Agricultural past, present & future: How agricultural step changes have altered future societal & environmental responses to food security.
The following essay aims to investigate how agriculture has altered global societies from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to the consumer behaviours of the modern world. The present study will focus on the two major agricultural steps changes throughout history that have altered agro-ecosystem inputs and created consequential environmental responses. Possible pathways for food production environments will be examined in the context of future population predictions. Conservative recommendations have been made due to each productive environment globally requiring assessment on individual merit in order to elucidate the most fitting outcome.
Background
Coalescent study and archaeological evidence suggests that the invention of agriculture is linked to a concurrent fivefold global population increase unnoted in past hunter-gatherer expansions (Gignoux, Henn, & Mountain, 2011). The inception of agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago (Cunniff, Charles, Jones, & Osbourne, 2010; Kesavan, 2015) involved the development from an unconscious selection of tough (shatterproof) rachis wild plants toward a conscious propagation of genetically mutated gatherings, ultimately leading to the domestication of crops such as wheat (Reed, 1977). Whilst environmental changes at the end of the Pleistocene glacial period may have largely catalysed the shift in hunter-gatherers to pursue the development of technologies, tool production, and the desire to plant and store grain, evolutionary adaptations and social changes were likewise intrinsic for agricultural development to augment independently around the world (Reed, 1977), in areas such as Mesopotamia, Asia, America and New Guinea (Cunniff et al., 2010; Kesavan, 2015).
Similarly, Kesavan (2015) and Reed (1977) state that agricultural revolution introduced a primary dependence on cereal grains, altering diets on a global scale and subsequently supporting unprecedented population increase. Specifically, hunter-gatherer diets were reshaped, reducing and replacing high meat consumption with an increase of fruit, vegetable and grain, intensifying carbohydrates and starches in order to increase protein and caloric intakes (Diamond, 1987). Furthermore, the domestication of plants and animals enabled nomadic lifestyles to transform into more permanent settlements centralised around concentrated food sources in order to establish avant-garde agricultural surplus. Diamond (1987) further argues that this ability to store food was the facilitator behind societal change, class division and disparity of wealth. Moreover, at the beginning of the 19th Century, when the global population had increased to 950 million from 10 million at the beginning of the 1st Century BCE, Thomas Malthus was already warning of the finite nature of earth’s resources, alerting of the issues that the world may face if continuing the pursuit of agricultural surplus (Reed, 1977; Standage, 2009; Kesavan, 2015).
Nethertheless, in order to sustain higher population densities and a global increase to 1.6 billion people at the beginning of the 20th Century, land use change accelerated, transforming natural ecosystems into large scale farming operations and more recently into intensive agriculture productions. Smil (1999) argues that the 1913 commercial introduction of the Haber-Bosch synthesisation of ammonia for fertiliser usage was one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, revolutionising the dependence on organic waste fertiliser and crop rotations, efficaciously increasing crop production and supporting faster yields. Whilst the connection between the use of synthetic fertiliser and population increase to 6 billion at the close of the 20th century is undoubted, whether such an innovation was either a positive or negative critical step change for the evolution of agriculture is highly debated (Kesavan, 2015). Kesavan (2015) asserts that such processes as the Haber-Bosch have been detrimental to the balance of the nitrogen cycle and the sustainability of agriculture. Most recently Norman Borlaug was at the forefront of “The Green Revolution” in the mid 20th Century, advocating the modernisation of agricultural management to incorporate large-scale irrigation, hybridisation of seeds and the integration of synthetic fertilisers, and pesticides. Contrarily, the recent findings of Kesavan (2015) suggest that the Green Revolution should be rendered as exploitative agriculture, concerned with national economic success rather than global food security.
Discussion
Despite the growth index decreasing (OECD Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2015), the global population is still projected to increase to 9 billion by the mid 21st century (Reeves, 1999; Ackerman, Conard, Culligan, Plunz, Sutto, & Whittinghill, 2013). According to Reeves (1999) currently over 840 million people are going hungry with another two billion malnourished. Similarly to Diamond’s (1987) previous argument, WHO (2015) calculates over 600 million registered as obese in 2014, and yet one in seven people globally do not receive adequate levels of protein or energy (Godfray, Beddington, Crute, Haddad, Lawrence, Muir, & Toulmin, 2010) displaying that famine and poverty is concurrently prevalent alongside overexploitation and greed.
Agriculture is credited for upwards of 20% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due largely to transport, food processing and land use change, as well as an alarming 56% (2005) of anthropocentric non-CO2 GHG emissions due to ruminant livestock and soil management. However, whilst consequences owing to ruminant livestock emissions are commonly understood, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) caution that overuse of synthetic fertilisers, may soon overtake livestock emissions in less than a decade, growing exponentially at a rate of 3.9% per year (Smith et al., 2014).
Considering that agriculture is reliant upon direct weather inputs such as rainfall, sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) for the photosynthetic process to construct biomass (Criveanu, & Sperdea, 2014), the IPCC further warns that current feedback loops may be accelerating climate change via evapotranspiration and albedo effects, potentially affecting future crop yields (Smith et al., 2014). Interestingly, Kesavan (2015) argues that higher CO2 concentrations may see positive effects for yields, however, subsequent temperature increases from higher atmospheric CO2 levels may adversely effect agricultural processes. As it stands, agriculture is already responsible for 92% of global fresh water usage; suggested future intensification of unpredictable precipitation due to climate change may lead to potential imbalance for global agricultural input requirements.
Smil (2001), although very obstinate that nearly half of the global population owe their existence to the Haber-Bosch process, acknowledges the manufacture of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, retaining an open state nutrient cycle, effectually renders organic manure as obsolete, driving the compounding issue of waste product removal linked to water pollution.
Globally, cereals continue as the principal protein and energy component in cross-cultural diets (OECD, 2015; Wyman, 2013). Within the past half-century more affluent developed countries have exhibited diversification of diet to incorporate higher vegetable and fruit intakes to increase nutritional levels. Such a solution may not be feasible for developing nations, however, OECD (2015) recognises the importance of increasing crop production of low-cost root vegetables such as sweet potato and taro to diversify indigent cultures starch intakes. Moreover, such crop alternatives offer a higher nutritional gain in comparison to wheat, rice or maize, require less land for cultivation and are more tolerant to varying climatic conditions.
Agricultural management will soon need to assess the suitability of irrigating certain crops in areas of unpredictable precipitation, shifting to the use of drought tolerance crop species in order to not exacerbate future threats of depleting fresh water reserves (Wyman, 2015). The future of genetically modified (GM) crops should be geared towards nutrient efficiency so to try and combat this issue (Smil, 2001). Furthermore, Giampietro (1994) suggests that GM has the ability to either help or hinder the current agricultural situation, and hopes that importance is placed on developing productive drought tolerant species or technological improvements to fertilisers to see reversals of current environmental degradation rather than attention placed purely on economic return. Similarly, discussion is required around the suitability and outcome of land use for either crop fields, livestock grazing or for the competition of first generation biofuels or fibre plants (Godfray et al., 2010). Environmental assessments would do well to map whether inputs into each system appropriately meet energy outputs, nutritional gaps, products and global needs.
IPCC’s latest assessment report urges for the reduction of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20) emissions from livestock and soil management respectively (Wyman, 2013; Smith et al., 2014). Improved dietary feeding of livestock may potentially reduce enteric fermentation in ruminants, with nutritional shifts to increase perennial grasses in replacement of cereal feed allowing more harvest to be allocated for human consumption rather than livestock.
As previously discussed, there is current competition for land use by first generation biofuels, hoping to cut environmental emissions from the fossil-fuel-dependent transport industry. Likewise, global land area dedicated for cotton farming is increasing on a yearly basis. Both IPCC (Smith et al., 2014) and WWF (2015) highlight current biofuel and cotton farming practices to be incredibly inefficient, and in the latter case, input upwards of 20,000L of water in order to produce 1kg of product (Wyman, 2013). Similarly, current biofuel production involves large-scale irrigation and fertiliser inputs, hence, IPCC have warned that for future food security and reversal of environmental degradation due to overuse, cutbacks of biofuel are essential (Smith et al., 2014). However, such changes alone will not secure a positive food production future and adoptions must be made to conserve carbon stocks by reducing land use change and increasing sustainable intensification.
After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, Cuba underwent a shift towards organic urban farming due to the loss of chemical fertiliser resources and as such experienced a direct reduction in GHG emissions. Such urban farming may also be a solution to reduce food miles, supplement insufficient household incomes of poorer nations, mitigate against the ever-increasing effects of UHI (urban heat islands) and reduce wastage from transport spoilage (Ackerman et al., 2013). Ackerman et al. (2013) additionally discusses the potential to create synergy through fodder legume crop rotations to bridge the loss of synthetic fertilisers, aid in nutrient cycling and support healthier ruminant dietary intakes.
However, such alterations to current practices cannot be achieved independently without government support and subsidiaries and change to policy. In fact, Ringler et al. (2010) identifies that underinvestment in such areas may be a major contributing cause of current trends.
Conclusion
Paradoxically, 20th Century technological advancements once considered as providing food security and surplus, are now painting a Malthusian future, responsible for creating environmental concerns, from overexploitation of finite resources, now threatening future agricultural practices (Reed, 1977; Standage, 2009). In order to create sustainable outcomes for future generations the agricultural sector would do well to return to sustainable irrigation practices, and organic farming. Smil (2001) and Giampetro (1994) alike, suggest that scientific research should be aimed at finding solutions for nutrient efficiency and drought resistant crops to protect against future climatic conditions. However, local, national and global governments and organisations should collaboratively alter policies to shift food wastage, illogical trade and export patterns and the focus on economical gain from the industry in order to meet the future needs of the global human population.
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