Tom Tomich: As we look ahead to this century and basically reinvent agriculture, it raises questions about how do we yet again raise production, and minimize environmental damages.
Tom Tomich is director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California – Davis. He talked with EarthSky at a conference about sustainable agriculture – methods of farming that will feed the planet’s billions of people, year after year, into the future. He’s one of the leaders among a group of scientists who hopes to create a set of metrics, a system of measurements, to assess agriculture around the globe.
Tom Tomich: It’s a way of bringing the science into the dialogue.
Tomich said that agriculture isn’t just about how much food we grow. It’s also about people’s health and livelihoods, global economics, and how we use land and resources, among other issues. He wants to be able to measure how we’re doing.
Tom Tomich: How are we doing on the social side? How are we doing on the economic side? How are we doing on the environment? How are we doing on food?
To create these metrics, Tomich is collaborating with farmers, policy makers, and scientists. He says the challenge of how to feed Earth’s people is important to address now, because population experts predict that Earth’s population will grow from 6.8 billion, to 9 billion by 2050.
Tom Tomich: This next generation is really crucial in the future for our species.
Tomich said the act of measuring – or even defining – agricultural sustainability itself is a moving target.
Tom Tomich: You can’t measure it all at once. Part of the reason I don’t try to define agricultural sustainability myself is because we really work with farmers, with policy makers, with NGOs to say what are the priorities right now? A lot of people wish I could just make a list of, what are the 10 things and we’ll check them all off. We could do a list like that now. But if you went back 10 years, it would be a different list. Climate change wouldn’t loom so large, energy wouldn’t be so big. Who knows what it’s going to be in 10 years? Part of this process is continually adapting the list to new issues that are coming up.
He said the process of compiling these metrics is to understand the choices and trade-offs that have to be made to create a globally sustainable agricultural system, and feed the world.
Wow. Hard to get a grip on that. Mostly, because he said little that mattered. With available technology and climate, the earth can support upwards of 20 billion folks. That is a given. However, if government and NGO’s get involved, trim that number to well under the present population. Please try to remember the debacle of the Soviet Union’s agriculture program. If we really wish to feed a lot of people well, we will transfer agricultural land to the private sector (not to government favored mega-corporations) and let human nature and the market take its course.
As far as climate change: If we really are warming (not supported by the data), and C02 levels are actually rising, our potential for agricultural production will rise, possibly exponentially. If the climate cools, the opposite is true. Plants like it warm and wet with abundant CO2.
As far as “sustainability”: A cute buzz word with no real definition. It is used to denigrate whatever the “in” crowd doesn’t like. The climate has always changed and always will. There are no bureaucrats, or members of academia that will save the day. Folks that work and buy and sell based on their own perception of calue make the econmomy and agriculural industry work. Bureaucrats and academics know how to write grants and long papers that say nothing. They don’t milk cows, build fence, plant seeds or harvest crops. They get in the way of same.
Hi Ben, may I see your reference for Earth being able to support 20 billion people? Who says?
Deborah
I would like to see that reference as well. Sounds implausible….
A very good and accurate response to the article Mr. Napier
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