Feeding The Future: How Sustainable Farming Methods Will Have To Become The New Norm
A population that is growing at a hyper exponential rate and the depletion of resources poses a problem concerning food security in the future. Historically, traditional farming methods met our needs but as climate change changes weather patterns, soil becomes less nutrient rich, and space becomes limited, we must turn to different ways of farming to continue to be able to provide food for a growing population. Every country in the world faces some type of malnutrition and the amount of malnourished people has been approximated at between 2 and 3 billion. These trends in population growth and malnourishment create an urgent problem that puts stress on the natural resources we rely on.
How we will feed the future is one of the biggest questions that will face our generation and they ones to come as traditional farming methods will cease to provide the food needed. Farmers now have turned to using fertilizer to provide nutrients for plants, and to using genetically modified seeds that are resistant to harsh weather and provide a higher yield in a smaller space to feed more people. However these band- aide solutions have severe drawbacks that have inspired practices called sustainable agriculture. The goal of sustainable agriculture is to meet society's food needs in the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Growers working in sustainable agriculture use methods that promote soil health, minimize water usage, and lower pollution levels. Meeting these goals requires different disciplines such as biology, economics, engineering, chemistry and more to create new solutions to a growing and urgent problem. Some of these possible solutions are aquaponics, genetically modified food, vertical farming, and sustainable farming practices.
While all these have potential and some are well studied, not all solutions are created equal. Genetically modified food and aquaponics have the highest potential of increasing yield and putting less strain on the environment despite their drawbacks. Past and current research shows that GMOs are not a hazard but GMOs are not proven to be safe. GM foods are more sustainable than some farming practices due to the fact that they provide more food with similar to less harmful impacts on the environment, but there is still no conclusive research and data stating what type of agriculture is the most sustainable and what is the most viable solution to and ongoing and urgent issue.
Analyzing and deciding what direction we need to move comes down to two factors, how much can you produce and what is the impact on the environment. This is a subjective question and the answer will depend on who you ask, however for the purpose of this paper we will make the assumption that the best option is the one that has the highest ratio of yield to impact on environment. Some sustainable farming practices are not new or high tech, these practices take a more traditional approach to farming with a few tweaks. These practices include crop rotation, eliminating tillage, and applying integrated pest management IPM) to name a few. While crop rotation increases the nutrients in the soil and improves crop yield, this advantage may be too little too late as we already are looking for different ways to have higher yield in even less space.
Additionally crop rotation requires the proper equipment to handle this practice that can be expensive for smaller farms or not worth it to larger ones. Like crop rotation, no till farming it works to try and conserve precious topsoil by only creating a narrow trench for seeds to be placed in instead of mixing up and aerating the soil because it leads to faster soil erosion. Although this is good this practice does not increase yield it only makes an existing practice more sustainable. Good but not enough.
The goal of IPM is to reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides by using natural and physical barriers to keep pests out. Some of these include removing pests physically using a forceful spray of water or introducing natural enemies of the past in order to control pest population. While this can increase yield and it is more sustainable because less chemicals get into runoff and water supply, the increase in produce is minimal and a hassle for farms especially large ones making this kind of pest management less incentivising. Vertical farming is the practice of producing food in vertically stacked layers in spaces like warehouses or skyscrapers in order to reduce farming footprint. There are multiple variations of the implementation of this practice but all are based off the idea that plants are stacked and use hydroponic and aeroponics eliminating the need for soil. The newest and largest project regarding this system is a design created by architect Vincent Callebaut who designed 6 cairn shaped structures built to consume more CO2 than it produces. This design utilizes glass walls to let in light to reduce need for artificial lighting and to double as a greenhouse for plants inside. The outside has trees growing on eposes roofs and wind turbines to produce clean energy. The core of the building is versatile and be used as office space, community space, shops, or apartments. The goal is for the building to be self-sustainable and reuse all waste products. This type of urban farming and energy production is a peak into what the future may look like however structures similar to these are super expensive and are not a viable option for smaller cities or any area with shallow pockets. This idea however has a lot of potential if executed in a less expensive fashion. In other words great idea hard to implement.
Currently no major projects have been executed due to the fact that very little research and discussion has happened over this topic. Before starting these projects it is necessary to expand building information modeling horizons and put more research into vertical farming management for this to be a success. Sustainable agricultural practices like aquaponics function similarly to that of an ecosystem in nature. The two main advantages aquaponics has it that it uses 1/6th of the water that normal farming uses to grow 8 times more food per acre. Since agriculture uses 80-90% of the United States’ usable water supply this comes as a huge advantage. Additionally the aquaponics system allows you to raise fish and grow vegetables at the same time by using the water that the fish live is to grow plants in fish water where fish waste provides all the nitrogen potassium, and phosphorus. By doing this the plants purify the water and use the nutrients to grow. This system also makes using herbicides and pesticides impossible because the chemicals will affect the fish thus making the vegetables organic and free from chemicals.
One study compares production impacts of aquaponics to more conventional greenhouse cultivation. They compared three different types of production strategies, lake based aquaculture, pond based aquaculture, and aquaponics using lettuce as the produce of choice for all three groups. Results showed that aquaponics reduces damage associated to human health by 79.6% and 88.18% when compared to lake based and pond based aquaculture respectively. In addition their data shows that damage to ecosystems id reduced 49.02% and 75.19% by using aquaponics over pond based aquaculture and lake based aquaculture respectively. These statistics and nature of the design of the aquaponics system make for huge advantages that have positive impacts in many areas such as economics, sustainability, health, soil scarcity, and shrinking amounts of farmable land. As the population continues to grow and more food is needed to be produced, making sure the environmental impact of farming is limited is a must. Aquaponics is a great solution to this growing problem for many reasons: it saves water by using less than 10% of what normal agriculture uses, does not require soil to grow, grows in places where it won’t normally grow, such as inside or on concrete, produces no waste, and since it is able to grow more places, it reduces transportation distance. These advantages are highly beneficial especially the ability to create these systems in almost any location. However no idea is perfect.
Aquaponics is expensive to get up and running and may not be worth it for individual family units since only fish and vegetable like plants come from these units. In addition running these aquaponic systems takes a bit of knowledge and tweaking if water is too dirty or plants need more nutrients. If Aquaponics were implicated on a larger scale it has the potential to make a huge difference in environmental and human health. On a small scale these systems can appear to not make a huge difference but on a large scale this solution is exciting. Large scale implementation would mean more food grown in urban areas in homes, community spaces, and even by local companies reducing the need to import and transport mass amount of food from other places, making it cheaper as well. This soilless system can eliminate the need for soil in vegetable growing allowing the topsoil to have more time to replenish and be used for crops where aquaponics is not an option. The use of these systems also is a major health benefit to people on a wider scale since no harmful chemicals are used in the process and the fish do not have mercury in them due to the biomagnification of chemicals. By having more sustainably raised fish available it reduces the demand for fish elsewhere which has the positive impact of reducing overfishing in oceans. Despite the initial high cost of setup and care for these systems, it is still necessary to start to implement them. No solution is free and although the price is higher than some other options it provides the most benefit per dollar.
Another option for increasing food supply is one that is highly debated and has a long list of pros and cons. Genetically Modified Organisms or more commonly, GMO’s are “the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially forced into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal.” There is a rising movement against GMOs as they have very little regulation and have known health risks. The institute for Responsible Technology states, “‘Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with genetically modified (GM) food (AAEM 2009),’ including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal systems.” Society is calling for food producers to label their products and people are trying to avoid GMOs as much as they can but, GMOs are not inherently harmful. These advancements in biotechnology have the potential to solve global issues like global hunger and malnutrition by genetically modifying plants to grow is desolate areas or in dry climates. With regulation, thorough testing, and corporate accountability, genetically modified organisms can feed the future.
There still is a key issue with GMOs becoming the future for foods. The ability to grow food in new places and increase yield is great however it is not sustainable and seems to be a band-aid approach to a long term problem. GMOs extend the amount of time we have until we must find a different approach instead of working towards sustainable, economical, healthy approaches that may take more time. In the future ideally we will see a combination of all food solutions to work together as we make the transition to a more environmentally and sustainable future for foods. GMOs however is not the single solution to our problems, we need to work towards food security that is not based in labs but through natural systems with the help of GMOs not because of them. GMOs will be part of our future but how much so depends on society's ability to change, adapt, and care about our future.
The future of food depends on where we take it and there are different outcomes for different choices regarding how we deal with food security locally and globally. In the short term we need to utilize the existence of GM foods heavily to help solve current malnutrition issues while we establish longer term more environmentally friendly and sustainable options for the future. The future will not have food if we don’t start this process now. Ideally food will come from a variety of different sources some traditionally farmed, some aquaponics, some vertical farming, and some urban farming. This gives us the option for food to be produced in many different environments so that no one source is heavily depended on. However while this should be the goal, we must first establish the food source that will have the least impact on the environment and the most yeild. According to the definition that the best choice would be the one with the highest ratio of yield to negative impact on environment, aquaponics would be the answer if we limit ourselves to the food production methods discussed in the piece. This is because not only does aquaponics have a positive impact on soil health, it has a much smaller impact on water usage making it a very environmentally friendly option. Additionally the system allows you to grow and harvest both plants and fish which would be healthier than some current options due to the fact the impact of biomagnification would be less in fish and that the plants would not be exposed to harmful chemicals that humans could eat. The mass implementation of this system would be the first step in setting ourselves up for a hunger free future.
