09/05/2011

Washington State, USA. A group of leading scientists, economists and farmers is calling for a broad shift in federal policies to speed the development of farm practices that are more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Writing in the journal Science, researchers from Washington State University say current agricultural policies focus on the production of a few crops and benefit a minority of farmers, while failing to address farming’s contribution to global warming, biodiversity loss, natural resource degradation and public health problems.

“We have the technology and the science to grow food in sustainable ways, but we lack the policies and markets to make it happen,” said John Reganold, a soil scientist and the paper’s lead author. Reganold pioneered several widely cited side-by-side comparisons from the 1980s onwards. These showed that organic farming systems were more earth-friendly than conventional systems while producing more nutritious and sometimes tastier food

His co-authors in Science include more than a dozen leading economists, sociologists, agroecologists, farmers and soil, plant and animal scientists. The paper is a result of several national efforts to address concerns about farming’s impact on the environment, including the landmark 1989 National Research Council report, Alternative Agriculture. The report recommended greater research and education efforts into sustainable farming.

All the authors of the Science paper wrote the council’s 2010 update, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. The paper is particularly critical of the Farm Bill, which is slated for renewal next year. While one-third of farmers receive payments under the bill, it has a much broader influence on production.

US Farm Bill “does little to promote sustainability”

The Farm Bill does little to promote sustainability, write the authors, while “distorting market incentives and making our food system overly dependent on a few grain crops mainly used for animal feed and highly processed food, with deleterious effects on the environment and human health.” Environmental impacts, Reganold maintains, include overdrawn aquifers, eroded soil and polluted water.

Meanwhile, he said, agricultural research and the field of “agroecology,” which adapts the principles of nature to farming systems, are finding new ways to grow abundant and affordable food while protecting the environment, helping farm finances and contributing to the well-being of farmers, farm workers and rural communities.

Consumers, whose concerns range from farm working conditions to animal welfare to food safety, are seeking out organic and alternatively grown foods at grocery stores, farmer’s markets, food coops, community supported agriculture networks, and large outlets like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Costco. The mounting environmental impacts of agriculture call for a transformation that can be sped up by shifting federal support to research, policies and markets that support more benign alternative farming systems, the researchers claim.

“We need to move more quickly,” said Reganold. “Why are we supporting big, mainstream agriculture that’s not necessarily protecting or benefiting the environment? Why don’t we support innovative farming systems of all sizes that produce food sustainably?”