Free range pigs help fertilise the fields. Courtesy Countryside.com
Most developed countries import a massive amount of food – especially animal feed. Under any circumstances, this is unsustainable. But a new report from a French research body asserts that if we take just a few simple steps, most developed regions could easily sustain their populations’ projected future food requirements – and in an organic way too. By Jeremy Torr.
Paris, June 2021. “Something that gets in our way that we manage to accept and move past can in fact be a source of ideas,” says Guy Richard, director at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture (INRAE).
Richard is one of the contributors to a new report from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) that uses the EU as an example of a potential continent-wide switch to more sustainable farming practices.
“Something that gets in our way can in fact be a source of ideas.” - Guy Richard, director at INRAE. Courtesy INRAE.
The CNRS report asserts that an organic, sustainable, biodiversity-friendly agro-food system could develop enough capacity to completely feed Europe within the next 30 years or so, simply through the introduction of three key initiatives. These are:
a change in human diet
the use of agroecology
optimal manure recycling
The new report says that although food has become one of the major challenges of our time, an organic, sustainable, balanced coexistence between agriculture and the environment would produce sufficient food to sustain the continent into the foreseeable future.
“On the one hand, there would previously be the typical cereal farm which mainly uses synthetic (farming methods) and exports its products to the world market. On the other hand, there would be a (system) where agricultural activities coordinate with each other to maximise the ecosystem effectiveness,” says Richard.
Intensive animal farming comes with several unsustainable byproducts. Courtesy Modern Farmer.
“In other words, (the use of) a coupling between field crops and livestock to complete the natural cycles, coordination between agriculture and other activities, recycling, and so on,” he adds. He notes that between the two current extremes of agri-industry and subsistence farming, there can be highly effective links between “livestock and crops, the use of biocontrol products, no-till, agroforestry, circular economy systems with the use of organic effluents and so on.”
The first of the key changes mentioned in the report, a change in diet, would demand a reduction in consumption of animal products. This, say the researchers would lead to a reduction in intensive livestock farming and a corresponding reduction of runoff pollution as well as feed import cuts of imported feedstock like soy and grains.
The second change, the widespread introduction of agroecology, would see an increase in the use of longer, more diversified crop rotation systems. This would likely see the introduction of more nitrogen-fixing legumes such as peas, vetches, clovers, beans and others, which would enable significant reductions of synthetic (oil-hungry) nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides.
Poop and stock - a fertile combination. Courtesy Modern Farmer.
But the last and most controversial suggestion for a self-sufficient farm ecosystem is the bringing together crops and livestock to allow optimal manure recycling. This is now generally not the case in intensive farm installations which concentrate either on arable or animal production, often driven by local environments or access to transport hubs.
Add to this the introduction of higher volumes of recycled human waste, and agricultural efficiencies could be even higher. It has been estimated that recycling just 70% of human waste could make a massive difference to sustainable goals, given that we produce 290 million tons of faeces and almost 2 billion litres of urine every year.
The report notes that many of the current agricultural centres are highly localised, disconnected from user markets and concentrated in ultra-specialized regions which do not play to each others’ strengths. Any reduction in transport carbon would be a bonus, and there should also be a significant reduction in waterway and water table pollution from phosphate and nitrogen run-off. This would also promote a reduction in algal blooms, and more healthy fish stocks too.
“Europe's agro-food system has been marked by intensified use of synthetic fertilisers, territorial specialisation, and integration in global food and feed markets,” note the report’s authors. “Nitrogen an essential nutrient for all plants, but also the cause of many serious environmental problems,” adds key researcher Rasmus Einarsson.
The (projected) new agriculture scenario demonstrates the possibility of feeding the projected population in 2050 without imports of feed and with half the current level of environmental nitrogen which harm ecosystems and human well-being, say the researchers. And the final bonus to this approach is that as well as boosting local production to cater for a new dietary approach, there would be enough grain left over to export cereals to food-poor countries.
“An organic, sustainable, biodiversity-friendly agro-food system, could be implemented … that would allow a balanced coexistence between agriculture and the environment as well as sustainably feeding the population,” say the report’s authors.
Good news indeed.