National Security is Dirt… and
Knowledge
Presentation by John Wiener
<john.wiener@colorado.edu>
Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Miami
13 Mar 2012
Presented by Keith Ingram who is NOT responsible for
errors or offenses!
The full set of slides and text references will be posted.
Presentations cited: <www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/>
Research assistant: Alexandra Martin, Kenyon College
“Speaker’s notes” area has additional discussion and
references.
Disclaimer and Explanation
• The knowledge part of this argument is two kinds: YOURS,
and the local craft ecological knowledge of the thousands of
farmers we have lost and will lose if we don’t change course…
See National Research Council 2010: Towards Sustainable
Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century… (free download)
• Will proceed here with text about the larger issues affecting
US agriculture and some slides about some under-appreciated
problems…
• This presentation builds on earlier arguments in 2011 at the
Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop. The
website <www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/> includes other
presentations as well as links to others.
How could we think there is a problem for U.S. agriculture? We seem to be doing fine!
Source: USDA ERS, last accessed 14 February 2012:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/AgProductivity/
Expanding on Wiener CPASW 2011 Conclusions
(www.colorado.edu/ibs/eb/wiener/)
• Vulnerability to loss of financial, social, and human
capital in viable small and mid-scale agriculture is
already driving local stewards --“family farms”-- extinct
• Vulnerability of soils to increased variability and
extremes, including precipitation intensity, is increasing
for monoculture on high-input, high-yield, highexternality, high-risk treadmill, and is among threats to
sustainability of land and water quality
• The “small” is vulnerable because it is financially not
viable; the “large” is vulnerable to increasing threats of
herbicide dependence and resistance, and erosion not
economically recognized…
Erosion Prospects: Worse
• Soil and Water Conservation Society, 2003: Increased precipitation intensity
could undo all the progress since creation of SCS! AFFIRMED: Agronomy
Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society…
• CCSP SAP 3.3 (2008,p. 4) : “Extreme precipitation episodes (heavy downpours)
have become more frequent… and now account for a larger percentage …
intense precipitation… (the heaviest 1%...) in the continental U.S. increased by
20% over the past century while total precipitation increased by 7%...”
• Cumulative impacts increase sharply with more frequent and closer extreme
events including synergy of stresses of different kinds
• Increased ET from warmer temperatures – changes in “natural” vegetation
communities, range vulnerable, fire frequencies … And soil quality impacts!
• Seasonality changes – longer growing season – weeds? Invasives…
• NEW: Environmental Working Group, 2011, “LOSING GROUND” – Iowa farmers
working hard to patch (but not repair) gully erosion for equipment needs…
• Indicates may be severe underestimates of erosion on industrial ag. land
• Rental of ~31 MA Conservation Reserve Program highly erodible land ends
• (grisly numbers provided in Wiener CPASW 2011 and others; many sources.)
Bifurcation of US Farming:
Two Kinds of Problems
• For the small operations with 63% of US
Farmland but only 16% of sales…
– Urbanization
– Rural residential development
– Inability to finance climate and weather response
• For the industrial conventional, not only the
usual erosion – probably grossly under
estimated; now herbicide resistance…
Affecting the “small ag” 63% of farmland…
This is there the best land and water is or was, and the extreme rates of land conversion
out of farming -- probably very difficult or uneconomic to return to agriculture
Rural Residential Development
eats farmland every year…
“Farms….
But not
supporting
the family.
This is
“Ranchettes”
and horse
properties
USDA ERS 2011: Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2007:
Urban land acreage quadrupled from 1945 to 2007, increasing at about twice the rate
of population growth over this period.
Land in urban areas was estimated at 61 million acres in 2007, up almost 2 percent
since 2002 and 17 percent since 1990 (after adjusting the 1990 estimate for the new
criteria used in the 2000 Census).
The Census Bureau estimates that urban area increased almost 8 million acres
(13 percent) during the 1990s. Census estimates based on the previous criteria
indicate that urban area increased 9 million acres (18 percent) during the 1980s, 13
million acres (37 percent) during the 1970s, and 9 million acres (36 percent) during
the 1960s.
Estimated rural residential acreage outside urban areas increased to 103 million acres
between 2002 and 2007.
In percentage terms, this 9-million-acre (10-percent) increase is about a third of the
21-million-acre (29-percent) increase over the previous 5-year period (1997-2002)
and reflects the downturn in the residential housing market that occurred during the
mid 2000s.
The “smoking gun” : the displacement of farming from the places
first chosen by the Euro-Americans settling in…
Cropland may about the same in area but IS IT THE SAME QUALITY?
So… productivity gains from?
• Productivity gains from huge increases in inputs
• Productivity gains from breeding and then radically accelerated
breeding with genetic understanding and modification
• Productivity gains from initial soil fertility in newly cultivated
lands
• Serious questions of sustainability… see:
– International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (2009)
– National Research Council (US) 2010, Towards Sustainable
Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century
– United Kingdom Office of Science, 2011, Foresight
But, the farm business looks pretty good right now… It would be nice to take time to review
some of the price squeeze problems driving the middle size farms out, but right now:
THIS DEMONSTRATES THE LACK OF FINANCIAL SIGNALING THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG
Why mess with a good thing?
What about the big producers?
Progress in erosion control from reduced tillage was coming along … slowly, given the fact
that it was clearly advantageous to producers as well as public interests…
But… this is at serious risk!
Why care about corn and soy and cotton? Aside from their importance to producers
and consumers, by 2008, fully 63% of US corn, 68% of cotton, and 92% of soy was
GMO Glyphosate-resistant (dominantly “Roundup-Ready” ™)…
Back to pre-emergent herbicides, post-emergents…. Tillage… Stay with the package
But make the package more complicated…
Citations omitted – great resource
American Society of Agronomy
Crop Science Society of America
Soil Science Society of America
No surprises to
the CPASW
folks
habitat of soil biota… diversity … abundance
downpours… increased soil erosion…
affect soil chemistry and biology…
water retention capacity… soil organic matter…
impacts of intense rainfall and drought…
See also Crop Science Society of America,
2011, Position Statement on Crop Adaptation
To Climate Change.
The response to herbicide-resistant weeds?
• Return to tillage
• “Stack” herbicide resistance traits into the
crops: back to 2, 4-D and “dicamba” – on with
the show!
• New packages: the seed, and the glyphosate
and the additional second herbicides and
maybe additional treatments pre-emergent,
post-emergent? “Burn-off” between crops
with additional herbicides?
• “evolution will win” – but what damage will
we do?
National Security Threats
• Conventional agriculture soils not only at risk from input
dependence but also increasing soil erosion from return to
tillage as well as increased herbicide use in global competition
with short-term incentives
• Small agriculture at risk from financial vulnerability, implying
inability to respond to changed conditions, and land
conversion to other uses…
• Increased intensity of precipitation – no surprise to the
CPASW audience – threatens dangerous interactions with
these increased exposures and decreasing ability to protect
inherent fertility of soils…
• And we haven’t started on soil micro-ecology and long-term
fertility impacts from climate interactions with our agriculture
and urbanization externalities…
Role of Weather and Climate Information
• Critical need for improved crop rotations and cropping
systems to increase soil defense – calls for knowledge about
changed seasonality of high-intensity events and soil-relevant
conditions (frost dates etc) FOR SMALL AG not using
commercial services used industrially. Need policy change to
provide this as a public good!
• Need for short-term weather forecasts to begin education and
orientation to higher intensity issues – the model may be
NEMO – Non-point Education for Municipal Officials program.
• NOAA and Allies – YOU FOLKS – may have to step into this
until USDA reorients toward long-term issues for the small ag
majority, including transition toward sustainable, and moving
the industrial toward less vulnerability…
• CAN CLIMATE AND WEATHER INFORMATION CATALYZE
RESPONSES TO THE THREAT TO LONG-TERM SECURITY?
A Way Forward?
• Following Wiener CPASW 2011...
• Re-Design a Ditch: an example of thinking at the LANDSCAPE
SCALE; ideally, one also thinks regionally… (see notes)
• Private property: Can owners self-organize for self-defense and
to maximize the value of their resources for the long term?
• Features:
– Green conservation areas to function as habitat conservation
plan;
– purple buffers/trails for recreation, amenity;
– orange is new urbanism concentration of development;
– biodeisel canola for self-fueling and for urban partner/part
owner…
• Project in progress; part 1 of report posted.
• Wanted: Transformational change, not business as usual!
Locator Map
Bessemer Ditch is
adjacent to and
East of Pueblo,
Colorado
The alternative? “Development” of some of the best former farm land in the US