Think. Eat. Save.

The UNEP theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebrations is Think.Eat.Save. This is an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages you to reduce your foodprint. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.

While the planet is struggling to provide us with enough resources to sustain its 7 billion people (growing to 9 billion by 2050), FAO estimates that a third of global food production is either wasted or lost. Food waste is an enormous drain on natural resources and a contributor to negative environmental impacts.

If food is wasted, it means that all the resources and inputs used in the production of all the food are also lost. For example, it takes about 1,000 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk and about 16,000 litres goes into a cow’s food to make a hamburger. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions from the cows themselves, and throughout the food supply chain, all end up in vain when we waste food.

In fact, the global food production occupies 25% of all habitable land and is responsible for 70% of fresh water ocnsumption, 80% of deforestation, and 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. It is the largest single driver of biodiversity loss and land-use change.

So, become more aware of the environmental impact of the food choices you make and take informed decisions.
Select foods that have less of an environmental impact, such as organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process. Choosing to buy locally can also mean that foods are not flown halfway across the world and therefore limit emissions. Above all, say NO to wasting food.

Tale of two approaches

Bhutan is now famous for the term GNH or 'gross natural happiness' coined by its ruler. Called the poster child of sustainable development, more than 95 per cent of its population has access to clean water and electricity and live in perfect harmony with nature. With 80 per cent of its land forested, Bhutan is the only country that is near carbon neutral and food secure. To add to its happiness basket, Bhutan has decided to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilisers. Being predominantly a Buddhist country, living in harmony with nature is part of its spiritual and cultural heritage. The government expects to grow organic food for its 1.2 million people and export the surplus.  

Elsewhere across the globe there is a contrasting phenomenon spreading wings. Called "land grabbing," this practice can put strain on land and water resources in impoverished countries where the land, and water, is being "grabbed" for commercial-scale agriculture. A new study by the University of Virginia and the Polytechnic University of Milan, and currently published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the first global quantitative assessment of the water-grabbing phenomenon, which has intensified in the last four years largely in response to a 2007-08 increase in world food prices. Countries most active in foreign land acquisition are located in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Overall, about 60 percent of the total grabbed water is appropriated, through land grabbing, by companies in the United States, United Arab Emirates, India, United Kingdom, Egypt, China and Israel.

Instead of looking at ways to optimize on resource use and conserve them for tomorrow, this speaks of short-term outlook of exploitation. Any doubts, which brings happiness – plunder or harmony with nature?

Yield drops in rice and wheat crops

The Green Revolution has stagnated for key food crops in many regions of the world, according to a study. Among the top crop-producing nations, vast areas of two of the most populous -- China and India -- are witnessing especially considerable stagnation or decline in yield.

The study was published in the Dec. 18 issue of Nature Communications by scientists with the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The study team developed geographically detailed maps of annual crop harvested areas and yields of maize (corn), rice, wheat and soybeans from 1961 to 2008. It found that although virtually all regions showed a yield increase sometime during that period, in 24 to 39 percent of the harvested areas (depending on the crop) yield plateaued or outright declined in recent years.

Interestingly, the researchers found that yields of wheat and rice -- two crops that are largely used as food crops, and which supply roughly half of the world's dietary calories -- are declining across a higher percentage of cropland than those of corn and soybean, which are used largely to produce meat or biofuels.

"This finding is particularly troubling because it suggests that we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars, as we have largely ignored investments in wheat and rice, crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world," said study co-author and IonE director Jonathan Foley, professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in the College of Biological Sciences. "How can we meet the growing needs of feeding people in the future if one-third of our cropland areas, in our most important crops, are not improving in yield any more?"

The paper suggests two actions based on its findings. First, it recommends working to maintain the positive trajectory for the 61 to 76 percent of croplands where yield is still climbing. Second, it encourages crop-producing regions around the world to look at their yield trends and those of others to identify what's working and what might be improved. Going by what climate scientists say, we can expect more of such drops in yield. Add to it water scarcity and you have enough of a doomsday scenario. The Mayans as also most other civilisations learnt it the hard way as they exploited natural resources to the last bit. Do we know any better? Will a date make a difference?

Hunger in the offing

The drought-stricken area spreading across more and more of the US has engulfed virtually the entire corn belt. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious, warns Lester Brown. Food prices, already elevated, will follow the price of corn upward, quite possibly to record highs. As we have seen in India, the weak monsoon has sent farmers into a panic. It has upset sowing plans across the nation.

The world may be much closer to an unmanageable food shortage – soaring food prices, spreading food unrest, and riots. Why is there no political vision? Why are there no proactive steps taken by governments in the farm sector? Besides announcing drought relief! Why are our water resources so badly managed – polluted and wasted. It belies common sense that our policy makers fail to realise how the belly needs to be full before one goes to buy cars or phones and television sets. Why are more people leaving farming like never before? Simply because it just does not pay to grow food!

Share your thoughts on what you think is the need of the hour.

Tar sands and food production

An eye-opening study shows the effects that full development of Canada's tar sands would have on global food production, and the forecast isn't good particularly for regions already vulnerable to climate change, such as Africa.

David Wheeler at the Center for Global Development put together an analysis assuming that the entire deposit will be mined and the extracted crude oil burned by 2100, which he calculated would release 209 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere—and, in turn, raising the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 99 parts per million.

Using those calculations to project losses in agricultural productivity by 2080 around the world, it was concluded that agricultural productivity losses affect the livelihoods of over 3 billion people in the developing world. The median projected loss is 5.6 percent, with 25 percent of countries experiencing losses of 7.1 percent or greater.

Africa suffers disproportionately, with a median loss of 7 percent and impacts extending to a 12.8 percent loss in the worst case. India, with a rural population of 804 million, suffers a 7.9 percent productivity loss.

Full exploitation of the oil sands deposit by Canada, a high-income country, would have the most severe impacts on regions where the poorest countries are concentrated. Substantially smaller losses are projected for high-income, higher-latitude countries in Europe, North America, and Oceania.

As they say, everything is connected!

Drought and violence

More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa face starvation, the result of a particularly cruel mix of political turmoil and the worst drought in 60 years. The famine has caught much of the world off-guard. Hunger relief agencies are scrambling, and donors have been slow to respond.

The crisis was foreseen: Repeated drought in recent decades has been making the largely pastoral life in the drylands of East Africa unsustainable. Climate change is expected to further dry out the region. And the worst hit areas are in Somalia, a nation trapped for years in a pit of civil war, poverty, piracy and radical religion. The extremist al-Shabab movement has blocked famine aid to areas in the south and prevented residents from fleeing to find help elsewhere.

Earth Institute director and reputed economist Jeffrey Sachs has underscored the urgency of the need for emergency aid: A billion dollars or more is needed, "equal to $1 dollar from each person in the high-income world."

"The Horn of Africa is the world's most vulnerable region, beset by extreme poverty, hunger, and global climate change, notably a drying and warming of the climate during the past quarter century. These scourges are leading to the spread of violence and war, and war is contributing to global instability. Unless we confront the challenges of the Horn of Africa at their root causes — the poverty and vulnerability of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist populations — we will face a burgeoning violence in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and beyond," he writes in The Guardian.

Some experts have cited the rise in food grains, especially corn, directly to the US diversion of the same for ethanol. Caught between food and energy the world looks poised for tough times.

1.3 t food wasted annually

One-third of the world's food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year, according to a study released on Wednesday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Roughly 1.3bn tonnes of food is either lost or wasted globally due to inefficiencies throughout the food supply chain, says the report, based on research by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (Sik).

According to the report, industrialised and developing countries waste or lose roughly the same amount of food each year – 670m and 630m tonnes respectively. But while rich countries waste food primarily at the level of the consumer, the main issue for developing countries is food lost due to weak infrastructure.

Significantly, the average European or North American consumer wastes 95kg-115kg of food a year, above all fruits and vegetables. In contrast, the average consumer in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia or south-east Asia wastes only 6kg-11kg.

Goes without saying that reducing this colossal waste should be a priority facing a burgeoning population.

Nitrogen pollution up

Nitrogen pollution is costing every person in Europe up to £650 a year in damage to water, climate, health and wildlife, a study warns. Scientists behind the research said nitrogen was needed as fertiliser to help feed a growing world population – but suggested that eating less meat could reduce the amount of pollution caused by agriculture.

If you are wondering where meat eating came into the picture when talking of crops and fertilisers, well, much of the nitrogen pollution from agricultural production is linked to meat and dairy farming, as the crops needed to feed them are grown with the help of fertilisers.

Environmental impact of livestock was not limited to greenhouse gases from cows, with nitrogen used to grow crops to feed animals also having an impact. In Europe, people are currently eating 70% more meat and dairy products than they need for a healthy diet.

The report for the European Nitrogen Assessment (ENA) also suggests with 60% of costs of the nitrogen damage stemming from fossil fuels burned for energy generation and transport, more energy-efficient homes and less long-distance travel could help.
More efficient use of fertilisers in food production is also needed, the report said.

The researchers said that the cost of putting in measures to tackle the problems of nitrogen pollution would be outweighed by the financial benefits the solutions would reap.

Food out of reach

The year started grimly with news of the food prices rising to the highest point since 1990, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. They have surpassed the 2008 prices that led to widespread rioting and unrest across the developing world. Riots have flared in Haiti and Algeria and Tunisia.

The key to alleviating world hunger, poverty and combating climate change may lie in fresh, small-scale approaches to agriculture, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute.

The US-based institute's annual State of the World report, calls for a move away from industrial agriculture and discusses small-scale initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa that work towards poverty and hunger relief in an environmentally sustainable way.

The authors suggest that instead of producing more food to meet the world's growing population needs, a more effective way to address food security issues and climate change would be to encourage self-sufficiency and waste reduction, in wealthier and poorer nations alike.

True for it is those nations that deemphasized domestic farming that are suffering most. It doesn't take much intelligence that food comes first. Yet, it is not able to compete with industry in most parts of the world in terms of incentives. Time we got that right.

The human hand pollutes...

Humans are overloading ecosystems with nitrogen through the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in nitrogen-producing industrial and agricultural activities, according to a new study.

Ecess nitrogen that is contributed by human activities pollutes fresh waters and coastal zones, and may contribute to climate change. Appearing in the October 8, 2010edition of Science and conducted by an international team of researchers, the study notes how human activity has led to skyrocketing of nitrogen cycle.

The nitrogen cycle--which has existed for billions of years--transforms non-biologically useful forms of nitrogen found in the atmosphere into various biologically useful forms of nitrogen that are needed by living things to create proteins, DNA and RNA, and by plants to grow and photosynthesize. This nitrogen fixation is doen mostly by microorganisms like bacteria.

Since pre-biotic times, the nitrogen cycle has gone through several major phases. The cycle was initially controlled by slow volcanic processes and lightning and then by anaerobic organisms as biological activity started. But the start of the 20th century, human contributions of nitrogen into ecosystems come from an 800 percent increase in the use of nitrogen fertilizers from 1960 to 2000.

Much of nitrogen fertilizer that is used worldwide is applied inefficiently. As a result, about 60 percent of the nitrogen contained in applied fertilizer is never incorporated into plants and so is free to wash out of root zones, and then pollute rivers, lakes, aquifers and coastal areas through eutrophication.

The Earth's population is approaching 7 billion people, and so ongoing pressures for food production are continuing to increase. There is no way to feed people without fixing huge amounts of nitrogen from the atmosphere, and that nitrogen is presently applied to crop plants very ineffectively.

What can be done? The team suggests systematic crop rotations that would supply nitrogen that would otherwise be provided by fertilizers; Optimizing the timing and amounts of fertilizer applications, using traditional breeding techniques to boost the ability of economically important varieties of wheat, barley and rye to interact favorably with the microbial communities associated with plant root systems and do so in ways that enhance the efficiency of nitrogen use, etc

Makes one wonder: is there any one thing we humans have done to impact the planet positively??!

27 pc food produced in US wasted

Stretching the Occam's Razor (principle that simplest explanation is often the most correct one) and applying it to the problem of energy, one can say that the simplest solutions are often the simplest ones. You don't have enough energy? Simple - conserve. And how best to conserve? By reducing your waste!

A new study is reported in the ACS’ semi-monthly journal Environmental Science and Technology and states that the United States could immediately save the energy equivalent of about 350 million barrels of oil a year simply by being careful about how much food they produce and consume.

The analysis of wasted food found that the US wasted about 2030 trillion BTU (British thermal unit) of energy in 2007, the equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil or about 2 percent of the countries annual energy consumption. And if that astounds you, wait. The wasted energy calculated here is a conservative estimate both because the food waste data are incomplete and outdated and the energy consumption data for food service and sales are incomplete!

The study found that it takes the equivalent of about 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce, package, prepare, preserve and distribute a year’s worth of food in the United States. This totalled between 8 to 16 percent of the nation’s energy consumption in 2007.

But despite this massive allocation of energy, 27 percent of the food prepared and distributed is wasted each year

Hungry, and growing...

Which technology will feed 9 billion people in 2050? Have your pick - whether it be genetic engineering or synthetic manufacture of meat, things may not be so smooth. Yet, with no more land available then, having to increase food production by 70 percent in four decades is not insurmountable! That is what scientists say in a set of 21 papers published by the Royal Society.

In fact, what is now causing a problem could well be a beneficial factor, they say! Yes, carbon. A team of scientists at Rothamsted, the UK's largest agricultural research centre, suggests that extra carbon dioxide in the air from global warming, along with better fertilisers and chemicals to protect arable crops, could hugely increase yields and reduce water consumption. (But the very same carbon dioxide is causing temperatures to soar and cause droughts, which we are told have a long-terms effect on plant growth.)

However some others think the solutions will not be easy. With 18 percent reduction in water availability for food production, it's anybody's guess why. Desalination may seem easy till one looks at the energy expended, especially for the amounts we are looking at.

Reducing food wastage, better storage, artificial meat and nanotechnology are among the many ideas mooted as saviours of the population. Any other ideas?

Tubes with holes

The world was brought up short in 2008 by soaring food prices on international markets. Food riots brought a spectre of a hungry world. That was with 6 billion. As world population is expected to reach 9 or 10 billion later this century, what will the picture be like? Fred Pearce is sure that population need not be a problem but a blessing. ‘Rising populations may bring more mouths to feed, but they also bring more hands to work and brains to think. We are not done yet.’

We are damaging water and soils. We use more than half of the world’s river flows each year, mostly to irrigate crops. We are recklessly mining irreplaceable underground water reserves. And now comes the threat of climate change.

But is it that we cannot grow enough, or that we are not growing crops right? The next agricultural revolution needs to get local, Pearce believes. It needs to help these poor farming communities find ways to manage their own soils better by using livestock to fertilize soils, conserving rainwater in case of drought, breeding and exchanging local crop varieties, and finding natural predators for troublesome pests. ‘Conservation farming has vast potential to protect soils. And simple drip irrigation systems could halve global water use by farmers. It’s not rocket science. It’s just tubes with holes in.’

In Africa, one ton of grain is what a hectare yields, Asians grow three tons and Europeans and North Americans upwards of five tons. Futurologist Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in New York says that “if during the next 50 years or so, the world’s farmers reached the average yield of today’s U.S. corn grower, ten billion could be fed with only half of today’s cropland, while they eat today’s U.S. calories.” A bit exaggerated perhaps, but with some truth.

In West Africa, Dutch geographer Chris Reij has charted a revival since the famines of the 1970s. He says it is labor-intensive management of the land that often holds the key. “The idea that population pressure inevitably leads to increased land degradation is a much repeated myth,” he says. “It does not. Innovation is common in regions where there is high population pressure. This is not surprising. Farmers have to adapt to survive.”

Innovate to survive. Innovate the way we grow food. Innovate the way we produce and use energy. Innovate the way we use water. Even if it simply means tubes with holes!

Looming crisis

The World Summit on Food Security convenes next week in Rome. What will it take to produce enough food to feed the world? More food? But with agriculture turning less and less profitable, given fluid conditions of soil and water, things are not exactly conducive for increasing production.

According to Reuters, a hotspot for food security in the 21st century is India. Here, agriculture's share of India's economy continues to shrink, down to 17.5 percent from almost 30 percent in the 1990s. With no changes in farming practices, things have been a status quo. The National Sample Survey Organization found that 40 percent of Indian farmers would quit farming, if they could.

Should a second Green Revolution be ringed in by biotechnology? Or will it require a change in cropping patterns and crops?

Environmental damage from pesticides and fertilizers, over exploitation of groundwater, have made the going tough. The lessons from the Green Revolution have most experts wary of jumping into GM crops. Loss of biodiversity apart, have we enough evidence of safety? Should groundwater be regulated?

Will urban farming become a reality? If we can grow potatoes and tomatoes and a few other vegetables in our backyard in big cans, can it not help? Pitch in with your ideas on how to produce more, at less cost to the environment.

Food & water crisis

First it was the Prime Minister warning of drought in the country. Next came the state of the nation’s environment report, which paints a grim picture. Then yet another report on the state of vanishing groundwater. All is not well but what are we doing?

The third government report on the state of India's environment paints a grim picture, the Economic Times reports: "At least 45% of India's land area is degraded due to erosion, soil acidity, alkalinity and salinity, waterlogging and wind erosion." Particulate air pollution is on the rise in cities, hitting 110 million people, causing public health damage costs in 2004 of about $3 billion.

Intense irrigation across a 1,200 mile wide area of northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is depleting groundwater supplies at a rate of 1.5-4 inches per year. And that in an area where 600 million people live. The big picture of Indian groundwater comes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission.

The area of land surveyed is the most heavily irrigated in the world, with 50-75% or more of land equipped with irrigation from groundwater or reservoir water. This new data shows that groundwater is being withdrawn at a rate 70% faster in the past decade than in the 1990s.

Monsoon rains in India between June 1 and Aug. 12 were 29% below average and nearly 177 of the 625 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit. The monsoon is crucial for the agriculture sector as most farmers don't have irrigation facilities and depend on rains for their crops. Agriculture is key to the Indian economy as it contributes about 18% of gross domestic product and provides jobs to more than two-thirds of the country's 1.1 billion population.

The Ministry of Agriculture has been largely reactive as also in the recent case where it issued a notification on providing a distress diesel subsidy - "to enable the farmers to provide supplementary irrigation through diesel pumpsets…” as also encourage of more fertilizer intensive agriculture!

Now, scientists meeting at World Water Week in Sweden are saying that without serious reforms to the way many Asian countries manage water chronic food shortages may result -- even without the impact of climate change on water supplies. The BBC quotes report co-author Tushaar Shah: Without water productivity gains, South Asia would need 57% more water for irrigated agriculture and East Asia 70% more. Given the scarcity of land and water, and growing water needs for cities, such a scenario is untenable.

In Revitalizing Asia's Irrigation, the International Water Management Institute and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization say that food and animal feed demand in Asia is expected to double by 2050 and that relying on trade to supply this will "impose a huge and politically untenable burden on the economies of many developing countries."

The solution to all this, the report says, is 1) modernizing irrigation systems that in many areas are 30-40 years old; 2) support farmers initiatives using locally-adapted and appropriate irrigation technologies; 3) tap into public-private partnerships to provide incentives to improve water delivery efficiency (though it is admitted that this is "largely untested"; 4) expand education through engineering programs, workshops for farmers, etc.; 5) invest outside the irrigation sector in areas which influence it.

Are we doing anything for the long-term management of water and food production? How deep and how longer can we keep digging for groundwater? Is it not time to tackle agricultural practices on a war footing, for what is sustainable?