An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture: Energy Use Efficiency in the American South PDF
Preview An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture: Energy Use Efficiency in the American South
Environmental Challenges and Solutions 1 Series Editor: Robert J. Cabin Carl F. Jordan An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture Energy Use Effi ciency in the American South An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture Environmental Challenges and Solutions Volume 1 Series Editor Robert J. Cabin, Brevard College, Brevard, NC, USA Aims and Scope The E nvironmental Challenges and Solutions series aims to improve our understanding of the Earth’s most important environmental challenges, and how we might more effectively solve or at least mitigate these challenges. Books in this series focus on environmental challenges and solutions in particular geographic regions ranging from small to large spatial scales. These books provide multi- disciplinary (technical, socioeconomic, political, etc.) analyses of their environ- mental challenges and the effectiveness of past and present efforts to address them. They conclude by offering holistic recommendations for more effectively solving these challenges now and into the future. All books are written in a concise and readable style, making them suitable for both specialists and non-specialists starting at fi rst year graduate level. Proposals for the book series can be sent to the Series Editor, Robert J. Cabin, at [email protected]. For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/11763 Carl F. Jordan An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture Energy Use Effi ciency in the American South Carl F. Jordan Odum School of Ecology University of Georgia Athens , GA , USA ISSN 2214-2827 ISSN 2214-2835 (electronic) ISBN 978-94-007-6789-8 ISBN 978-94-007-6790-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6790-4 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013940176 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) I dedicate this book to my former graduate students. As each completed his or her work, I asked myself, “What have I learned from the work of this student?” As I wrote this book, I realized that each contributed in a unique way toward the development of ideas presented here. Their names and contributions are (cid:129) Krista Jacobsen, A systems analysis of an organic agro-ecosystem – Spring Valley Ecofarm (cid:129) Yolima Carrillo, Food chains in the soil ecosystem – Spring Valley Ecofarm (cid:129) Josh Egenolf , Intensive grazing management – Spring Valley Ecofarm (cid:129) Kathleen Raven, Jason Mann , Agricultural education – Spring Valley Ecofarm (cid:129) Britt Faucette, Sediment control measures for construction activities – Spring Valley Ecofarm (cid:129) Rodrigo Matta Machado, Eleanor Green, Jonathan Reichlen, Nutrient dynamics in agroforestry – Piedmont region, Georgia (cid:129) Han Xingguo, Rosa Guedes, Robert Potter, Dowon Lee, Soil organic matter and phosphorus solubilization in highly weathered soils of the Georgia Piedmont (cid:129) Justin Ellis, Diffusion of innovations among small scale farmers – Georgia Mountains (cid:129) Christopher Uhl, Jiragorn Gajaseni , Energy use effi ciency in shifting cultivation – Venezuela – and in rice cultivation – Thailand (cid:129) Florencia Montagnini, Mixed species forest plantations – Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina (cid:129) Paul Wojtkowski , Economics of agroforesty – Bahia, Brazil (cid:129) Jess Parker, Jeff Luvall, Effect of disturbance on energy fl ow in a rain forest – Costa Rica (cid:129) Robert Buschbacher, Impact of cattle in an Amazonian pasture, Venezuela (cid:129) Manuel Maass, Ecosystem management for erosion control – Mexico (cid:129) Rita Mesquita, Ecosystem recovery – the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Brazil (cid:129) Garo Batmanian, Reforestation of degraded pastures – the Carajas Project, Brazil (cid:129) Suzanne Kolb , Reforestation of degraded pastures – the Atlantic Forest Project, Brazil (cid:129) Charles Russell , Environmental problems of monoculture plantations – the Jari Project, Brazil (cid:129) Christian Castallanet, Participatory Action Research – Brazil (cid:129) Cornelius Burns, Adaptation of ecological communities – El Yunque, Puerto Rico (cid:129) Christopher Miller, Eduardo Asanza, Jay Becker , Use of ecologically adapted species for economic production – Ecuador (cid:129) Kristina Laidlaw, Environmental outreach – Costa Rica (cid:129) Julie March, Laura Ediger, Jeffrey Stoike , Political ecology – the impact of agricultural policy on rural communities – Brazil, China, Panama Preface In 1943, I spent a boyhood summer on a small potato farm in Northern Maine. The plow and the potato sprayer were pulled by a team of Belgian draft horses, Bob and Barney. Manure for fertilizer was shoveled by hand. The one-room school house nearby closed during potato picking season, so the children could help. Life was hard, but that is just the way things were. But agriculture elsewhere had begun to change. In the Mid-West, threshing machines had already replaced scythes and fl ails to separate grain from stalks and chaff from grain. Self-propelled combines that combined reaping, threshing, and winnowing into one process were becoming common. Draft animals had already given way to clumsy steam-powered tractors of the early 1900s, and the change to gas- or diesel-powered tractors had just begun. Life on a farm was becoming easier. But the really big revolution in agriculture was only starting. It was an energy revolution that far surpassed all the gains that had occurred in agriculture in the previous 5,000 years. Engineers and scientists had learned how to substitute abundant fossil fuel energy for hand and animal labor, and ineffi cient steam-driven engines. The impact was tremendous. Farming was accomplished by machines that were powered by petroleum and by chemicals that were synthesized from oil. Nitrogen fertilizer became readily available as a result of the energy-intensive Haber–Bosch process. Geneticists bred crop varieties that could take advantage of the new technologies. Everyone benefi tted. Life seemed to be better. Farmers no longer had to toil in the hot sun or cold rain. For city dwellers, food was cheaper, and meat, which was generally unavailable in the 1940s, was plentiful. Farm productivity increased so much that before the end of the twentieth century, the number of farmers in the U.S. dropped to less than 4 % of the population. Farming had become “more effi cient”. In just a few decades, the energy revolution had transformed agriculture. The change in food production was as great as any social or technical revolution in history. It was the essence of “progress”. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The revolution in agricultural energy affected the environment in many ways: dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico from fertilizer runoff in Midwestern grain fi elds; extinctions of honey- bees from excess pesticides in fruit and nut orchards; soil erosion where plowing and drought combined to reduce vegetative cover; rapid spread of disease where vii viii Preface crops have been planted in endless monocultures; aberrant behavior of farm animals confi ned in cramped pens; drying up of aquifers due to wasteful use of irrigation water; and loss of ecological knowledge and farming experience as machinery replaced humans. These impacts have been documented in scores of books, from Rachel Carson’s S ilent Spring to Michael Pollan’s T he Omnivores Dilemma. Wendell Berry’s B ringing it to the Table chronicled the social problems created by “progress” – the steady decline of rural communities and the rise of agribusiness. These critics have called the new agriculture “unsustainable” because of the social and environmental damage that it caused. But what has ever been “sustainable” in a world that is constantly changing? I have wrestled with this problem throughout my professional career, fi rst as an environmental scientist for the Atomic Energy Commission where I tracked radioactive isotopes in the environment, and then as a Research Professor at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Ecology (now Odum School of Ecology), where I studied the environmental impact of land management, from monocultures in the Brazilian Amazon to organic farms in Georgia. During my career, I have written many books and scientifi c publications. In some ways, the effort has been frustrating. My primary interest was applying scientifi c knowledge to management problems, but in most cases I was constrained to publishing in the standard scientifi c format. There was little room to discuss limitations of the scientifi c method to solving environmental problems and to suggest alternative ways for scientists to understand how ecosystems function. Gene Odum pinpointed the problem when he said “Scientists are good at identifying environmental problems, but are not of much use in solving them.” The reason is that the most common scientifi c approach to environmental challenges has been reductionistic, that is, an analysis of ecosystem components. In the case of agriculture, some scientists focus on insect pest control, others on soil fertility, weed control, plant breeding, and so forth. The hope is that someone somewhere will put it all together to come up with a farming system that is more sustainable. This rarely happens. Scientists cannot solve agricultural problems when their vision is confi ned to a narrow segment of the farm.* In contrast to reductionism, this book takes a systems approach, that is, it looks at properties of entire ecosystems such as energy use effi ciency and effi ciency of nutrient cycling, properties that emerge from the interactions of all the components of a farm and that form the basis of sustainability. In the scientifi c literature, there are discussions here and there of ecosystem properties, but rarely if ever have they been used to analyze agricultural sustainability. Framing solutions to agricultural problems in terms of ecosystem properties can increase the understanding of sus- tainability and of ways to achieve it. Solutions in the American South based on such an understanding are the basis for this book. Athens, GA, USA Carl F. Jordan Fall, 2012 *“Never trust an expert.” Anonymous farmer. Acknowledgments The inspiration for the ideas that I present in this book include: (cid:129) Howard T. Odum , who started my career with a term at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. His characterization of modern agriculture as “potatoes made of oil” inspired this book. (cid:129) Eugene P. Odum , who encouraged me throughout my 35 years at the University of Georgia. About my excursions to the tropics, he would often say, “Carl, that research is fi ne, but you need to do something for the people of Georgia who pay your salary.” So I did – I started Spring Valley Ecofarms, a farm in Athens, Georgia, dedicated to research in sustainable agriculture and to education and outreach for students from K-12 through Ph.D. (cid:129) Frank B. Golley , always ready to take a morning break and discuss the problems of agriculture. It is not the problems o f , he would say to me, the problem i s agriculture. I thank Drs. Alan Covich and Robert Cabin for their helpful comments on a draft manuscript of this book. ix
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