Alison Withers | Agriculture Information

Is There A Chance Of Another Green Revolution Not Only In Agriculture But On Climate Change

December 11, 2015 / como / 0 Comments

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation global food prices have risen by an average of 83% overall in the last decade.

That’s just one statistic from this week’s crop of news reports on climate change, global warming and food production.

Here’s another: global greenhouse gas emissions since the 1850s would have been a third greater without the 1960s Green Revolution, according to the researchers in the US.

Neither of these findings is likely to bring much comfort to the millions of people currently struggling with the effects of this year’s unprecedented rainfall in Pakistan and China, which has displaced at least 20 million people in the two countries, flooded out of their homes, their work and all they own, including crops, seeds and livestock.

Nor will it be of comfort to the Russians, facing their hottest ever summer, with wild fires circling Moscow and risking the loss of at least a third, possibly more, of the country’s wheat crop – due for harvest in September and October but already triggering price speculation on the commodities markets because Russia is the world’s third largest supplier of wheat.

In addition 16 countries have recorded record temperatures this year (2010) and there are severe droughts, leading to starvation in Niger and parts of the Sahel region of Africa.

At the same time US researchers have also found that rice yields are declining in the six main Asian rice producing countries, which they ascribe to global warming and the resulting rise in night-time temperatures. Yields have dropped between 10% and 20% over the last 25 years in some places.

In the face of all this it is hard to tolerate the persistent wrangling between countries in the ongoing discussions ahead of the next meeting in Cancun, Mexico, due in November. Following the disappointing outcome of the last summit in Copenhagen, it’s now being said that the talks have in fact gone backwards.

Even without the mounting evidence of the devastating effects of climate change on weather patterns, and by extension agricultural production, a vast increase in food production is going to be needed to supply the projected global population growth and make some inroads into the scandal that a billion people on the planet are malnourished if not starving.

So what happened in the last “green” revolution and what chance is there of another one?

The 1960s green revolution increased crop yields and cut hunger dramatically in places like South Asia and Latin America by putting more land into cultivation and by using higher yielding varieties of rice, maize and other crops. The result for India, for example, was transformation from a food importer in need of emergency help from time to time to a major food exporter.

Twice as much land as is currently used would have been needed to feed the growing global population at current levels, according to the US researchers. The green revolution used a combination of intensive farming techniques and chemical fertilisers as well as the higher-yield varieties to avoid that.

However, as we now know, there were longer term implications to this method of farming – in the effects of chemical fertilisers on the soil, the environment, insects, plants, animals and sometimes human health.

Lessons have been learned and at least the language has changed. The talk now is all about sustainable farming, natural, healthier foods and a new range of low-chem agricultural products, including biopesticides, biofungicides and yield enhancers, coming from the Biopesticides Researchers that do less harm to the land.

These low-chem products are only part of the mix. There is also the technique of genetic modification although there are many people who are very wary of the unknown pandora’s box this might open.

Changing diet patterns towards eating more meat as the BRIC countries become more prosperous and develop a larger, urban middle class are another factor. Meat production is generally regarded as an inefficient use of land and water, so persuading people to eat less of it, while it would have an effect on the emission of greenhouse gases, might be a tall order in some parts of the world.

Plainly there’s a limited amount of land available for agricultural expansion, not to mention the production of biofuels. Increasingly extreme weather won’t help.

In addition therefore reaching global agreement on efforts to curb emissions in a way that is accepted as fair by all countries is another key to achieving some kind of sense on global warming, climate change and food production. It’s to be hoped that the pessimistic predictions for Mexico in November prove not to be true, since all our futures depend on it.

Developing Innovation In Uk Agriculture

October 20, 2015 / como / 0 Comments

Consumers would welcome anything that helps keep the weekly grocery prices under control as food prices continue to rise while incomes stagnate.

Farmers, also, have come under increasing pressure from volatile prices for their crops, the efforts of suppliers to keep prices low in the shops and the increasingly uncertain global weather.

At the same time they are asked to farm sustainably to protect the environment, produce more natural, chemical free food and equally to improve the yield from their land to meet the food needs of a larger global population.

In the UK, some East Anglian organic grain farmers have recently joined together in a contract with a company that needed a regular supply of food for its organically-reared pigs.

As one farmer said, it is very difficult to assess the market supply and demand particularly in the organic market and the arrangement they reached had several benefits.

It meant both buyer and sellers were no longer susceptible to the vagaries of the market and to stablise the prices right through to the retailer and share the costs. It also made it possible to make the whole supply chain from land to pig meat traceable and to reduce the carbon footprint by supplying to a local buyer.

It worked because all those involved knew each other and were in the same area, but there is no reason why the model could not be used by other farmers both in the UK and overseas.

Research in East Agnlia is also being carried out to identify the different genetic characteristics in various grain seeds. The aim is to find those that are better for growing in an area of increasing drought and are better protected against the new plant diseases that might arise. Cross breeding, for example, could then be used to produce a resilient variety suited to the local climate.

Other research that has been going on, mainly in the USA has been in providing better crop and land protection in a more natural way, as a substitute for the many now-discredited older generation of chemical fertilisers.

The range of innovations includes biopesticides, biofungicides and yield enhancers that are developed from natural sources and leave minimal residues in the land and in the crop. They will also help farmers to meet the growing demand for natural foods with less waste and less loss of the nutrition in their land

These new low-chem agricultural products are subject to careful testing and licensing before they are allowed onto the market and this can be an expensive and lengthy process, taking up to eight years in some cases because regulation is not yet standardised across individual countries, so they may need to be licensed separately in several places.

There are signs, however, that more effort is being put into innovation in the various aspects of food production to respond to the concerns of consumers on both price and food quality.