Food, Fossil Fuels, and Climate Change

Our ability to
feed ourselves sustainably is our most valuable resource, but
unfortunately our current food systems, whether fisheries or
agriculture, are contributing heavily to the deteriorating health of
the atmosphere and oceans, while simultaneously subject to the
detrimental effects of climate change.  We cannot address the problems
of climate change, ocean health, or energy security and independence
without also reforming our food system and ensuring food security by
promoting local, organic, and ecologically sound agriculture.

Ironically, the very act of growing food itself has proven
disastrous for our land, atmosphere, and oceans.  According to Michael
Pollan in his open letter to the next “Farmer in Chief” (The New York
Times, 09 October 2008) our current agricultural system is responsible
for approximately 19 percent of our economy’s fossil fuel consumption
and 37 percent of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.  For every
food calorie an American consumes, on average 10 calories of fossil
fuel energy were used to produce and transport this food.  With the
combined specters of climate change and peak oil looming, these
statistics are indeed alarming.  Thus, growing food and feeding
ourselves is contributing to climate change and energy insecurity to an
extent unsurpassed by any other economic activity.  Additionally,
agricultural run-off, composed largely of artificial fertilizers and
animal manure from industrial farms and feedlots, has polluted our
nation’s rivers and oceans, creating hypoxic “dead zones” where few
marine organisms can survive.  This problem ultimately arises from the
spatial separation of crop and animal farming, resulting in a pervasive
failure to compost animal wastes and return these nutrients to the soil
as food for plants.

There is a solution to these intersecting problems of climate
change, food and energy security, and ocean health.  Our current food
system relies largely upon heavily mechanized farms, growing food in
monocultures, using artificial fertilizers and pesticides synthesized
from fossil fuels, transporting food long distances, and lacking
effective means of recycling farm wastes.  Collectively, these
characteristics of industrial agriculture contribute to intensive
greenhouse gas emissions, uncontrolled pollution, and inefficient
fossil fuel consumption.  In contrast, we can alleviate all of these
symptoms of our food system by switching focus and support to small,
local organic farms where the labor is largely provided by humans and
animals, products are marketed to nearby communities, the plants and
animals are raised in diverse polycultures that deter pests and prevent
diseases, the animals feed the soil with their composted wastes, the
soil feeds the plants, and the plants in turn feed the animals in a
tight recycling of wastes and nutrients.

We at Orizaba Farm embarked on our journey into organic farming in
part because we realized that small, local organic farms present an
elegant and simple solution to climate change, resource scarcity, food
and energy insecurity, and agricultural pollution.  We wanted to be an
integral and active part of this solution.  In the face of peak oil and
natural gas depletion, we cannot forget how to grow our own food
sustainably by harnessing the energy of the sun rather than fossil
fuels.  Threatened with potentially disastrous climate change, we
should not have to choose between healthy food and a stable, healthy
atmosphere.  As our fisheries are collapsing and oceans are becoming
increasingly polluted, fishermen and farmers must learn to work in
mutual cooperation and appreciation of each others’ efforts, rather
than compromising one another’s livelihoods.  These goals can all be
achieved through thoughtful, comprehensive reform of our food system. 
If we wish to protect our land, atmosphere, and oceans for future
generations, conserve our scarce resources, and create a national or
global community where growing healthy food and maintaining a healthy
environment are mutually inclusive, then food reform must emphasize the
importance of local, organic agriculture.

No ecologist can deny that the land, oceans, and atmosphere are all
intricately interconnected.  This point is made ever clearer when one
reads scientific reports about pollutants produced in industrialized
nations that have found their way to the Arctic and accumulated at high
concentrations in the bodies of indigenous hunter and gatherer cultures
located far from population centers.  The interconnectedness of Nature
is again underscored when one hears of the manner that low-lying
islands are increasingly threatened by sea level rise resulting from
global warming, which is caused not by the islanders’ activities but
rather by the excessive greenhouse gas emissions from nations located
on continents far removed from the threatened islands.

Likewise, how we choose to grow our food and heat our homes is
deeply tied to the ability of fisherman to land their catches, farmers
to irrigate their crops, forests to provide clean air, water, and
wildlife habitat, cities to offer secure homes for their residents, or
people to safely enjoy, recreate, and reside along coastlines.  For
instance, the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in farmland along the
Mississippi River drainage basin (watershed) has resulted in massive
algal blooms throughout the Gulf of Mexico, whose subsequent decay
causes “dead zones” of very low or no oxygen (hypoxia and anoxia),
which in turn has catastrophic effects upon the Gulf’s fisheries.

Just as we cannot ignore the integral role that farming plays in the
health of our atmosphere and oceans, we must also acknowledge the
importance of a stable climate for agricultural yields and the ability
to feed our nation.  In our inaugural seasons of farming at Orizaba
Farm, we are beginning to appreciate our dependence on a stable and
healthy climate system to deliver the essential conditions and
resources we need to grow our food.  From the specific daily
temperature swings required for the sugar maple harvest, to the
predictable frost times we rely upon to schedule garden plantings, to
the effects of precipitation patterns on the local hay harvest, the
role of a stable climate in farming is undeniable and pivotal.  Indeed,
climate change and the instabilities it brings poses a serious threat
to our family and our farm’s very livelihood and survival, and by
extension to all those in our community who may depend on us for their
food and sustenance.  As an agrarian society, none of us are alone in
this boat; let us not allow it to sink.