Nothing is more precious than balance, stability, and
sustainability. Today, we’re hanging by
our fingernails to a skyrocket of intense insane change, and it’s the only way
of life we’ve ever known. Joel Bourne
has spent his life riding the rocket. He
grew up on a farm, and studied agronomy at college, but sharp changes were
causing many farmers to go bankrupt. Taking
over the family farm would have been extremely risky, so he became a writer for
farm magazines. Later, he was hired by
National Geographic, where he has spent most of his career.
In 2008, he was assigned to cover the global food crisis, and
this project hurled him into full awareness of the big picture. The Green Revolution caused food production
to skyrocket, and world population doubled in just 40 years. Then, the revolution fizzled out, whilst
population continued to soar. Demographers
have told us to expect another two or three billion for dinner in 2050. Obviously, this had the makings of an
excellent book, so Bourne sat down and wrote The
End of Plenty.
The subtitle of his book is “The Race to Feed a Crowded World,”
not “The Race to Tackle Overpopulation.”
A growing population thrills the greed community, and a diminishing herd
does not. Overpopulation is a problem
that can be solved, and will be, either by enlightened self-restraint, by
compulsory restraint, or, most likely, by the vigorous housekeeping of Big Mama
Nature. Feeding the current population is
thrashing the planet, and feeding even more will worsen everything, but this is
our primary objective. We are, after
all, civilized people, and enlightened self-restraint is for primitive savages
who live sustainably in roadless paradises.
As incomes rise, the newly affluent are enjoying a more
luxurious diet. To satisfy this growing
demand, food production must double by 2050.
“We’ll have to learn to produce as much food in the next four decades as
we have since the beginning of civilization.”
Meanwhile, agriculture experts are not bursting with brilliant ideas. “Producing food for more than 9 billion
people without destroying the soil, water, oceans, and climate will be by far
the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.” Bourne’s book describes a number of gigantic
obstacles to doubling food production — or even maintaining current production.
Automobiles are more addictive than crystal meth. Europeans guzzle biodiesel made from palm
oil. Americans are binging on corn ethanol. The 2005 Energy Tax Act mandated the addition
of biofuels to gasoline. From 2001 to
2012, the ethanol gold rush drove corn prices from $1.60 to $8.28. Not coincidentally, in 2008 food riots
erupted in twenty countries. The Arab
Spring revolts began in 2011, a year of record harvests and record prices. Today, almost 40 percent of the U.S. corn
crop is being fed to motor vehicles — enough corn to feed everyone in Africa. Experts predict that we’ll need four times more
land for biofuels by 2030.
Crops require cropland, and almost all places ideal for
farming are already in use, buried under roads and cities, or have been reduced
to wasteland. Every year, a million
hectares (2.4 million acres) of cropland are taken out of production because of
erosion, desertification, or development.
So, 90 percent of the desired doubling in food production will have to
come from current cropland. At the same
time, the farm soils still in production have all seen better days. Agriculture is an unsustainable activity that
normally depletes soil quality over time.
Another obstacle is yield, the amount of food that can be
produced on a hectare of land. Between
1961 and 1986, cereal yields rose 89 percent, due to the Green Revolution. But per capita grain production peaked in
1986. Since then, population has been
growing faster than yields. Crop
breeding experts are wringing their hands.
A number of indicators suggest that we are heading for “agricultural
Armageddon,” but the experts remain silent, praying for miracles. The biotech industry is focused on making
huge profits selling seeds and poisons, not boosting yields.
Agriculture guzzles 70 percent of the water used by
humans. Irrigated fields have yields that
are two to three times higher than rain fed fields. Demand for water is projected to increase 70
to 90 percent by 2050, but water consumption today is already
unsustainable. “Over the next few
decades, groundwater depletion could cripple agriculture around the world.”
Crop production is already being affected by climate
change. Research indicates that further
warming will take a substantial toll on crop yields. If temperatures rise 4°C, maybe half the
world’s cropland will become unsuitable for agriculture. Rising sea levels will submerge large regions
currently used for rice production.
Meanwhile, population continues to grow, and some hallucinate
it will grow until 2100. In a nutshell,
our challenge is “to double grain, meat, and biofuel production on fewer acres
with fewer farmers, less water, higher temperatures, and more frequent
droughts, floods, and heat waves.” This
must be done “without destroying the forests, oceans, soils, pollinators, or
climate on which all life depends.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an outstanding book, and easy
to read. Most people have blind faith
that innovation will keep the supermarkets filled forever. Those who actually think a bit are focusing
on stuff like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars. Food is something we actually need, and it
gets far less attention than it deserves.
By the end of the book, it’s impossible to conclude that everything is
under control, and that our wise leaders will safely guide us through the
storm. Surprisingly, a few additional
super-threats were not discussed in the book.
Bourne mentions that insects and weeds are developing
resistance to expensive GMO wonder products, but stops there. Big Mama Nature is the mother of
resistance. She never tires of producing
new forms of life that are resistant to every toxin produced by science:
insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, antibiotics. Every brilliant weapon we invent will only
work temporarily. In terms of breeding
new varieties of plants that are resistant to the latest biological threat, there
are only so many tricks available. The
low-hanging fruit has already been used.
Just three plants enable the production of 80 to 90 percent of the
calories we consume: corn, rice, and wheat.
The global food system is heavily dependent on petroleum
fuels, which are finite and nonrenewable. There is no combination of biofuels or
alternative energy that will come anywhere close to replacing oil. In the coming decades, we will be forced to
return to a muscle-powered food system.
We are entirely unprepared for this, and the consequences will be very
exciting for people who eat food.
There is a similar issue with fertilizer. Of the three primary plant nutrients, reserves
of mineral phosphorus will be depleted first, and this will blindside
conventional agriculture — no phosphorus, no life. A hundred years ago, Chinese farmers used
zero commercial fertilizer. Every
morning, long caravans of handcarts hauled large jugs of sewage from the cities
to the fields.
In the end, readers are presented with two paths to the
future. One path looks like a whirlwind
of big trouble, and this is not just a comic book doomer fantasy — it’s already
blowing and rumbling. The other path is
happy and wonderful. Humans will
discover their legendary big brains, turn them on, shift industrial
civilization into reverse, speed down the fast lane to genuine sustainability,
and live happily ever after. Place your
bets.
Bourne, Joel K., The
End of Plenty: The Race to Feed A Crowded World, W. W. Norton &
Company, New York, 2015.
For more information: Dirt:
The Erosion of Civilizations, Against the
Grain, Topsoil
and Civilization, Farmers
of Forty Centuries, The
Coming Famine, Cadillac
Desert, Pillar of
Sand.
