Ronneane Baldwin

In my English 130 class we watched the movie Inconvenient Truth and, for the first time, I saw the growing industrialization of China.  After seeing China’s growing wasteful consumption of resources, I was reminded of a discussion that took place in my Anthropology 113 class last semester.  In this discussion, my professor brought to light how our production of food is just as disturbing as our consumption of it.  He presented a video that showed how the industrialization of certain areas led the farmers to abandon their tradition agricultural system and replace it with mass food production.  This “small” change ended up having a huge negative impact on their society.  Previous to change in their farming techniques, the farming system allowed for more social interaction between the generations and gave them enough food to feed themselves with still plenty left to generate in income. After the push for mass production, this system was destroyed, leaving the town with problems they had no precedent for.  These events show how a change in production of goods (especially crops) can have disastrous effects on people and their environment.  For my research I set my heart on further exploring this relationship between human’s participation in agriculture and its affects on the environment. Hence, I began my research trying to figure out what it is that people are doing to leave the world with fewer agriculturally usable lands.

After reading a hand full of books, I found myself with even more unanswered questions and lots of contradictory information. Some books, like One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future, say that the unbelievable growth in population and the population’s consumption is at fault rather than the farmers.  Other books, like one written by Joseph Collins, say that population among other factors is improperly blamed for the loss of productive soil when the real cause is “high rates of [soil] erosion” (45).  Statements like “leaving the enormous task of changing current trends in pesticide use and land degradation up to individual growers and the laws of the marketplace” make it seem like they are blaming the government and farmers (45).  I was left wondering whether the population or the farmers were at fault.  In class it seemed that everyone was focused on consumption so I decided to take a different approach and look at production. As a result I sought books that would show how farmers are or are not decreasing the amount of existing fertile soil.

I began to panic and was livid when my hours of research left me without any new information to fuel further research.  I finally completed two research logs when, to my disappointment, my professor pointed out that the books I had used were out of date and thereby invaluable to me.  I was tempted to change my question on several occasions but my determination to answer the question “How do farmers in the U.S. abuse land in order to mass produce?” remained.  I refused to let all of those hours of research go to waste.  Furthermore, being a lover of food, I really wanted to see how it is possible that the United States could be running out of the resources needed to make food.  At the suggestion from my writing Professor, I used the books previously considered dead ends to narrow down my search.  Finally! I let out a long sigh of relief as I found numerous books, each containing valuable information.  I quickly came to the realization that producing crops is a lot more complex than it seems. 

The first book I found was titled Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. Among many other topics, the writer McMichael talks about the consistent decrease in “world food production.”  According to him, “world food production must double by 2030 just to maintain the current per-person supplies” (213).  When McMichael said this, he was discussing how intensive agriculture actually minimizes the crop growth by increasing sterile soil.  Intensive agriculture is a farming process that consist of using the same plot of land continuously while using things like irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, genetic selection, and increasing the frequency and intensity of cropping to mass produce (212).

It is extremely disappointing that instead of solving the problem, intensive agriculture is worsening the situation due to its ecological costs.  These negative effects include sterilization of the soil and soil erosion (212).  Soil sterilization is when the soil loses its minerals and it becomes incapable of producing crops of any kind.  “Soil erosion is the process by which water running on the soil surface, wind, ice or other agents transport soil from one place to another” (Laegreid 105 et al ).  The worse part is that our government has chosen to continue to use intensive agriculture when it obviously is not the solution to anything.  To many people this does not seem like a problematic situation because we have genetic selection to enlarge and enhance our food in order to make up for our decrease in production of food per-person. Yet McMichael clears this up quickly by stating how “only 8% of the increase in grain productivity since 1960 has been due to increased cropland” (213).  In my opinion this makes it clear that most of our food production is dependent on genetic alteration and that we do not have much more room to move.  Fairly soon, all of our food will be genetically enhanced and we still will not have enough food to feed everyone.

This book also showed me that intensive agriculture hurts our environment, which leads us to increase the use of intensive agriculture in order to compensate for crops and per-person production. Thus creating a vicious cycle that will only hurt the very people who demand the food and an increase of crop production. Before this research, I had thought that intensive agriculture was solely a way to mass-produce and therefore used out of greed.  However, it seems that it was created to deal with the fact that crop growth is limited by so many factors. I also learned that the problem is not as simple as just planting too much but that it also consists of improperly taking care of the soil by using things like pesticides, fertilizers and genetic selection. As a result, I altered my question to focus on this loss of useable land. With the question, “Why is there less land to produce food with?” I headed back to the library to find even more information.

While spending several hours sitting in the “soil” aisle of the library, looking for current and enlightening books, I found Agriculture, Fertilizers and the Environment. This time around I got more useful information faster because my classmate Julia told me to look at the Table of Contents rather than the Index.  This book had an attractive section titled “4.3 Soil degradation”. It began with the statement that soil degradation is a natural occurrence and that humans merely “enhance” it.  One of the most interesting sub-sections is titled “Other forms of degradation.”

Previous to having read this book I was under the impression that soil degradation and soil erosion where two types of soil problems that were completely separate occurrences. It turns out that soil degradation is a broad and natural occurrence that humans have just been speeding up and that soil erosion is just one of the many types of degradation. This sub-section contained information on “desertification” and “excessive use of fragile land” (Laegreid 111 et al).  This “fragile land” refers to soil that has an unprotected soil which usually means it has little or no vegetation.  Examples of soil that does have vegetation but is still considered fragile include “cultivated sloping land” and land that has been left uncultivated following consistent farming (107).

One form of soil degradation that is rarely talked about is “desertification.”  The authors defined desertification as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from an assortment of factors including climatic variations and human impact” (111).  When I first saw the sub-heading, I thought it was referring to the disappearance of bodies of water like the Aral Sea, which I had read about in Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species.  As it turns out, it is not that at all.  Instead of being caused by a diversion of water sources, “desertification” is caused by “poor management of dryland vegetation” (111).  The authors give more specific examples of desertification including overgrazing cattle and excessive harvesting of fuelwood.     

I finally began to grasp the idea that dirt could be improper for growing crops in various ways.  It seems that our soil has actual needs that must be met in order for crops to grow. I find it shocking that farmers have to know so much just to increase the possibility of having a good harvest.  Especially since there is only so much that farmers can do.  According to the authors of Agriculture, Fertilizers and the Environment  some farmer overwork their land in attempt to mass produce in response to increasing population levels and migration from war.  Although there is only so much the farmers can do concerning crops.  It still seemed to me like they are not doing everything possible to maintain good soil conditions.  Nevertheless, how do the people who are not farmers relate to all of this?

Reviewing my research logs, I thought about what the readers of my paper would get out of it and I realized that at this point my readers would merely get statistics and definitions concerning a big problem going on in the world.  I was displeased to say the least. After a couple of hours doing research, I decided to show the readers how they relate to the loss of exploitable land.  Thus, the book Agricultural Sustainability: Principles, Processes, and Prospects landed on my research results list.

One of my favorite sections found in this book was “Soil Degradation and Crop Production.”  I read through it a few times looking for a connection between the average citizen and soil degradation that did not seem too scary because I’ve seen how ineffective the scare tactic can be. Yet, I kept stumbling upon phrases like “…the environmental gloom and deceleration of the economy…might only have been postponed, not really averted” which clearly instilled fear upon the reader (110).  However, during my final read through I found the concept of an area’s economic status having a high correlation with soil degradation.

The information that I gathered clearly expressed the idea that “socioeconomic conditions” is one of the few factors that applies to everyone and has an effect on soil degradation (Raman 101). As it turns out poverty, especially in developing countries, can be a core cause of soil degradation.  It makes complete sense that poorer countries and areas exploit the land in attempt to produce as much food as possible. Yet this just leads to them overworking their land (Raman 101).  This clearly connected with Jon Hellin’s book and how stated that the farmer’s economic situation affected their choices in agricultural system use.

It seems that it is becoming more difficult for farmers to make a living off crop production alone.  So they get other jobs to support their family but this leaves them less time that can be dedicated to the most efficient use of the land (Hellin 67).  This may sound like it is solely concerning the farmers still but it is not.  If farmers cannot take care of the land because of the prices of crops (which determines their income) then there is a great possibility that the consumers are doing something to make prices continually decrease.  I needed to see what it was that we as consumers were doing wrong.

After plenty of demanding hours at the library I found two books that showed potential helpfulness. The more current of the two books is One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future. There was a lot about how the United States’ overconsumption leads to environmental damage directly and indirectly –through our pressure on others to follow our example. It seems that because of our “population size, growth rate, and high per capita level of consumption [we’re] the champion consumer of the world” (Ehrlich 115).  As I had learned in my economics class, our demand of food greatly influences how much food farmers produce (Lappè 457).  It seems that we create a demand and our land takes the toll.  To many people that may be okay because it is our choice, but it’s not just our problem because our bad habits are rubbing off on others.

Since much of our food is imported from developing countries rather than on our own soil, our demand has lead for other poorer countries to take on the high environmental, energy, and health costs (Ehrlich 127). As I read about the many different things that North America over consumes like “luxury appliances, giant trophy homes, expensive cares, and even private jets,” it became clear to me that fruits and vegetables were pretty close to last on our list (Ehrlich 119).  As everyone knows citizens of the United States are getting big not because they overindulge in fruits and vegetables but because they overindulge in rich foods, especially meats. It seems that our “rising demand for higher-quality foods, especially animal products” is what is primarily on the agricultural experts’ minds (128).  Oh no! At this point I realized that I was focused on cattle rather than the crops. I began to worry that I was not going to find a way to connect consumers to the aggravation of soil erosion after all.  Then I found a sentence that connects all of this over consumption and demand back to the crops.  It seems that “the greater demand for meat will probably be accompanied by as much as an 85 percent rise in demand for feed grains to produce the meat” (129).  This is extremely accurate sounding considering that most of our production of grains goes to feed our livestock rather than us (Lappè 457). No wonder so many people are starving in the world!

Looking over my writings, I can see that I have learned a lot and now think differently because of doing this assignment. I now appreciate the farmers and realize how much they are currently struggling. It saddens me to know that the people responsible for keeping me alive are barely surviving themselves. Furthermore, I understand why, during her campus lecture, Frances Moore Lappè kept pushing the idea of growing crops in our own backyards and trying to mainly buy from the local sustainability crop growing groups/companies. By doing so, it would ease the tension off the farmers to mass produce as quickly as possible. Instead it would persuade them to turn away from intensive agriculture thus giving the environment a chance to regenerate and heal itself.

It is now evident to me that what we do has a huge impact on the global environment. I feel that while we are still the most powerful country, we need to start setting a good example for the other countries so that they may follow suite. Paul and Anne Ehrlich clearly support this idea  when they state that “overdeveloped nations” like the United States are the “main locus of the over consumption problem, and solutions they find will very likely be emulated and adopted, when appropriate, by developing nations” (Ehrlich 229). Therefore, my suggestion is to start small by just changing yourself, and if enough people try it can grow until the countries throughout Earth are using the limited resources we have been blessed with more wisely.

Works Cited

Collins, Joseph. Rosset and Lappè. “Myth 4: Food vs. Our Environment” World Hunger: 12 Myths. New York: Grove Press, 1998. 41-58.

Ehrlich, Paul and Anne Ehrlich. “Chapter 4: The Consumption Factor” One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future. Washington: Island Press, 2004. 112-137.

Ehrlich, Paul and Anne Ehrlich. “The Role of the Rich Nations” One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future. Washington: Island Press, 2004. 229-234.

Hellin, Jon. “2.6 OBSTACLES TO BETTER LAND MANAGEMENT.” Better LandHusbandry: From Soil Conservation to Holistic Land Management. Enfield: SCIENCE PUBLISHERS, 2006. 62-72.

Laegreid, Marit O.C. Bøckman and O. Kaarstad. “4.3 Soil degradation.” Agriculture, Fertilizers and the Environment. New York: CABI Publishing, 1999. 104-113.

Lappè, Frances M. “Diet for a Small Planet” Composing a Civic Life: A Rhetoric and Readings for Inquiry and Action. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.,2007.

McMichael, Anthony J. “Introduction: techniques and issues” Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human species. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 212-214.

Raman, Saroja. “Ch 7: Land Management for Sustainable Agriculture” Agricultural Sustainability: Principles, Processes, and Prospects. New York: The Haworth Press, Inc. 2006. 93-140.

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