Category Archives: Global Food Production

Climate Change, Education, Environmental Science, Fish, Global Food Production, Oceans, Sustainability, Technology

Hot, Hungry Planet will be a book!

I’m happy to report that my book, Hot, Hungry Planet, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan. Look for it in Fall 2016. The contract is signed. Let the writing commence!

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Hot, Hungry Planet is a narrative about the people attempting to reconcile the threat of climate change with the need to feed a growing world population. In Hot, Hungry Planet, I take readers on a global journey that explores the human story behind complex, hot-button issues of food security, social justice, climate change, and the environment. I started to post some of my food/ag/environment-related stories on this blog, https://www.hothungryplanet.com, and you will find more original reporting here in the weeks and months to come. 

Climate Change, Global Food Production, Sustainability

Agricultural Movement Tackles Challenges of a Warming World

 

Cristo Perez, an agronomist at Fedearroz — the Colombian rice growers association — selects rice plants at La Victoria research center in the Cordoba region of northern Colombia. Fedearroz is working with a variety of Colombian and international organizations to develop so-called "climate-smart" agricultural techniques that protect farmers from the effects of global warming and improve crop yields, while also limiting greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo credit: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)
Cristo Perez, an agronomist at Fedearroz — the Colombian rice growers association — selects rice plants at La Victoria research center in the Cordoba region of northern Colombia. Fedearroz is working with a variety of Colombian and international organizations to develop so-called “climate-smart” agricultural techniques that protect farmers from the effects of global warming and improve crop yields, while also limiting greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo credit: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)

By Lisa Palmer

The original version of this article appeared on Yale Environment 360.

Rice is a thirsty crop. Yet for the past three years, Alberto Mejia has been trying to reduce the amount of water he uses for irrigation on his 1,100-acre farm near Ibague in the tropical, central range of the Colombian Andes.

He now plants new kinds of rice that require less water. He floods his paddies with greater precision and has installed gauges that measure the moisture content of the soil. On a daily basis he can determine how much nitrogen the plants need, and he relies on more advanced weather forecasting to plan when to fertilize, water, and harvest the grain.

“We are learning how to manage the crops in terms of water, which will be a very, very good help for us now and in the future,” Mejia says, adding that the current El Niño weather pattern has caused serious drought. “We have very difficult days — hot, with no rain. It’s dry. There are fires in the mountains … Growing crops makes it a complicated time here.”

Ever since a drought devastated his yields five years ago, Mejia has been eager to integrate sweeping changes into his rice production. He believes that the weather has become more erratic and is concerned that future climate change will make rice farming even more difficult. As a result, and with the help of his local rice growers association and scientists from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, he is embracing what has come to be known as “climate-smart agriculture.” These are agricultural techniques that protect farmers from the effects of global warming and improve crop yields, while also limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

For complete article, please see Yale e360.

At the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, researchers measure the greenhouse gas emissions of rice production. One of the goals of so-called "climate-smart agriculture" is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from practices such as flooding rice fields, which increases the release of methane. The climate-smart agricultural movement also aims to strengthen global food security, improve resilience to climate change, and help 500 million small farmers adapt to more stressful growing conditions. (Photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT)
At the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, researchers measure the greenhouse gas emissions of rice production. One of the goals of so-called “climate-smart agriculture” is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from practices such as flooding rice fields, which increases the release of methane. The climate-smart agricultural movement also aims to strengthen global food security, improve resilience to climate change, and help 500 million small farmers adapt to more stressful growing conditions. (Photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT)

 

Climate Change, Global Food Production, Sustainability, Technology

Hi, honey. I’m home. What did you print for dinner?

Technology on the Menu 256px-FoodMeat

By Lisa Palmer

A few weeks ago I attended a panel discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. about food technology of the future. Much of the discussion centered on the production of meat. That’s because Andras Forgacs was on the panel. Forgacs is the CEO of Modern Meadow, a Brooklyn-based, venture-funded company that uses tissue engineering to develop meat and leather in a laboratory setting. Using a 3D printer, the meat is bioprinted onto pectin, the leading ingredient in making jam, and then grown in a sterile vat. It’s a method of beef production from the cells of healthy cow, and it is opening eyes. I wrote about the cutting edge of meat alternatives and cultured meat last May. You can read the story here.

Since becoming a public policy scholar at The Wilson Center in July, I have focused my research and writing on sustainable food production. I’ve written extensively on food technology, beef production, and the search for how to produce more protein for the world’s growing population without using too much water, destroying forests, or depleting ocean fish stocks. So I perked up when heard about the resource conservation methods of Modern Meadow and the potential for printed meat.

Raising animals for food contributes to climate change through the emissions of greenhouse gases and the destruction of forests and grasslands to grow the grain they eat. It also consumes a lot of water. Today it’s a bothersome problem, but it’s increasingly becoming a serious one. Beef production is a driver of global change and the problem will likely get much worse very soon, given the expected growth in the world’s population and demand for meat protein.

You can read about bioprinting and 3D printing of food in my article for FutureFood2050. For the piece, I talked with Hod Lipson, director of Cornell University’s Creative Machines Lab, whose team created the first food 3-D printer about a decade ago. “What food printing offers is a way to combine information technology software and biometrics with cooking in a way that was never possible before,” Lipson told me.

From Lipson’s perspective, 3-D printing is in its infancy and food printing is in the gestational stage. But a handful of companies like Modern Meadow are printing meat (though it’s not yet available to consumers) while others are producing commercially available machines that can print food. I write:

In the future, Lipson anticipates that sophisticated 3-D printing will offer home cooks the ultimate control over the ingredients that go into their food without giving up the convenience of manufactured products.

Here’s the complete story: http://futurefood2050.com/3-d-printers-hit-home/

Environmental Science, Fish, Global Food Production, Oceans, Sustainability

Verlasso reduces reliance on wild-caught fish for salmon feed

By Lisa Palmer

I ate farmed salmon for years before thinking twice about it. Then about ten years ago, beginning with news reports from Ken Weiss, an environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times, I learned about the chemicals and pollutants associated with farmed salmon. I began to understand the unsustainable nature of salmon aquaculture; in addition to antibiotics, pesticides and artificial dyes to color the flesh of the farmed salmon, I learned that what they ate—fish meal made from anchovies, sardines and menhaden– was quickly depleting forage fish fromVerlasso AquaChile  the world’s oceans.

Fast forward to this past May in Laguna Niguel, California, at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference. Sustainably farmed salmon found its way onto my lunch plate. The fish, from Verlasso, a joint venture between DuPont and AquaChile, earned a “good alternative” rating last year from the Monterey Bay Aquariums Seafood Watch program—the first among Atlantic salmon raised in ocean pens to earn this distinction.  Verlasso salmon is raised on fish meal that is just 25 percent wild fish and 75 percent Omega-3 rich yeast.Verlasso

I caught up with Scott Nichols, the man behind the Verlasso venture, for a story in Future Food 2050. Here’s how it begins:

 As a child living in Hawaii, Scott Nichols woke early. By 6 a.m., the 5-year-old boy had usually reeled in his first catch from a pre-dawn fishing expedition with his dad. The first week that he carried his bounty—a whole fish—into the family kitchen for breakfast, his father gave him an impromptu lesson in gutting and cleaning fish. And a love affair with seafood was born.

Much later in life, Scott Nichols found himself in the lucky position of being able to turn that love for fish into a business venture. As a biochemist with a doctorate from UCLA who also studied business at the Wharton’s Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Nichols was in charge of DuPont’s business development. It was 2006, and the company had created an innovation around bio-based omega-3 fatty acids: DuPont’s genetically modified yeast could substitute for fish oils and preserve the omega-3 fatty acids. But Nichols knew it was a breakthrough in another area as well. “In the blink of an eye, I realized that we could solve a big problem with salmon aquaculture,” says Nichols, who now directs Verlasso, a joint venture between DuPont and AquaChile—an aquaculture operation based in Patagonia—that was formalized in 2009. Before the partnership, DuPont had been involved in supplying the aquaculture industry but had no experience in aquaculture production.

Fish oil produced from wild-caught fish supplies critical nutrients that farmed salmon need to grow, but these wild-caught fish are harvested unsustainably. By 2006, salmon aquaculture was consuming some 80 percent of the world’s fish oil and still growing at a rate of 8 to 10 percent per year. Oily fish like anchovies, menhaden and mackerel provide the main source of fish oils, and their harvests are threatened as their populations deplete.

To read the complete story, go to www.futurefood2050.com.

“There seems to be precious little international enthusiasm to talk about how to reduce pressure on fisheries, but it is surely needed.” —Scott Nichols

Climate Change, Environmental Science, Global Food Production, Sustainability

Lisa Palmer appointed public policy scholar

Lisa PalmerIn July, Lisa Palmer was appointed public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. She is conducting independent research and reporting on food, agriculture, the environment, and population. Her Wilson Center project, “Feeding a Hot and Hungry Planet,” will examine agriculture, population and climate change, with special emphasis on solutions-oriented perspectives across disciplines.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the national, living memorial honoring President Woodrow Wilson. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world. Created by an Act of Congress in 1968, The Wilson Center is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and supported by both public and private funds.

 

Global Food Production, Sustainability

Calestous Juma – Future Food 2050

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A_1 12 11Calestous35goodReading articles by Calestous Juma should be a requirement for anyone interested in agriculture, Africa, and economic development. The assignment wouldn’t be a burden. Juma is a prolific writer; and his regular posts in The Guardian, at Harvard’s Kennedy School, or on Twitter, arm you with a range of information on agricultural innovation in Africa.

Continue reading Calestous Juma – Future Food 2050 →

Climate Change, Education, Global Food Production, Sustainability

Famine Is a Feminist Issue

In 2013 the United Nations Population Division revised its population projections to show that population could grow even faster than previously anticipated, especially in Africa. Planning ahead for feeding a hot, hungry, teeming planet is both a numbers game and social venture. Calories, climate change, and acres of land are some of the factors on one side of the equation. The 7 billion people in the world, projected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, are on the other.

Continue reading Famine Is a Feminist Issue →

Global Food Production

What can Madagascar teach us about rice and water?

July 30, 2013 — by Lisa Palmer

The idea that a simple grain like rice could change the world may seem far-fetched. But as a growing population and climate change put pressure on a hot, hungry planet, rice is playing an increasingly important role.

Rice is a major source of calories for half of the world’s population, and how rice is grown affects yields and affects the environment. Irrigated rice is normally covered with water. Flooding rice paddies suppresses weed growth, but it also uses enormous quantities of water and increases methane emissions when plant matter decomposes in flooded fields.

Twenty-five years ago small holder farms in Madagascar began growing rice using a methodology that doesn’t flood rice paddies continuously. With aerated soil, rather than flooded fields, farmers plant single, young seedlings directly into rows along with nutrients. The rice produces deeper roots and since the field isn’t flooded, the roots of the plants don’t suffocate. The result is stronger root and larger plants that produce heavier grain. And, in addition to using less water, the method requires less land preparation and fertiliser, although more weeding is required.

Growers produce more grain per hectare, conserve water resources, and create fewer environmental impacts. The system has spread from farmer to farmer, and 2.5 million of them in 50 countries have adopted these methods.

Now, a California-based company, Lotus Foods, is promoting this agriculture method, called the system of rice intensification (SRI) by providing farmers access to a global marketplace. Branded under the More Crop Per Drop label, the company sells six varieties of SRI-grown rice, including Madagascar Pink Rice. “Flooding rice paddies uses a third of our planet’s freshwater resources,” says Caryl Levine, co-owner of Lotus Foods, adding that the agriculture business doesn’t like this method because “there is nothing to buy and it is so farmer friendly.”

According to Olivia Vent, SRI liaison at Lotus Foods, the rice is better for the planet because it uses 50% less water and 90% less seed, yet results in up to three times conventional yields. The SRI method improves root growth and enriches soil, she says.

Lotus foods began by importing 20 tonnes of SRI-grown rice from Cambodia in 2008. Now the company imports 200 tonnes in the Cambodian supply chain and nearly the same amount of SRI-rice from Indonesia. Imports from Madagascar are fragile, Vent says, due to political instability and imports of pink rice are substantially lower.

So, is that the end of flooded paddy fields?

Lewis Ziska doesn’t think so. Ziska is a plant physiologist at the US department of agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service in Maryland. He says that scientists have not been able to replicate the yields claimed by those who developed the SRI methods. Still, conserving water resources and reducing methane emissions is critical for a changing climate, he says.

According to the International Water Management Institute, one-quarter of the world’s irrigated rice lowlands, which supply three-fourths of the world’s irrigated rice, will experience water scarcity under climate change.

Vent of Lotus Foods says the environment is protected through the SRI-growing methods because the rice fields require no synthetic chemicals, which often makes its way into water systems. “So often, the water flooding the fields is connected to natural habitats. The water wasn’t getting into those places and was hurting plants and animals of the forests.

Vent adds that in Vietnam, fish life has come back in areas surround rice fields, and fishing has since become an important cash crop and nutrition source.

This story originally appeared in The Guardian