During this unit, morosely titled 'Death' of our Food For Thought class we looked into the past to see how food and and food production had its negative effects on the world. We explored things like the Irish potato famine, slavery, wage slavery, and even more recent topics like baby formula shortages and industrial farming. For this unit we made our own model version of a UN position paper that focused on SDG 2 zero hunger. We all chose our own target to report on, I chose SDG 2.4 - ensure sustainable food production systems. Here's my video on how we can start making agriculture more sustainable.
Did you know agriculture is responsible for 10 to 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Ironically, according to the University of California, agriculture is also quite sensitive to the changing climate that has followed. The target of SDG 2.4 is to ensure sustainable food production systems. This target's focus is on the farming techniques used by our food production systems. It considers its effect on ecosystems and the people living in it, as well as its detrimental effects on the future. Food is an eternal necessity and the consequences of not producing it the right way go far beyond world hunger; this is why target 2.4 is a priority. To solve this issue and meet this priority I believe we must regulate corporate agriculture and support smaller farms with more sustainable farming methods.
Let’s talk about the facts at hand in this issue. How has this target been identified as a global priority? Well the UN estimates that around 30 million acres of land are lost to us every year due to desertification. This massive loss of perfectly good land can partially be attributed to poor farming habits. According to the World Wildlife Organization agriculture is the leading source of pollution in many countries. It releases a large volume of manure, chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones into water sources, this is only made worse by the use of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) on modern farms. Lastly, according to a 2017 report on how to regulate dangerous pesticides the UN presented research showing that pesticides were responsible for an estimated 200,000 acute poisoning deaths each year. These facts all point toward the fact that less is more when it comes to current farming techniques. This could all be solved through sustainable farming techniques and regulation of corporate agriculture.
Without more sustainable farming techniques we could be faced with farms being unprepared for future crises of weather or disease, we can look to the past to see exactly how this had happened and what the consequences of this were. These days when you pass by a farm while driving in the US you see huge areas of land occupied by a single kind of crop. According to the University of Massachusetts many
American policies under the farm bill incentivizes this. Why is this an issue? Well one excerpt from the book Empires of Food summarizes this point well “A specialized agricultural region is fragile in the face of a particular insect or spore or an untimely spell of dry skies.” This poor farming technique was the downfall of a country's agricultural system in 1845. In this year over one million people starved in Ireland because their primary crop, the potato, had been completely overtaken with a fungus. The fungus rotted the crops, and since the British forced them to export their other crops creating a monoculture many people died.
This example serves as an excellent lesson for us even as we talk about the future of agriculture. This historical example shows us the exact kind of damage poor farming techniques cause, and that we need to be weary of. This extreme lack of crop diversification is what we are seeing today. We run the risk of losing crops to disease, pests, and unstable yield. In many cases this ruins the soil and its nutrients, and by not diversifying we now have to rely on things like pesticides to protect crops from what could have been stopped with good farming habits like crop rotations and polyculture.
The solution to achieving this target is simple. We need to put down more regulation on corporatized agriculture. These companies care too much about the profit they are making and too little about the adverse effects their farming has on the world. They would rather use potentially dangerous chemicals to fend off pests when good farming habits would work just as well and be better for both the consumers and the environment. I also believe we should allocate more money and resources to two key places. Helping small farms not controlled by big business, and to build sustainable habits like maintaining the efficiency of nutrients in the soil. It will be difficult but it is entirely possible to rely on food systems that are both sustainable and do not sacrifice yields.
In conclusion there's so much more we should be doing with these systems. We have to stop allowing so much freedom to these profit hungry corporations. Implement more sustainable farming habits, while decreasing the use of chemicals on farms, and lastly give more support to smaller farms. By doing these things we can expect to see equally effective food production but not at the cost of the environment. If there's one thing to take from this it's that we can't be dissuaded by corporations. We have to take action when it comes to what goes into our mouths and make sure were getting it from the right places
Here are my sources:
“Goal 2: End Hunger, Achieve Food Security and Improved Nutrition and Promote Sustainable Agriculture - SDG Indicators.” United Nations, United Nations, https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/goal-02/
G., Fraser Evan D. Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Counterpoint, 2012. Quote: Pg 9
“2.4.1 Agricultural Sustainability : Www.fao.org.” 2.4.1 Agricultural Sustainability | Sustainable Development Goals | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, https://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/indicators/241/en/.
Thelwell, Kim. “10 Most Malnourished Countries.” The Borgen Project, Kim Thelwell Https://Borgenproject.org/Wp-Content/Uploads/The_Borgen_Project_Logo_small.Jpg, 18 Dec. 2019, https://borgenproject.org/10-most-malnourished-countries/.
Fanzo, Jessica. “A Path to Sustainable Food Systems.” University of California Press, University of California Press, 1 Nov. 2021, https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/120/829/313/118793/A-Path-to-Sustainable-Food-Systems.
Quote: Industrial agriculture typically causes a dramatic loss of genetic diversity in crops and farm animals.
Feenstra, G. (1997). Local food systems and sustainable communities. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 12(1), 28-36. doi:10.1017/S0889189300007165
Comments
Post a Comment