Agricultural Production and Climate Chage

ANDREW MARSHALL

04 Dec, 2014 03:00 AM

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The world has not yet fully understood the food dimensions of climate change

Science author and former rural journalist Julian Cribb.

TODAY'S broadacre farmers may not like the idea, but the human diet is on course to shift from a focus on meat and grain products to seafood and vegetables in the next 50 years.

Farming is also likely to increase in high-rise buildings (or 'agritecture') within the world's emerging mega cities, and even on giant floating horticulture and aquaculture greenhouse platforms dotted around our coastline.

We won't have much choice, according to science author and former rural journalist Julian Cribb.

The planet is running out of fresh water, farmland, fertiliser and fossil fuels, and mankind will need to get much better at recycling agricultural inputs and growing food more efficiently.

"By the latter part of this century there may be 11 billion mouths to feed, but rainfall in the world's great grain bowls is becoming less reliable and lakes rivers and aquifers are drying up," he said.

Global warming by just two degrees in average temperatures would cut grain yields as much as 45 per cent in India alone. Five degrees could halve current global food production capacity.

"The world has not yet fully understood the food dimensions of climate change," Mr Cribb said.

"It will drive geopolitics, migration and warfare and gradually shift our diet away from one that is predominantly meat and grains to predominantly seafood and vegetables."

At last month's Rabobank sponsored F20 Summit on food security solutions in Sydney, Mr Cribb told attendees that mega cities and energy industries were also devouring more and more of the farmer's water resources, yet farms were expected to double their output from half as much water.

On average, humans used 1240 tonnes of water a year.

About 75pc of this use was in the form of food, much of which was discarded by western consumers or wasted in the paddock, or became part of an "industrialised diet" responsible for diet-related diseases claiming about two thirds of all ailment-related deaths.

To feed emerging mega city populations like the 120 million filling China's sprawling Guangzhou-Shenzen apartment towers by 2050 - and to make life more livable for the 7 billion people forecast to be occupying the world's cities - urban agriculture and horticulture was taking on a new importance.

Global impact on cities

Plans on drawing boards already ranged from high-tech glass skyscrapers producing horticulture crops, fish and even poultry, through to a renaissance in balcony and community gardens.

Vertical greenhouse 'farms' and city office or hospital roof-top gardens (pictured, below) would bring new green life, food, birds and biodiversity and help moderate temperature extremes in the "soulless concrete and glass 'urbanscapes' of today".

Metropolitan waste and water would be recycled to grow these city crops, utilising valuable nutrients currently being flushed away, while easing the demand on limited fertiliser and water resources.

"With the right investment, urban horticulture and farms can supply half the world's food by 2050, bringing immense relief to the stress now imposed on our farming soils, water, biodiversity and rural communities," said Canberra-based Mr Cribb.

Aquaponic farms producing crops and fish fed on recycled nutrients, algae and vegetable matter were already "sprouting" in Norway, Iceland, North America and even New Zealand and Australia.

A 4000-hectare vertical farm was proposed right in the heart of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, one already operated in Singapore, and an "aeroponic" farm planned to grow hundred of tonnes of leafy greens in New Jersey, US.

At Cobbitty south-west of Sydney, Blue Farms was producing fresh fish and herb crops in controlled glasshouse environments, using fish waste to feed plants grown in aquaponic conditions on giant conveyor belts.

In Norway, seven hectares of greenhouses produced 2200 tonnes of organic tomatoes and capsicums every seven months.

To meet the fresh food needs of seaboard mega cities like Shanghai, Tokyo and Mumbai, Mr Cribb said giant floating greenhouses were also being designed.

By 2050 aquaculture production would grow three-fold from the current 67m tonnes of fish and water plants (including algae) produced annually to help feed the 550m tonnes of animal and fish protein likely to be demanded.

Jellyfish, seaweed, sea cucumbers and a host of edible Australian native plants (6100 are known to exist) could become part of our diet, just as tomatoes and potatoes from the Americas had created profound culinary changes in the past 400 years.

"The food we eat a century from now and how we produce and consume it will be as strange to us today as the foods our ancestors grew centuries ago."

The algae revolution

Feeding the world with more meat, grain, seafood and horticultural crops won't be possible without a revolutionary change in the energy resources used to power extra agricultural production.

That revolutionary ingredient is likely to be algae, according to Julian Cribb.

"In future huge algae farms on land, at sea and in salt lakes will produce food for people, feed for fish and other livestock, fuel for transport, pharmaceuticals, plastics, textiles and chemicals," he forecast.

Nourished by the flood of organic waste from the world's increasing urban populations, algae production plants, such as South Australia's Muradel site at Whyalla, offered a green renewable solution to the problem of global oil scarcity.

Last month Muradel launched a $11 million demonstration plant in its first step towards a commercial site with potential to produce 80m litres of 'green' crude oil a year.

Theoretically, algal-type water plants were capable of supplying the world's entire fuel needs from an area covering just 57 million hectares, said Mr Cribb, whose science and technology writing career has spanned National Farmer magazine, metropolitan newspapers and six years as a media director with the CSIRO.

He said 30 countries were already investing in what could becomes the world's biggest crop.

Algae was resilient to climate change and could be farmed in tanks, on wasteland ponds, or in floating rafts at sea where it did not compete for space with other crops.

The world's 72,000 species of water plants included many which also contained nutrients for a healthy human or livestock diet, including omega three oils and beta-carotene.

"Algae can be made into delicious, healthy and sustainable foods as readily as any land-based crop and would also insure our food system never ran short of energy," Mr Cribb said.

He also wants Australia to move fast to accelerate research algal biofuels, coupled with a national investment plan to take advantage of the opportunity.

The world's food supply was not just currently dangerously dependent on fossil fuels to grow crops and livestock, but also to transport, chill and cook the food our farmers produce.

"Each year we're eating the diesel from 66 barrels of oil, but the number of new cars is also growing at seven times the rate of new oil reserves being discovered," he said.

"There will be huge impacts on the price and supply of food as fresh energy shocks occur."

On the other hand, algae culture had the potential to make sunlight-rich Australia self sufficient in energy production, generating an extra $50m annually in new revenue and jobs - particularly in the bush.

reproduced from: 

http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/future-farming-is-growing-on-us/2718663.aspx?storypage=0

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This is a critical issue and we all should be aware of how this is developing.

But getting support for new concepts is a frustrating business, with governments and support organisations not supporting funding of the development of these new concepts, especially here in Australia.  And we have first hand knowledge of that lack of support.

The comments on the original story are amazing - read them yourself.  Some very strong vehement almost anti-progress stuff with a personal attack bias.  Quite amazing!!

Cannot Stop the Advance of GM Technology

Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia (ABCA) chair Ken Matthews says some Australian governments are “gutless” when it comes to giving farmers access to genetically modified (GM) crops.

The former secretary of both the Australian agriculture and transport departments made the no-nonsense observation in a detailed outline of global and domestic attitudes on biotechnology at the National Farmers' Federation Congress in Canberra last week.  

Mr Matthews summed up by saying Australia suffers from not having a more objective, science-based discussion about agricultural biotechnology.  “It’s really important that Australia has practicing farmers speak up for agricultural biotechnology because it’s practicing farmers that will be persuasive.”  The ongoing anti-GM campaign is one of the “big risks” facing the technology’s development, he said.

“There is a great suspicion of science and scientists in public debate in Australia and there has been a very effective campaign by NGOs (non-government organisations) which has influenced public opinion.

“As a result, what worries me is that environmentally responsible farmers - who tend in many other areas to be leaders of farm opinion - can often be ambivalent about GM.  “The pro-GM constituency among farmers is therefore not as strong as it could be in Australia.”

Governments need to lead

Mr Matthews said attitudes held by the general public, consumers, environmentalists and media were also central problems in the GM debate.

But his strongest criticism was reserved for various governments that refuse to allow GM crops to be cultivated, despite overwhelming scientific evidence.

“Some governments in Australia are – and I use this word carefully – gutless,” he said.

“There are total bans on GM in South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT,” he said.

“There are moratoriums in WA and NSW but there are certainly exemptions for that. In my view they (total bans) aren’t rationally based; they aren’t properly founded in science.

“Those moratoria need to be ended and we need to avoid further mandatory labelling requirements, unless they can be justified.”

Hinting at the recent high profile legal case involving neighbouring organic and GM farmers, Steve Marsh and Mike Baxter in Kojonup WA, Mr Matthews said the problem with reconciling organic standards and GM crops also “needs to be tackled”.

He said there were three inescapable truths about biotechnology: the first being that it provides a critical opportunity to lift the productivity, profitability and sustainability of Australian agriculture over the next 20 years.

Secondly, he said biotechnology was critical to meeting rapidly rising global food needs. 

And thirdly, biotechnology will inevitably continue to attract “suspicion and opposition” in some community sectors, slowing its development.

Mr Matthews said that opposition was based on four key concerns: food safety; environmental damage; “agrochemical industry domination” and “a roundup of ethical and religious issues”.

However, he said science delivered a very clear message about the safety of GM technology.

GM safety scientifically proven

Mr Matthews said more than 100 of the world’s independent science oversight bodies, including “very authoritative and credible organisations” in the US and Europe, shared a consensus that GM crops are “as safe as conventional varieties - and often safer because of the extensive approval process they need to go through”.  “The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of GM safety, assuming that we continue with the sound regulatory processes that we have,” he said.  “There have now been 3 trillion meals (consumed) involving or including GM and there’s been not one recorded case of harm.  “There have been 70 billion animals which have been feeding on GM feed of some sort, and not one recorded case of harm.”

Mr Matthews said a recent European review of over 1700 scientific studies around the world about environmental impacts of GM concluded that there was little or no evidence GM crops caused negative environmental impacts.

“To me, as a student of public policy, it’s really interesting that the environment movement is very keen for science to be heard in the climate change debate - but where the science is very clear, no one seems to want to know about biotechnology,” he said.

Mr Matthews faced a question from the floor at the NFF Congress from NSW Farmers executive councillor Gai Marshall, referring to the controversial Seralini rat study on GM corn, which purported to find the GM feed caused tumour growth. Ms Marshall said she wasn’t against growing GM but wanted to see greater traceability.

Mr Matthews said the Seralini piece of science had been retracted. “It has been rejected, it has been withdrawn,” he said.  “The peer review, the second time around, found it totally discredited.”

A solution to global food security?

Mr Matthews said the problems GM could solve were “unprecedented in history”.

He said there are huge farm business opportunities from potential GM products like self-fertilising plants that could “revolutionise agriculture and certainly would decouple agriculture from the oil industry”.

GM crops also had a key role to play in aiding the future food demand task as the world’s population grows from 7.2 billion now to 9.6 billion by 2050, with decreasing land and water to develop globally - 800 million people already go to bed hungry each night and 1 billion people are chronically undernourished, he said.

“In the meantime, if I can be a bit provocative, there are some pretty comfortable western based NGOs which continue to oppose and to slow down biotechnology, on non-scientific, without evidence grounds,” he said.

Mr Matthews said a striking example of that argument was the fact 250 million children are currently suffering from vitamin A deficiency but GM food crops with existing solutions “are having trouble getting mobilised”.  “Norman Borlaug, said to be the father of the green revolution, said once that if the naysayers do stop agricultural GM they might actually precipitate those famines and crises they’ve been predicting for years,” he said.

Mr Matthews said the technology’s uptake was unprecedented, with 79 per cent of global soybean area and 70pc of global cotton area now GM.  “Growers are certainly not changing their mind and going back after they trial GM,” he said.

“Over the last 200 years there have been several waves of innovation in agriculture such as mechanisation, conventional plant breeding, chemical fertilisers and chemical herbicides.

“But none of them has been adopted as rapidly as GM seeds and I can tell you that animal-based GM is coming up very fast behind them.  “One eighth of global farm land is now GM, so this is a sort of mega bus that will not be stoppable.”


Mr Matthews said GM offers varieties with production benefits like faster growth rates and yields, drought tolerance, pesticide reduction and nutrient efficiency.

He said exciting work is also happening to generate varieties with consumer and health benefits like foods with fewer saturated fats, zero allergens, increased dietary fibre, reduced natural toxins, higher protein levels, built in vaccines, cholesterol management, and vitamin A.

“Benefits do flow to big biotech companies but perversely the regulatory costs - as a consequence of pressure from the opponents of GM - now make approvals just out of reach for anyone but the big firms,” he said.  “As an example, a single new GM trait may now cost $139 million, including $35 million just for the approvals part of that, and around the world it takes five-and-a-half years on average to gain a single new approval.

“Are those costs and time problems squeezing out public good innovations such as environmental public health innovations or small market GM innovations?”

Need to build trust

Mr Matthews said Australia grew GM canola and GM cotton and had great strengths in the area, with a world class regulatory system and plant breeding expertise.

But he said a three-part plan was needed to help overcome the slow progress of biotechnology development.

He said a constituency of biotechnology supporters was needed to build understanding of the potential benefits to farmers, consumers, the environment and society as a whole.  “We need to build community confidence and trust in Australia’s regulatory arrangements,” he said.  “We do need to be respectful of ethical concerns about biotechnology, but at the same time we need to give voice to the beneficiaries, and I think of those kids in Africa.

“When people are talking grandly about ethical concerns about biotechnology I worry about starving kids in Africa.  “We need to focus research more on benefits to consumers, to the environment, to society and we need to find some champions.” 

[ based on an article in the online edition of Qld Country Life 4 Nov 2014]