Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation under Contract No. 48042 and P3005905. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundations that provided support for the project.
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COMMITTEE ON TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SYSTEMS AGRICULTURE
JULIA L. KORNEGAY, Chair,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
RICHARD R. HARWOOD, Vice Chair,
Michigan State University (Emeritus), East Lansing
SANDRA S. BATIE,
Michigan State University, East Lansing
DALE BUCKS,
Bucks Natural Resources Management, Elkridge, Maryland
CORNELIA BUTLER FLORA,
Iowa State University, Ames
JAMES HANSON,
University of Maryland, College Park
DOUGLAS JACKSON-SMITH,
Utah State University, Logan
WILLIAM JURY,
University of California, Riverside
DEANNE MEYER,
University of California, Davis
JOHN P. REGANOLD,
Washington State University, Pullman
AUGUST SCHUMACHER, JR.,
SJH and Company, Boston, Massachusetts
HENNING SEHMSDORF,
S&S Homestead Farm, Lopez Island, Washington
CAROL SHENNAN,
University of California, Santa Cruz
LORI ANN THRUPP,
Fetzer Vineyards, Hopland, California
PAUL WILLIS,
Niman Ranch Pork Company, Thornton, Iowa
Consultants
LAWRENCE ELWORTH,
Center for Agricultural Partnerships, Asheville, North Carolina
C. CLARE HINRICHS,
Pennsylvania State University, State College
SUSAN SMALLEY,
Michigan State University, East Lansing
Editor
PAULA TARNAPOL WHITACRE,
Full Circle Communications, LLC
Staff
EVONNE P.Y. TANG, Study Director
ERIN P. MULCAHY, Senior Program Assistant
JANET M. MULLIGAN, Research Associate
KAREN L. IMHOF, Administrative Assistant
ROBERTA A. SCHOEN, Board Director
BOARD ON AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
NORMAN R. SCOTT, Chair,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
PEGGY F. BARLETT,
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
HAROLD L. BERGMAN,
University of Wyoming, Laramie
RICHARD A. DIXON,
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma
DANIEL M. DOOLEY,
University of California, Oakland
JOAN H. EISEMANN,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
GARY F. HARTNELL,
Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri
GENE HUGOSON,
Minnesota Department of Agriculture, St. Paul
KIRK C. KLASING,
University of California, Davis
VICTOR L. LECHTENBERG,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
PHILIP E. NELSON,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
KEITH PITTS,
Marrone Bio Innovations, Davis, California
CHARLES W. RICE,
Kansas State University, Manhattan
HAL SALWASSER,
Oregon State University, Corvallis
PEDRO A. SANCHEZ,
The Earth Institute, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
ROGER A. SEDJO,
Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
KATHLEEN SEGERSON,
University of Connecticut, Storrs
MERCEDES VAZQUEZ-AÑON,
Novus International, Inc., St. Charles, Missouri
Staff
ROBERTA A. SCHOEN, Director
RUTH S. ARIETI, Research Associate
CAMILLA YANDOC ABLES, Associate Program Officer
KAREN L. IMHOF, Administrative Assistant
KARA N. LANEY, Associate Program Officer
AUSTIN J. LEWIS, Senior Program Officer
ERIN P. MULCAHY, Senior Program Assistant
JANET M. MULLIGAN, Research Associate
KAMWETI MUTU, Research Associate
EVONNE P.Y. TANG, Senior Program Officer
PEGGY TSAI, Program Officer
Preface
Since the National Research Council published the report Alternative Agriculture in 1989, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture in the United States. At the same time, the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges that will require innovations, new technologies, and new ways of approaching agriculture if the food, feed, and fiber needs of the global population are to be met.
This report, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century, assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving agricultural sustainability and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It also evaluates the transferability of principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability of small-scale agricultural systems in less developed countries, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. The report includes case studies of different kinds of farms and farming systems in different regions of the United States that actively pursue the goal of sustainability and revisits some farms originally featured in Alternative Agriculture. We want to thank the farmers who so generously shared their expertise and experiences and to wish them well in their future farming endeavors. We also want to thank the consultants who conducted and documented the farmer interviews.
The study committee included 15 members with expertise in food production and agribusiness; crop, soil, and horticultural sciences; water-use and water-quality science; farming systems and agroecology; agricultural economics and social science; and federal farm, trade, international development, environmental, and regulatory policies (Appendix B). Two of the committee members are farmers. The committee also solicited information from a wide range of experts (Appendix C) with complementary expertise and experience. We are grateful for their willingness to give of their time and knowledge. During the development of the report, the committee held two workshops. The first focused on the state of the science on agricultural methods and systems for improving sustainability, and a
second was on the lessons learned and transferability of agriculture practices and systems to improve sustainability of agriculture in developing countries. Two public committee meetings, in which other experts were invited to provide the committee with information on U.S. agricultural economics and policies, and their effect on farming systems, farmers’ behavior, and the environment, were also held. Some of the committee members also attended the Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education (SARE) conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2008 to gather information.
Challenges that the committee immediately faced included understanding and interpreting the rapid changes and developing crises in the global economy and their effect on sustainable agriculture. For example, when the committee began its study, global price of crude fuel oil rose from about $75 per barrel to a peak of $147 in July 2008. This increase caused harmful reverberations across the global agriculture sector and shortages of corn, rice, and other food, especially in developing countries, and a significant increase in the demand for biofuels. It was immediately followed by the global economic crisis, which, among other impacts, restricted farmers’ access to credit, lowered land values, and lowered prices for biofuels when fuel oil costs declined by half. On a more positive note, the committee faced a virtual cascade of new information and programs relating to sustainable agriculture, such as important new advances in science and in federal and state programs and policies. The new federal farm bill places greater emphasis on agricultural sustainability, organic agriculture, and renewable energy and fuels, and support is growing for regional and local food production systems.
The committee notes that although most farms have the potential and responsibility to contribute to different aspects of sustainability, U.S. agriculture needs both incremental and transformative changes to address the many challenges of the future. Incremental changes—such as pest-resistant varieties, conservation tillage, integrated pest management, and use of crop diversity including cover crops, crop rotations, and other biologically integrative technologies and practices—have been increasingly used in many regions, but have not yet been adapted to some fragile areas and to low-rainfall cropland. Transformative changes include the development of new farming systems that represent a dramatic departure from the dominant systems of present-day American agriculture and capitalize on synergies and efficiencies associated with complex natural systems and broader social and economic forces using integrative approaches to research and extension at both the farm and landscape levels. Examples include development and broad adoption of water-conserving production systems in areas of water shortage and overdraft, landscape-scale reduction of nutrient and other materials runoff from agricultural lands that contributes to major hypoxic zones, and assessment of the potential and cost for broad adoption of alternative animal production systems that address many environmental and social concerns of some dominant production systems.
The committee believes that its report identifies many of the most important challenges that U.S. agriculture faces today, but it is well aware that unforeseen threats as well as new opportunities could surface tomorrow. We hope that the sponsors of this study, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as well other groups and organizations, will find the report’s conclusions and recommendation to be of value in their efforts to understand and develop sustainable agricultural systems that will meet the food, feed, fiber, and biofuel needs of a growing global population.
On behalf of the committee, we would like to express our thanks and appreciation to Robin Schoen, director of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BANR), and
Evonne Tang, the senior program officer responsible for our study. Without their planning, organization, and editing expertise, this large and complex report would have been impossible. We also want to thank all the BANR study staff for their support and assistance with our meetings and in preparing the final report.
Julia L. Kornegay, Chair
Richard R. Harwood, Vice-Chair
Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture
Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed in draft form by persons chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards of objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
P. Stephen Baenziger, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jon T. Biermacher, The Samuel Noble Foundation, Inc.
Juliet Christian-Smith, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security
Michael DeFelice, Pioneer Hi-Bred
Thomas Dobbs, South Dakota State University
Michael Doyle, University of Georgia
Simeon Ehui, The World Bank
Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security
Temple Grandin, Colorado State University
Gary Hirshberg, Stoneyfield, Inc.
Terry Howell, U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service
R. Cesar Izaurralde, Joint Global Change Research Institute
Fred Kirschenmann, Iowa State University
Max Pfeffer, Cornell University
Keith Prasse, University of Georgia
William Raun, Oklahoma State University
Andrew Thulin, California Polytechnic State University
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Drs. R. James Cook and Harley W. Moon. Appointed by the National Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.