurred, something few predicted: after several centuries of expansion, global pasture area has begun to shrink. According to the United Nations’ most recent data, there are a whopping 140 million fewer hectares of pasture than there were in 2000, an area roughly the size of Peru. Because pasture is one of the largest drivers of deforestation in many regions—and of the habitat loss and carbon emissions that follow—this is good news for the environment.
Eat Meat. Not Too Much. Mostly Monogastrics
For decades, environmentalists have been rightly concerned about the environmental impact of humanity’s food systems. Often, this has meant advocating for shifting diets — in particular, away from meat, given its outsized environmental impact. A recent, much-publicized example is the EAT-Lancet Commission’s new report, whose flexitarian dietary guidelines include some, but not much, meat. But what’s often been missed in the discussion of these guidelines is that in terms of environmental impacts, how much meat you eat might matter less than what kind of meat you eat. What if shifting from one type of meat (beef) to another (monogastrics, like pork and poultry) offered environmental benefits at least as large as simply reducing meat consumption across the board?
Magical Thinking Won’t Help Us Reconcile Biodiversity & Food Production
Recently, Science published a major review of the potential for conservation on farmland, rangelands, forests, and other working lands, authored by Claire Kremen and Adina Merenlender. The latest installation in a long-running debate about the relative merits of conservation approaches ranging from “land sparing” to “land sharing,” the piece presents an alluring vision of landscapes that can deliver not just abundant food and timber, but ecosystem services and biodiversity, all at the same time. However, the piece can only paint this rosy picture by downplaying the very real trade-offs between different functions in a landscape, thus eliding rather than illuminating the challenge of providing food and other goods while also protecting biodiversity.
Does Wildlife Loss Threaten Civilization?
The declines in animal populations documented in the latest WWF Living Planet Report are tragic and painful news for nature and wildlife enthusiasts like myself. Yet it is not clear that the loss of species and populations, even at the scale we’ve seen in the last few decades, really endangers human material well-being. Overall well-being and quality of life certainly are affected, no doubt — less non-human life makes for a world that is less beautiful and exciting — but the same may not be true for material well-being.
Do High Agricultural Yields Spare Land for Conservation?
Last week, the open-access journal PLoS ONE published a paper by Andrew Kniss, Steven Savage, and Randa Jabbour measuring the difference in crop yields between organic and conventional farms in the US. But, in line with the author’s express hopes, this paper is “not just another organic yield vs conventional comparison for partisans to throw at each other in debates.”
Toward a Half-Earth Future
Over the last several years, a growing network of conservationists, through efforts like the Nature Needs Half network, has proposed an audacious goal for 21st century conservation: set aside half of the earth’s land area for nature. As an aspirational goal, the concept has inspired. Rather than framing global conservation as an exercise in damage control, the new effort offers a vision of an ecologically vibrant future in which people and nature thrive together.
The Future of Fish Farming
As global demand for seafood increases alongside population and income growth, fish farming has become more necessary than ever, despite its negative environmental externalities. How can the aquaculture industry achieve long-term sustainability, both in terms of conservation and energy usage?
How Modern Agriculture Can Save the Gorillas of Virunga
Humans use about half the world's ice-free surface, mostly for food production. Yet with continuing technological improvements, population and its impact on the environment could peak and then decline within the next few decades. This phenomenon, called decoupling, means that people can increase their standard of living while doing less damage to the environment. Protecting remaining wilderness in the face of escalating demand for food, resources and energy will require accelerating decoupling—in other words, speeding up urbanization and intensifying modern agriculture.
Managed Well, Feedlots Can Be the Environmentally and Ethically Smart Choice
Although grass-fed is touted as the environmentally and ethically best choice for beef eaters, feedlots often outperform on both fronts.
How Humans Spare Nature
We conserve nature by using less of it—but to do so we must embrace modern technology.
Food Production and Wildlife on Farmland
What kind of agriculture most benefits biodiversity? In recent years, few questions have animated conservationists and land-use scientists more than this one. Rightly so: agricultural expansion and intensification are leading causes of wildlife declines and habitat loss,1 and with rising demand for agricultural products, pressures are set to mount even further.
Sustainable Intensification: let’s refine industrial farming instead of abandoning it
Most evidence points to conventional, intensive farming as a better option for the environment than more extensive or organic systems, and it has been getting better over time.
Is Precision Agriculture the Way to Peak Cropland?
If farmland continues to grow over the next several decades, the consequences for habitats and wildlife would be dire. As such, slowing, halting, and eventually reversing the growth in agricultural area must be a top priority – perhaps the top priority – for global conservation.
Strimmor av hopp [In Swedish]
Vi bevarar naturen genom att använda mindre av den. Därför måste vi omfamna den moderna teknologin.
Decoupling or Degrowth? Why "Peak Stuff" May Not Be As Dire As You’ve Heard
Does humanity’s growing use of materials mean that decoupling is impossible? In a word, no, and attempts to reduce all resource and environmental problems to our material footprint won’t help us solve problems of resource scarcity or environmental impacts.
Towards Peak Impact: The Evidence for Decoupling
In the past few years, decoupling – breaking the link between economic growth and environmental impacts – has become the new catchword in environmental debates. The OECD has declared it a top priority, and UNEP’s International Resource Panel launched a report series on the topic in 2011. And last year, interest in the idea shot up after the publication of An Ecomodernist Manifesto which declared decoupling a central objective of ecomodernism.
It’s Time to Scrap the Ecological Footprint
Let’s scrap the Ecological Footprint and start measuring our carbon footprint directly, in terms of carbon-dioxide equivalents, and use other, more meaningful metrics for the sustainability of farming, forestry, fisheries, and other activities. The world will be wiser for it.
Synthetic Abundance: Overcoming Nature's Scarcity
We often talk about how bountiful nature is. But in reality, without engineering and enhancement by humans, natural ecosystems are very sparse in their supply of material goods.
Precision agriculture: bigger yields from smaller farms
Better technologies will play a crucial role in pushing yields higher while minimizing environmental impacts. Yet the debate on this subject has often been narrowly focused on biotechnology, and GMOs in particular. This narrow focus risks obscuring other tools that are at least as important. In particular, precision agricultural technologies – a broad suite of largely under-the-radar technologies and practices that help farmers use the right inputs, in the right amounts, at the right time, for each field and crop – will be an increasingly important part of the future of food production and the pursuit of sustainable agriculture.
Sustainable Intensification: let’s refine industrial farming instead of abandoning it
Most evidence points to conventional, intensive farming as a better option for the environment than more extensive or organic systems, and it has been getting better over time.
George Monbiot is wrong to suggest small farms are best for humans and nature
Monbiot has criticised ecomodernism for endorsing agricultural modernisation, but this is the way to feed a growing urban population and free up land for rewilding.