The Future of Agriculture
In conventional agriculture plants are raised
as in a flower pot.
Soil is shredded and aerated, growing plantlets
are supplied with plenty of fertilizer and
any unwanted organism is removed.
Our crop plants have been adapted to such
conditions by intensive breeding and are depending
on them.
This way, cheap food is produced in large
amounts - the essential basis of our current
way of living.
In the long run, however, this practice leads
to squandering of limited resources and to
compromising natural habitats.
This video summarizes important issues and
discusses possible alternatives.
Plowing: Plowing needs much energy and is
one of the main drivers of agricultural energy
comsumption.
Plowing also destroys soil's natural structures
and thus enhances erosion and soil compaction.
Soil organic matter is more rapidly decomposed
in plowed soils resulting in an increased
release of mineral nutrients.
In addition plowing impairs most soil organisms,
detrimental or not.
No-till farmers, doing without plowing, save
large amounts of fuel.
Due to no-till, soil organisms like earthworms
are restored resulting in the loosening of
compacted soils and soil organic matter is
rebuilt.
Soil organic matter is an important factor
of soil fertility; in the initial years of
rebuilding soil organic matter, however, there
is an increased need of mineral nutrients
in no-till agriculture.
Furthermore, no-till will promote weeds and
harmful organisms.
Therefore no-till may result in an increased
need of pesticides.
No-till farmers, for example, often use herbicides
like glyphosate for eliminating competing
vegetation prior to seeding of crops.
Mineral fertilizers: During harvest mineral
nutrients are removed from agricultural plots.
These nutrients have to be replenished by
fertilization.
Organic farmers are using complex organic
fertilizers (like for example manure) for
this aim.
When applied in correct amounts, this kind
of fertilization minimizes leaching of nutrients
and damage to non-agricultural ecosystems.
Compared to organic fertilizers, mineral fertilizers
are easy to handle and are providing nutrients
to the plants more rapidly.
In the case of nitrogen, however, large amounts
of energy are necessary for fertilizer production.
All other mineral fertilizers are obtained
from mineral deposits.
At least in the case of phosphorus, the depletion
of these deposits is already foreseeable.
Furthermore, mineral fertilizers are washed
off the fields more rapidly than organic fertilizers
affecting non-agricultural ecosystems considerably.
Cultan fertilization has been established
as an innovative approach to fertilization.
Fertilizer is not applied throughout the whole
area, but rather injected close to the root
systems of individual plantlets.
This more targeted approach reduces waste
and leaching of fertilizers.
Pesticides: Conventional agriculture raises
genetically identical plants under optimized
conditions on large areas - providing ideal
conditions not only for plants but also for
pests.
Thus, weeds or detrimental organisms can not
be controlled without pesticides.
Health risk for consumers connected to this
practice appear relatively low, at least in
industrial countries.
There are clear negative environmental consequences
of pesticides, however.
Most pesticides not only kill their target
organisms, but many other beneficial or neutral
organisms.
They are affecting not only the treated plot,
but also the wider surroundings.
These effects will decrease biological diversity
in general; sometimes keystone species like
bees may also be affected.
Agricultural practice of organic agriculture
is partially reducing pathogen load on the
fields.
Remaining detrimental organisms are treated
either by alternative methods (for example
weeding, biological pest control) or by traditional
agents (like copper or sulfur preparations).
Nevertheless, doing without modern chemical
pesticides often results in yield losses.
In some cases, harvested crops may also contain
increased amounts of fungal toxins harmful
to humans.
Monocropping: Modern farmers usually grow
only one crop plant per field and season.
All other plants in the fields are weeds and
have to be removed.
Belowground biological diversity, invisible
to the naked eye, is strongly reduced by this
practice as well as by plowing, fertilization
and pesticides.
Traditionally, agricultural fields have been
managed by crop rotation, with regular changes
in the crops cultivated in subsequent years.
Due to economic reasons this practice has
been gradually abandoned resulting in seasonal
monocultures.
Alternatives to this detrimental practice
encompass the re-establishment of crop rotation,
application of cover crops or establishment
of intercropping.
Such approaches refer to increased agricultural
efforts without clear increases in yield.
However, they may result in reduced needs
for pesticide application and in an improvement
of biodiversity and soil properties.
Future: GPS-based precision farming may allow
a more economic and targeted application of
fertilizers and pesticides.
Crop plants with increased fertilizer efficiency
or pathogen resistance, produced by conventional
breeding or by genetic engineering may also
contribute reaching this aim, increasing environmental
sustainability of conventional agriculture.
And more thorough alternatives?
The natural ecosystem is the clear alternative
draft to the reductionist pot approach of
conventional agriculture.
Natural ecosystems can be very productive,
completely without fertilizer or pesticides.
In many cases they are also more resilient
to stress when compared to agricultural fields.
How do these systems work and what can we
learn from them for our own nutrition.
Is it possible to reconcile productivity,
stress resilience and sustainability?
Current ecological agriculture certainly is
not the solution to all agricultural issues
- but it allows to ask the right questions.
When deciding about the appropriateness of
agricultural management, it is important to
measure all relevant effects.
While it is easy to determine productivity
of a given plot, stress resilience or biological
intactness are much harder to measure.
Candidate parameters like soil organic matter
contents or biological diversity should become
firmly established and should be used for
guiding future agricultural policies.
