Message from Argentina

While writing and reading for my last post about agricultural chemicals, I stumbled upon a beautiful but alarming photo blog by three picture editors of The Boston Globe. They put together a collection of photos representing the dramatic impacts of agrochemical spraying in Argentina and the human reactions to it. Here I quote the authors:

'Agrochemical spraying in Argentina has increased ninefold, from 9 million gallons in 1990 to 84 million gallons today. Yet the South American nation has a hodgepodge of widely ignored regulations that leave people dangerously exposed, and chemicals contaminate homes, classrooms, and drinking water. Doctors and scientists are warning that uncontrolled spraying could be causing health problems across the nation.'

Soybeans ready for harvest in Buenos Aires. American biotechnology has turned Argentine into the world's third largest soybean producer, but the chemicals powering the boom aren't confined to soy, cotton and corn fields. They routinely contamine homes and classrooms and drinking water.

Aixa Cano, 5, who has hairy moles all over her body that doctors can't explain, sits on a stoop outside her home in Avia Terai, in Chaco province, Argentina on April 1. Although it's nearly impossible to prove, doctors say Aixa's birth defect may be linked to agrochemicals. In Chaco, children are four times more likely to be born with devastating birth defects since biotechnology dramatically expanded farming in Argentina.

Felix San Roman walks on his property in Rawson, in Buenos Aires province, Argentina on April 16. San Roman says that when he complained about clouds of chemicals drifting into his yard, the sprayers beat him up, fracturing his spine and knocking out his teeth. "This is a small town where nobody confronts anyone, and the authorities look the other way," San Roman said. "All I want is for them to follow the existing law, which says you can't do this within 1,500 meters. Nobody follows this. How can you control it?"

Empty agrochemical containers including Monsanto's Round Up products lay discarded at a recycling center in Quimili, Santiago del Estero province, Argentina on May 2. Instead of a lighter chemical burden in Argentina, agrochemical spraying has increased ninefold, from 9 million gallons in 1990 to 84 million gallons today. Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Round Up products, is used roughly eight to ten times more per acre than in the United States. Yet Argentina doesn't apply national standards for farm chemicals, leaving rule-making to the provinces and enforcement to the municipalities.

A protest sign directed to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Cordoba Province governor Jose Manuel de la Sota that reads in Spanish; "Stop looting and contaminating! Monsanto out of Cordoba and Argentina," is posted on a fence where Monsanto is building its largest seed production plant in Latin America in the town of Malvinas Argentinas, in Cordoba province, Argentina on Sept. 25.

Activist Oscar Alfredo Di Vincensi talks on a cell phone inside his tent during his one-man hunger strike demanding that agrochemical spraying not be allowed within 1,000 meters of homes, in the main square of Alberti, in Buenos Aires province, Argentina on April 16. Earlier this year, Di Vincensi stood in a field waving a court order barring spraying within 1,000 meters of homes in his town of Alberti; a tractor driver doused him in pesticide.

Former farmworker Fabian Tomasi, 47, shows the condition of his emaciated body as he stands inside his home in Basavilbaso, in Entre Rios province, Argentina on March 29. Tomasi's job was to keep the crop dusters flying by quickly filling their tanks but he says he was never trained to handle pesticides. Now he is near death from polyneuropathy. "I prepared millions of liters of poison without any kind of protection, no gloves, masks or special clothing. I didn't know anything. I only learned later what it did to me, after contacting scientists," he said.

The author of these photos is Natacha Pisarenko. This post does not do these photos justice so I encourage you to go have a look at the rest of the pictures on the actual blog: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/10/agrochemical_spraying_in_argen.html

Warning: Agricultural Chemicals!

In order to grow our food faster, cheaper and bigger, modern agriculture has opted to a wide variety of chemical pesticides and inorganic fertilisers. Fertilisers in the form of manure and compost have been used for centuries but the use of chemical fertilisers only relates to the industrial Green Revolution in the 20th century. Fertilisers, especially nitrogen based, have seen a dramatic tenfold increase since 1950s (Robertson and Vitousek, 2009). But due to the fact that we are unable to keep nitrogen from leaving cropped ecosystems though various pathways (mainly waterways and atmosphere), fertiliser use brings well-documented and significant environmental impacts. Nitrogen is a central element in living systems but overuse and mismanagement have severe consequences (Robertson and Vitousek, 2009).

One of the first synthetic pesticides, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), was widely used during World War II to kill malaria-bearing mosquitos and typhus-carrying lice. After the war, it became a popular pesticide to kill off unwanted pests on farms. In 1972, DDT was banned in the United States as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noticed an adverse affect on wildlife as well as humans. Today, due to its persistence in the environment, DDT is considered as a human carcinogen and is still in use in some parts of the world. This proves how little we know about the effects of chemical fertilisers on humans but also the environment.

Modern agricultural industry takes advantage of many synthetic fertilisers pushing up yields and helping to feed the planet's growing population. But at what price? The use of synthetic fertilisers causes a systematic change in the way we think about soil and organic matter. Before chemical fertilisers, healthy soil was packed with microorganisms, retaining nutrients and moisture to grow plants. In addition, topsoil organic matter sucked up atmospheric nitrogen, converting it to ammonia and nitrates that was 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.

Nitrogen is used in nearly all synthetic fertilisers as it acts as an important nutrient for plants. When nitrogen fertilisers are used on soils, the chemical processes following cause the fertiliser to break down and the releasing of nitrous oxide. In fact, synthetic fertilisers are to blame for more than 75% of all agricultural nitrous oxide emissions (EPA, 2012). But what is so special about nitrous oxide?

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Gas

Source: IPCC, 2007

To answer that, we need to look more specifically how effective nitrous oxide is in trapping heat. If we compare carbon dioxide to nitrous oxide, the latter is 296 times more powerful in trapping heat, leaving us more than worried. While carbon dioxide takes the biggest piece of the pie for greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 2007), it may not be the most dangerous one in terms of climate change potential.

But what about the production of fertilisers? It turns out, the modern agriculture industry has transformed soil fertility into a fossil fuel intensive 'business'. Consider this: in order to produce a ton of fertiliser, more than 930 litres of natural gas. Furthermore, raw materials for the fertilisers often have to be mined or manufactured away from production sites, adding the transportation cost in terms of emissions. Not to mention how half of the nitrogen fertiliser applied on crops in the United States is leaching through to the soil and the waterways. This makes fertiliser use wasteful, harmful for the environment and dangerous for humans.

Promotion of fertilisers in 1942 by the Tennessee Valley Authority- right-hand side field was treated with phosphate and lime, the left-hand side was not treated.

It is important to realise another dramatic consequence of excessive nitrogen release into the environment: hypoxia. This phenomenon occurs when nitrogen gets released into waterways and 'high nutrient levels stimulate algal growth, and when algae sink into deeper water and die, their sub- sequent decomposition by bacteria consumes dissolved oxygen deep in the water column faster than it can be replenished from the sur- face, leading to the development of hypoxia and the reduction or elimination of deeper-water organisms that require oxygen' Robertson and Vitousek, 2009:103). This process dramatically disturbes the natural habitat of biodiversity and leads to the unbalancing of natural nitrogen cycles. 

 

Looking through the evidence that I have gathered here, it is clear that both humans and the environment have taken a hit due to the introduction of the synthetic fertilisers and chemical pesticides. In order to reduce the human health hazards, reduce the impacts on climate change and to make way for more sustainable farming, the focus should lie on organic fertilisers, which preserve the soil's organic matter. With modern technology advancements and our knowledge of past mistakes, there is hope that such fertilisers will come to dominate the future food production.



Till next time,
Laura

Food Inc.

For anyone who is interested, has spare time and hasn't already seen this:

Food Inc. (2008) by Robert Kenner is a brilliant, disturbing and eye-opening movie about modern day food industry. This movie goes right to the heart of American corporate food industry and investigates how modern food is unhealthy and harmful for the environment. I must warn you, this might put you off meat for a while or change the way you think about food!

Enjoy!

Laura

The Dirty Food Sector- A Brief Overview

This time I want to take a look at how our food industry has made its way into the workings of the economy and how its hidden costs are are fueling climate change. Looking at the breakdown of emissions by sector, it seems like the agricultural sector takes up a relatively modest 13.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, while energy supply contributes with 25.9% and industry with 19.4% (IPCC, 2007).

Carbon dioxide emissions by sector

Source: IPCC 2007, 'Synthesis Report'

But do these figures really show us the truth about agriculture? It is easy to assume, looking at the data, that food production is one of the least problematic sectors causing carbon dioxide emissions (the most important anthropogenic green house gas). However, it is important to realise that modern food production is fueling climate change from virtually every sector of the world's economy. It is estimated that in reality, food related emissions make up about one third of total greenhouse gases heating our planet (Vermeulen et al, 2012). Food is everywhere!

To illustrate how our food system is accountable for all these emissions, let's look at food trade.  The global food trade has increased more than tenfold in the past 60 years (Schmitz et al, 2012). Using fossil fuel based transport solutions, food trade is a major polluter hiding behind the transport sector. With the excuse of increasing consumer choice, food is being transported from one corner of the world to another, every day. As a disturbing example, in 2008, the US exported 1.9 billion pounds and imported 2.5 billion pounds of beef and veal. Can we really taste the difference? Looking at these figures, one can only imagine how much energy and refrigerating these carcases require to get around the world. I will dedicate a separate post to talk about global food trade later in the course of the blog.

In addition to trade, production of chemical pesticides and fertilisers are energy-intensive and rich in terms of emissions that they emit. Moreover, production and usage of these chemicals releases other anthropogenic gases more dangerous than carbon dioxide. All of these issues will be discussed in greater detail in following posts. New technological and chemical discoveries are to thank for the birth of industrialised food. Modern food industry exploits fossil fuels in order to produce cheaper, faster and in bigger quantities, to ship food all over the planet and to process it for a greater profit. Never has food production been in the hands of so few producers. But at what price?

Garnett (2011) points out that our whole food chain emits greenhouse gases- starting from the farm and finishing on our plates, but the largest polluter is the agricultural stage. The graph below shows 40% of greenhouse emissions relating to the food sector come from the agriculture stage, making it the most promising opportunity to reduce food chain emissions. Although food chain greenhouse emissions are a major environmental issue, we have to remember that our food industry also puts a threat on biodiversity, water use, animal welfare and human nutrition. In the course of the next few months, I want to touch upon all of these but the main focus will be on greenhouse emissions.

Food chain greenhouse emissions by sector.

Source: Garnett (2011)

I hope this post gives a brief overview of what we are dealing with when talking about modern food industry. Problems like food trade, pesticides, fertilisers and processing will be featured in future posts. Until then, here is another short and light TED talk (apologies for my obsession with TED talks) by an 11-year-old Birke Baehr who explains what is wrong with our food system. He emphasises on the aspect of human health and the role of genetically modified food. This is the story seen through a kid's eyes. Enjoy!

Till next time,
Laura

Why, how and where to?

Firstly, I would like to welcome you to my blog concerning climate change and food production! In the course of this blog I will be discussing the implications modern industrial food production has on the global environment, how human dietary choices have a role to play in warming the planet and whether we have hope in escaping the fossil fuel intensive food industry.

While discussing this controversial topic I will be commenting on academic articles, books, movies, social media and any source that I find to be 'blogging-worthy'. In the end of all this I hope that myself and all you readers will have a better idea about how the farming and agriculture sector is damaging our planet. But let me remind you, for me, this topic is a working progress and I am still in the search of right and wrong answers. So I would like to invite you on a journey to discover more about how we can eat better, produce more efficiently and lead our planet to a healthier future!

But why this topic? As a third year Economics and Geography student, this blog is an outlet to my personal interest in the relationship between the planet and human activity. But furthermore, it is a topic still emerging and finding its way to the climate change debate. Looking at today's discussion around global environmental change, it is evident that some sectors take the spotlight: non-renewable energy, transport and heavy industry. Just to give you a taste of how little focus revolves around food and agriculture: in 2008, out of more than 4000 climate change related articles published in the United States, 1% were focused on food and agriculture (Neff et al., 2009). In addition, when we talk about the relation of agriculture and climate change, the discussion tends to focus on how climate change is affecting our food production and not the other way around. However, in recent years, the focus on fossil-fuel dependent agriculture is on a rise and produces many controversial discussions that I hope to cover on the course of this blog. 

Questions to be answered: how does our food system affect the global climate today? How can we make food production and farming more sustainable and healthier for the planet? How do consumers choices enter the picture and how can we be part of the solution?

Here is a video of Mark Bittman, an American food journalist, columnist and author, speaking at a TED conference about what is wrong with what we eat today. It is a interesting story of human food consumption and production and what consequences it has on human and environmental health. It takes you through history from the 1900s and how introducing canned, fast and convenience food has changed the way we eat today. Packed with fascinating and surprising facts, this video is a good introduction for this blog. I hope you enjoy it!

Till next time,

Laura