Sunday, November 19, 2017

Agriculture and climate change: Is farming really a moveable feast?

There is a notion afoot that our agricultural production can simply migrate toward the poles in the face of climate change as areas in lower latitudes overheat and dry up. Few people contemplate what such a move would entail and whether it would actually be feasible.

One assumption behind this falsely reassuring idea is that soil quality is somehow roughly uniform across the planet. But, of course, this is completely false. Soil quality and composition vary widely, often within walking distance on the same farm. Farmers simply moving north (or south in the Southern Hemisphere) in response to climate change will not automatically encounter soil suitable for farming.

We must also consider that lands not previously farmed may very well be forested. Knocking down the trees and clearing the stumps might make such lands arable. But the loss of carbon storage that trees represent would only make climate change worse.

Quite often we think of rural areas as being undeveloped. But nothing could be further from the truth. Agricultural regions have complex networks involving roads, communications and electricity grids, irrigation systems, grain elevators, farm supply and machinery merchants, rail depots, agricultural research stations and field projects, government-sponsored agricultural assistance centers and the specialists attached to them, and entire towns which act as gathering places and service centers for those working in rural communities. All of this would have to be duplicated in newly opened agricultural lands for which pioneering settlers would have to be recruited. These pioneers would have to want to live in previously unsettled or sparsely settled areas with few amenities.

Unlike previous eras when farming was a way of life for most people and owning farmland was seen as a path to self-sufficiency and independence, these new pioneers will be adopting or continuing an occupation that millions are desperately fleeing around the world—in favor of the excitement and opportunities of the city.

Even if such rural migrations were subsidized (or forced—gasp!), they would take time, probably decades. All the while climate change would be bearing down on crop yields around the world. Would such a grand development project make up for ongoing declines in existing farmland production?

This is just one "solution" offered to us by what I will call the "adaptationists." The trouble is there can be no assurance that their solutions will actually work. A better approach would be to prevent further climate change as much as we are able (knowing that the lags in the Earth's climate system will make more change inevitable for the next several decades). The schemes being offered these days include emergency measures such as throwing sulfates into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight and constructing large mirrors between the Earth and the Sun to do the same.

The trouble with these approaches is they are all untried, and we have only the smallest inkling of their unintended consequences. Could we end up with a situation that is worse than otherwise would have been the case?

It is important to remember that when it comes to Earth systems, it is impossible to do just one thing. Whenever we do something, we affect the entire system, and we, as limited beings, cannot understand all the possible consequences ahead of time. We think we are acting on objects, and it turns out that we are acting on networks.

Networks have a way of pushing back at attempts to upend them. But frequently we cannot even see the networks we are affecting until they begin to react to our prodding, often in unforeseen and dangerous ways.

We do not know exactly how our agricultural networks will react as they are forced to change in response to the climate chaos we have unleashed. But we can take a much more humble stance by acknowledging that we cannot confidently predict that simply moving our current system toward the poles will allow us to produce all that we are going to need.

We may be faced with adopting systemic changes that include new ways of growing, more people in more places engaged in growing, changing what we grow and eat, and growing much more of what we eat closer to where it is eaten. Some of these changes are already taking place. But they will likely deepen and widen as climate change bears down more and more on our agricultural systems worldwide.

Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Resilience, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He is currently a fellow of Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. He can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Even if one discounts the impact climate change may have on agricultural production, we are still facing a huge conundrum. I see this especially in my own locale (Greater Toronto Area) where limited arable lands are being paved over to expand suburban sprawl. One estimate I've read is that it takes about a single acre of farmland to produce food for one person. Ontario's 13 million residents are 'supported' by only about 8 million (and shrinking) acres of arable land. We have well overshot our own region's carrying capacity (and so have become increasingly dependent upon food imports) yet keep adding more and more residents (mostly through immigration) while razing forests and farmland to build sprawling subdivisions. And, of course, the idea that any kind of decent farming can be done on the vast Canadian Shield that makes up most of the northern part of our province is just ridiculous...to say little of the industrial agriculture that predominates our province and is killing the soil's natural fertility with all its fossil fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc..

Henry Warwick said...

Steve is correct, and I would add other issues.
The Canadian Shield is a huge huge problem. However, it is not universally dominant - there is worse. There are areas and valleys between the rock highlands where there are lakes, swamps, forests, etc. The problem is they've been covered in jack pine for 12,000 years. The needles are acidic, so they collect, and in warmer months rot a bit. Mixed with shallow water that is often stagnant, you get these swamps of acidic bog called "Muskeg". Canada has over 1.2M km^2 of muskeg. That's 2x the area of Texas.
Now, theoretically, one could pH balance it with an alkaline base, like lime. And interestingly enough right near Great Slave Lake is one of the world's largest limestone deposits. So, all one would have to do is cook the limestone into lime, and then transport it to the shield. Of course, HOW they would do that is anyone's guess, given the soil is almost impossible to travel, and has a habit of swallowing railroad engines.
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/muskeg/