Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

" Local foods must be emphasized worldwide. We must find ways for people in 
poor countries to again grow their own food — and make enough extra to earn a 
respectable income. ... If the United States can show ways to live 
sustainably, “more like us” will be a more sustainable world. This lifestyle 
must include markedly less use of fossil fuels. "


Why the sudden food crisis?
June 30, 2008 Dennis Keeney
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880625055

The world has witnessed with concern the sudden increase in food prices and 
decrease in availability of food staples, especially in low-income, 
food-short countries.

Rising prices hit hard at the world’s poorest people, who are spending as 
much as 80 percent of their income on food. These price increases are 
sentencing as many as 100 million more people to hunger and poverty. Arrows 
are being slung back and forth about the cause of the “food crisis.” Some 
place the blame on more affluent emerging countries, particularly China and 
India. Others blame weather disasters, particularly drought in the 
wheat-growing regions of China and Australia. And now the nation and the 
world must cope with the disastrous floods hitting the heart of corn and 
soybean country in the United States.

What is the truth? Will we ever sort out what brought on the “silent tsunami” 
– a term used recently by World Food Program director Josette Sheeran? One 
thing is for sure: It’s doubtful that rising food prices will come back down 
soon, if ever. In our human way, we want to find reasons and blame those 
responsible. Let us not forget: At least 35 million Americans (12 million 
households) were short of food in 2002, even though our food was still cheap 
compared to prices in Europe.

The basis of the problem lies with us, a society that assumes food comes from 
a grocery store and that we could easily feed everyone who comes in the door. 
We believe we can always push the pump handle harder by improving the 
genetics of our crops, growing on more acres by using land now protected for 
conservation, increasing irrigation and moving to highly “efficient” farming 
methods that rely on nitrogen and other fertilizers, pesticides and 
genetically engineered crops. But without good weather, these technological 
fixes wither in the wind. And the challenges are far different in countries 
struggling to feed their own.

>From 1798 to 1826, British economist and demographer Robert Malthus produced 
>a series of essays on the relation between population and food supply. In 
>essence, he said that the rate of population growth would be exponential, 
>while food supply will increase linearly. In other words, sooner or later 
>there will be more people than food. Of course, in 1800 he had no concept of 
>the ability of technology to increase the supply of food, so the “Malthusian 
>hypothesis” has not yet hit the Earth. But many think it is only a matter of 
>time, while others feel we can still work through this with technology.

Few are ready to talk about the carrying capacity of Earth and whether we are 
exceeding it. Perhaps the time has come to realize that Earth is close to 
being stressed beyond its ability to support the people inhabiting it. It is 
not just the food we grow, but the damage we are causing to the land by 
over-farming, the addition of pollutants to the atmosphere bringing on rapid 
climate change, and the now-generation approach that we must have it all. We 
have not grasped the concept of sustainability.

There are ways to work out of this trap, but the going will be tough. Local 
foods must be emphasized worldwide. We must find ways for people in poor 
countries to again grow their own food — and make enough extra to earn a 
respectable income.

Climate change is with us, so we must learn to address it while finding ways 
to slow the use of the atmosphere as a common dumping ground. And rather than 
blaming developing nations that try to be more like us, we should turn our 
lifestyles around. If the United States can show ways to live sustainably, 
“more like us” will be a more sustainable world.

This lifestyle must include markedly less use of fossil fuels. The wise 
development of unused natural resources for fuels and materials for a 
sustainable lifestyle would help take us off the path of peak oil and toxic 
chemicals.

Even if all goes well, it will be a long climb back to the happy, comfortable 
world we knew just a few years ago.

For more than 200 years scientists, demographers and policymakers have been 
dismissing Malthus. Now we must take him seriously.

Dr. Dennis Keeney is a senior fellow, Institute for Agriculture and Trade 
Policy. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s, headquartered in 
Minneapolis, is a policy research center committed to creating 
environmentally and economically sustainable rural communities and regions 
through sound agriculture and trade policy. www.iatp.org This commentary was 
distributed by MinutemanMedia.org.