Climate Change and our food supply

I can't possibly include all the resources I have amassed in the short paper I'm working on for the Episcopal Networks Collaborative. So here's an article on one of my favorite fruits, cranberries - just so I won't lose it.
https://foodprint.org/blog/cranberries-climate-change/

From the most recent Hazon e-blast

“Environmental teshuva” is shorthand for a further and renewed commitment to doing better for the planet. It’s a process for each one of us to think about what we are doing, or could or should be doing, going forwards. Environmental teshuva as a minimum – we believe – involves three elements:

1. Making a commitment to further change in our own behavior. (We’re especially encouraging people to reduce or eliminate their consumption of industrial meat and dairy, which is one of the single largest drivers of anthropogenic climate change);
2. Amplifying that by encouraging any institution you are part of to build or strengthen its Green Team, and enter into a multi-year process to drive systemic change...;
3. Being a wider ambassador for change – by volunteering time and/or giving money.

Carbon Farming

We need monetary incentives for farmers transitioning to no-till and other carbon sequestration practices. We've made progress in California. More could be done, and lots more in federal programs.
https://thefern.org/2019/06/one-man-is-trying-to-save-the-world-from-climate-change-by-mobilizing-an-unlikely-team-iowas-farmers/
By the way - this is also an interesting article about the intersection of faith groups, agriculture, and climate change.

The information we have been seeking

I'm still annoyed that CNN did not allow free streaming of the climate town hall, but I probably wouldn't have learned much about the candidates' positions on climate change in relationship to agriculture and the food system. It's not an interest of urban media, even though everybody eats.

Here's a gift from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/climate-change-agriculture-presidential-debates/
I've not had time to study this and follow the links, and but until I do and can comment, here's the dope.

Food news is more interesting than the rest of the headlines

I've made a commitment to myself to post something each week. This week is getting away from me, for too many reasons to recount here.
But I've been meaning to note some of the things I heard on last week's Science Friday, which was heavy on the food system news. First - I want to learn how to make coffee kombucha. Doesn't coffee kombucha and avocado toast sound like a breakfast of champions?
More importantly, there was a long conversation with Amanda Little, the author of The Fate of Food.
You can read and listen here: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/eating-smarter-in-a-warming-world/
But if you are having a busy week too, consider her three tops tip for eating responsibly in the age of rapid climate change.
1) Reduce your consumption of ruminant meat. I would modify that a bit. Reduce your consumption and choose beef and lamb this is pasture-raised in a climate-smart way. More expensive meat means less meat, a good thing.
2) Watch out for food waste, a big contributor to methane emissions. Did you know that people who eat the most healthful diets are apt to generate the most food waste? Develop strategies for smart shopping, good storage practices, leftover management. If you can, find friends with backyard animals who'd like your extras, get a worm farm, compost! There are all kinds of tips for reducing food waste these days. Watch this space.
3) Vote! Seek out and support candidates who are science literate and seeking policy solutions and appropriate incentives for a resilient food system.

Did you know?

From the Pulse Pledge Challenge:

To produce one pound of meat requires roughly 800 - 1800 gallons of water, but to produce one pound of pulses takes only 43 gallons of water.

I can confirm that, roughly, from experience, having grown two and a half pounds of Christmas limas on one teepee the first year of this drought.

Think about it - it's not just the global warming contribution of that hamburger, but the water use.

To produce 1 lb. of meat requires roughly 800-1,800 gallons of water, but to produce 1 lb. of pulses only takes 43 gallons of water!

Wine Cooler?

As though there weren't enough reasons to tempt one to demonize the wine industry for its environmental impact, I read in the CalCAN newsletter that in drought years wineries use 30% more energy in their processing operations. Most every branch of ag uses a third more energy for pumping irrigation water, but wineries exceed other sectors in the energy used for cooling their product and processes. http://calclimateag.org/energy-use-in-a-time-of-drought/

That sent me googling, because I was sure some wineries around here have solar panels, and use green energy to keep the vino, offices, and tasting room cool. Not everyone can have a natural cellar to keep things at cellar temperature.

Here's the place to see if your California tipple is produced by a company that uses solar power:
http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/tasting-room-guide/solar-wineries/

This is going to be increasingly important as the planet heats up and extreme weather events become more frequent.  The question may not be is your wine red, white or pink - but is it green?

An interesting observation

Severe storms this winter have disrupted the delivery of commodities, affecting supply chains and causing waste and loss. It appears that climate change, with increased temperatures and more severe storms, will trouble not just food production, but food distribution.

An article in yesterdays FERN ag insider concludes that the answer will be more local food production and smaller regional and sub-regional food hubs.

We knew this was a good idea, right? But it appears it may not just be an attractive idea, but a necessary one to strengthen the resiliency of local food supplies.

We knew this!

...but now the data supports our assumptions - and then some.

The Weizmann Institute of Science recently completed a study revealing that among animal foods, beef has an environmental impact one order of magnitude higher than the other most common animal foods in the U.S. diet (dairy, eggs, poultry and pork).  They looked at land use, irrigation water use, greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen inputs.  Beef production requires 28, 11, 5, and 6 times more than the average of the other four animal foods!

The method they used can now be used to compare environmental impacts of other animal and plant foods. 

Here's an excerpt from the abstract of the peer-reviewed paper in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences):
"Livestock-based food production is an important and pervasive way humans impact the environment. It causes about one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is the key land user and source of water pollution by nutrient overabundance. It also competes with biodiversity, and promotes species extinctions....We show that minimizing beef consumption mitigates the environmental costs of diet most effectively."
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/17/1402183111.abstract   

Fertilizer

Here's a timely article to read on the subject, just out in National Geographic:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/fertilized-world/charles-text

It sure would be easier to just sprinkle a little concentrated nitrogen compound on my garden than hauling big  bags of compost and building piles to make my own.   After shopping for and getting a couple of bags into my community garden plot today I didn't have energy for much else.  And I need to clean up one bin and spread another of the homegrown stuff.

But the dark sides of synthetic fertilizer are many:  algal blooms, soil depletion, greenhouse gases, explosions.

I've really just looked at the pictures so far, but I hope to read this article soon - after I finish the spring hauling of organic garden amendments.

More on climate change and global food prices

Oxfam America has published a briefing paper
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/files/Extreme-Weather-Extreme-Prices.pdf
modeling the impact of climate change on food prices.

It's already happening, of course.  Drought in middle America this summer means higher corn and wheat prices, among other things.   But that doesn't just mean that your loaf of bread or corn flakes will cost more.   Most corn goes to feed lots or ethanol production or corn derivatives used in highly processed foods.    So prices go up at McDonald's and the meat counter, at the pump, and on any foods containing high fructose corn syrup or corn starch or dextrose or any number of unpronounceables.  And prices go up for countries which buy our surpluses.  

The long form of the report is here, at the international Oxfam site.
http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/reports

I haven't read these reports yet, just skimmed, but I'm planning on doing it soon, when I'm not gleaning, or contacting gleaners, or processing my own produce, or editing documents for our Sonoma County Community Garden Network, or wondering when I am going to find the time this weekend to seek some donations for the brand new Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative.  I'm still committed to keeping up with the global issues, no matter how busy I get with the actions here.   The context of every local food system is global.

climate change on the farm

I don't listen to the News Hour on PBS much anymore, because their bias seems obvious, sponsored as they are by agrichemical companies telling lies.   But this item caught my attention:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/05/climate-change-on-the-farm.html

They want to hear from farmers about how they are experiencing and adapting to climate change.

Interesting.

but not to the South Pacific

I'm referring in the title for this post to the entry below - about moving.

Water supplies have run out in Tuvalu and Tokelau. The drought which precipitated (ouch!)this situation is the result of an El Nina effect in the Pacific. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15163543
But the situation is exacerbated by climate change. As sea levels rise, groundwater sources become saline. http://www.theworld.org/2011/10/an-island-nation-with-no-drinking-water/

Welcome to the world some people don't believe in and others think we can still head off.
While not strictly a food issue, the agriculture practiced in island nations is becoming threatened by the lack of fresh water.

Meanwhile, Samoa has begun rationing. And did you know that there are people in Fiji without access to potable water? Think about that when you see those square bottles on market and convenience store shelves.

What's the good news this St. Francis Day?

Thinking Ahead on World Food Production

Vacation brings its rewards, like lobster rolls, but finding time to think and write when visiting family is a bit difficult.

Before I left town, I wanted to post a link to this August 12 Science Friday podcast:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201108122
There's some excellent analysis about world food prices, relative costs of food, climate change and world water supplies in relationship to agriculture ("The competition [for water] is currently taking place in the global grain market." Lester Brown) There's also a reality check about what biotech and can do. And a critique of agro-fuels.

Another interesting note: is the increase in the number of hungry people, still going up, a sign that we will not reach 9 billion humans on the planet, because infant mortality and other hunger-related deaths will go up. Pretty grim.

But I do find it discouraging that Ira Flatow's initial question was posed in terms of biotech vs. charitable donations of synthetic nitrogen, with no consideration of a third alternative, working with nature to improve yields. Notice the way he directs the conversation with Gawain Kripke from Oxfam America toward the end of the conversation, back to N inputs as the biotech alternative. One of the key low tech solutions to global food security is improving storage of staple crops in the developing world, reducing loss to insects, rodents, and damp, something Kripke slides over and Flatow doesn't pick up on. Nobody talks about this much!

This reminds me that I need to find a few papers on the promise of sustainable agriculture for increase in yields in the developing world. A backyard farmer in my congregation who does everything sustainably at home still clings to the fact that we need subsidized mono-crop production ag in the US to feed the rest of the world.

Useful guide to gardening and climate change

There isn't much new here, especially for those who have been gardening with an eye toward environmental impacts and sustainability, but it's a great summary of the things one can do to lessen a garden's contribution to climate change.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/climate-friendly-gardener.pdf

350 Challenge Reflections

I'm in danger of forgetting what I did, observed and learned last weekend if I don't write a note about it soon!

The 350 garden challenge - planting 350 water wise food gardens in Sonoma County last weekend - was a great success by all measures. I haven't been to IGrow site this week to see how many registered, but last time I checked it was pushing 600, and I know from my own experience that the number of gardens and projects was more than those listed.

I was pretty pleased that my little initiative went well. I potted and delivered 11 tomato plants to elders at the two senior mobile home parks nearest Thanksgiving Lutheran where the garden is. People seemed really appreciative. Some were inexperienced or claimed black thumbs, while others make a habit of growing tomatoes on their patios. I typed up an instruction sheet for those to whom growing a tomato, or growing one in a container, is unfamiliar, and gave them my phone number. It will be interesting to see if I get any sos's - or reports of success as the season develops.

It was great that all the materials were donated. I did buy a couple of cages, but the pots, plants and mix did not cost me anything. I'm still kicking myself that I did not bring my camera to Country mhp on Fulton - the office manager loaded up the potted plants in his golf cart to take them around to the folks who had ordered them. It was a lovely neighborly sight. Best, of course, is that I carried forward my Dad's tradition of supplying potted tomato plants to folks who would like a real tomato at their back door.

The other project I was involved in was moving the berm at TLC. This will be our commons - for berries and pollinator attractants, etc. I did take some photos, and will see if any are worth posting. I think this summer we will just load this raised area up with compost and plant it to the roaming cucurbits. (We got a donation of 10 yards of compost as part of the Challenge.) Then when it's time to put in canes and other perennials in the fall and winter we will have the conversations about exactly what they will be. The one discouragement about this project is that only one of the younger folks who was so eager for it came to do any shoveling and hauling. But who cares - there's a sense of power in realizing what a bunch of middle aged and middle aged plus women can do!

On Sunday evening when I returned from work I planted some of my own garden before heading out to the 350 celebration. I was late and brought no food, so didn't eat. These are not church folks - just as well because there was not enough, instead of the mountains of leftovers at church do's. Is this generational, too? Church folks, and especially church cooks, are older, and imbued with the tradition of casseroles and substantial salads and sides. The people in attendance, in spite of the cold, were great, though. I met several new folks with whom I will definitely follow up.

It is interesting to see generations working together on things like the 350 challenge. There is more of a "let the plan emerge" attitude among the young. This is fine - but if there is a deadline and a goal, it seems to me you do need some structure of coordination for what emerges to fit into, to be accountable. Some of the volunteer organizers delegated, then did it themselves; sent out questions without reading the email they had received which provided the answers already; called me on my cell phone, even though I made clear that that number was to be used by arrangement, and is not my main number. And these were not all young folks. There is a certain potential for frustration in volunteering to help when you are and organizer working for organizers without organizing experience. I suppose it frustrated me also because I am used to organizing based on volunteers' gifts and skills, not just their willingness with no instructions or coaching given.

This week I was back at trying to finish planting my own plot. This is not a really happy thing to be doing, given how cold May has been so far, but I feel under pressure to get things planted with a bit of time to settle before family doings take my time in early June. I must say it's better to be gardening when it's a bit cold than to be attending outdoor parties - two last weekend was enough! And the weather has been great for the lettuce and other cool weather produce. I always forget about the little dividends in the spring garden - the garlic scapes, fava beans, beet and turnip thinnings, etc. They give a new twist to the lingering foods of winter.

Now the question remaining would seem to be - to what extent did the 350 challenge really help people connect the dots between local food production, water conservation, and climate change mitigation? I do hope those organizers plan a return engagement for the fall at the usual time for 350 (ppm CO2) actions.

I'm going to buy this book

Yesterday I returned the library's copy of Cool Cuisine by Laura Stec.

I've actually had some email correspondence with Laura thanks to a member of the Environmental Commission in the Diocese of California. So I wanted to read her book on climate change and our food choices.

There is lots of data here, data you can use, data that's sound scientifically, with footnotes, no less. How our food is produced makes a significant contribution to greenhouse gases - which we knew. But here in one place is the ammo for making the case for those who don't want to spend endless hours surfing the web, and wondering about the edginess of some of the sites with data.

Laura is clearly not a strident purist, but a chef who wants people to do something to make a difference, improving their diet and its pleasures, while lessening their foodprint. One example is her comment on using imported spices and condiments - if they we get you eating more fruits and vegetables which are locally sourced, go ahead. What struck me as strange though, was the lapse into macrobiotic mythology (and I'm afraid here I am using that term not correctly, but pejoratively) in the latter chapters of the book. For me, the woo-woo detracted from the sensible tone of the rest of the work.

You'll also find here suggestions for things to do with others. Start a book and cook club and follow the suggestions for documentaries to watch and tastings to explore. And of course there are recipes. Great photos, too.

This may be a step in the right direction

Posting the CO2 count on food labels in Sweden

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/world/europe/23degrees.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

but it would be even better if they posted the total impact on greenhouse gases - including methane, for example.

And if carrots are a better choice than tomatoes or cucumbers - grown in hothouses - and barley than rice - the parallel may be encouragement to eat even more rhubarb, that northerly fruit substitute.

Climate Change and Food - more resources

There's some hyperbole in this one

http://www.quantumshift.tv/v/1181028043

But hey - they've got Percy Schmeiser. Don't know who Percy is? You only need to watch the first minute of this video to find out.

There's more info on Bye Bye Beef.

I just took the pledge - though it's nothing new for me to be beef free.

http://www.byebyebeef.com/index.html

This is an effort of Peter Kreitler, who has been involved in environmental ministry in the Los Angeles area for years.

Things begin to come to light

I was surprised the other morning on my way to Berkeley to hear our local CBS radio affiliate feature a story, with good background info, on the recent findings of Pepsico about the environmental cost of their Tropicana Orange Juice.

Apparently Pepsico's British affiliate assessed the footprint of one of their products, and when the manager who spearheaded this moved to the U.S. he led a plan to have an outside agency do the math on several key Pepsico products.

One half-gallon of Tropicana o.j. is responsible for 3.75 lbs of CO2.

But then there's the interesting part. 60% of that is a result of growing the oranges and making the juice. 58% of that 60% - more than one third of the total CO2- is due to what Pepsico in their press release calls "grove management" - a lovely euphemism for making and spreading the huge amounts of synthetic high nitrogen (from natural gas) fertilizer required for high yield orange mono-cropping.

Whatever Pepsico calls it, the cost of industrial agriculture is beginning to be revealed.

I wonder if the results of this will encourage or discourage other food manufacturers from risking a little transparency?

Back to the KCBS story - they had a UC Davis ag chemistry prof comment on the story. She talked about organic; but she also talked about the wonderful things we can grow in California without big synthetic fertilizer N inputs. Let's hear it for TOMATOES!