FARMING

Modern-day agriculture is a huge contributor to our planet's problems. How huge? 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from world agriculture.

Here's why:

About 10,000 years ago, we began to farm. Why keep roaming around hunting food like cavemen when we could grow it like civilized Homo sapiens? We settled in warmer climates where the soil was best. As settlements grew, more land was cleared to make way for farming. Fast forward a few millennia, and many places had no more land to spare. No worries: Colonialism was born. New land, new opportunities. Think about all the regions in the world that have been altered forever for farming: the forests of New Zealand cleared for sheep, North American prairie cultivated for cattle, wheat and corn. Three quarters of China was originally forested; now, only 5% remains covered by trees. In the U.S., all but 6% of old-growth forests have been cleared. Half of the world's tropical forests have been cleared since World War II, mostly for agriculture. There wasn’t much choice. We, as a species, grew. And so did our appetite.

Now nobody is saying agriculture has to go. Obviously. That would be suicide on a number of levels, like most importantly, food and economics. But just consider what it does to the planet:

Today it takes 20 times more energy to produce the same amount of food it took in 1910. That’s because farms are becoming super-farms, running on gas, diesel and ultra-souped-up barn equipment. 38 million kilograms of pesticide are used every year in Canada. Just one of those kilograms of pesticide releases 3.7 kilograms of greenhouse gases.¹ Brutal!

Primary agriculture is responsible for about 12% of Canada's greenhouse gases. Most of that comes from the methane in manure and the nitrous oxide from fertilizers. It doesn’t even include the greenhouse gases emitted from transportation or agri-food processing. Think of all the energy required for milling, refining, refrigerating and packaging.² Eek.

Primary agriculture in Canada accounts for 61% of nitrous oxide emissions and 38% of methane.³  We know how bad methane is. 30% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions from the agri-food industry comes from Alberta.⁴

And consider this grossness: Canadian livestock produced 164 billion kilograms of manure in 2001. That's enough to fill Toronto's Rogers Centre 103 times per year, or almost twice a week. Livestock manure has 30 times more polluting power than human waste. If it gets into surface water, it can kill fish and cause serious groundwater pollution.⁵

Until modern intensive farming really started to rev up in the mid-20th century, soil was one of the planet’s more hardy carbon sinks, absorbing 75% of the carbon found on land. When land is cultivated it loses 20 to 50% of its organic matter. Cultivation also releases stored carbon into the atmosphere and contributes to erosion and salinization.⁶

You may not be ready to go vegetarian, but you can start thinking about where your food is coming from and the energy consumed to create it. An easy start? Remember the rule of thumb: Buy local, buy seasonal, buy organic.

Want to know more about our (d)evolving food industry? Check out The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

^{1,4 Source: http://www.greenlearning.ca/climate-change/solutions/food/food_selection.php
2,3 Source: http://www.agr.gc.ca/policy/environment/air_03_e.phtml
5 Source: http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/farm.htm
6 Source: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Science/Forests_And_Sinks.asp}