ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

The needed miracle has happened: our grapes are finally ripening.

Although the weather hasn’t exactly been hot and sunny, days have been warm even when overcast, and it hasn’t rained all that much. Persistent cloud cover has kept temperatures up at night.  While we probably won’t end up with the 21° Brix we’d like to see, we should come close and the grapes will be plenty ripe enough to make good wine, even if we have to chapitalize a bit. It’s a good thing, too – all the barrels in our cellar are empty.

Now all that’s left is to fight off the birds and yellowjackets for a few more days. The propane cannon is booming every fifteen minutes or so . . .

and Niko, our house guest from Germany, is on vineyard patrol.

Where’s that wascally wobin?

I’ve been monitoring temperatures inside the solarium since it’s been finished. During the day, temperatures have consistently been 10-15 degrees warmer than outside, even when cloudy. I was surprised to see inside temperatures falling at night to as low as outside temperatures. Since the main objective of the solarium is to provide some frost protection, that was a little troubling. So we added thermal mass, to better hold warmth during the night.

The tubes are 8? PVC, cut from two 20? lengths into five approximately 8? lengths (the shorter pipe is two 4? lengths glued together, which loses a foot). Caps are glued on the bottom and just slipped over the top. The tubes are filled with water, with Rim Guard added as an anti-freeze (Rim Guard is a non-toxic, agricultural byproduct of sugar beet processing, normally used for ballast in tractor tires – it looks and smells like molasses).

After installation of the tubes, I’ve noted low temperatures inside the solarium remaining 2-3 degrees warmer than outside low temperatures at night, which is getting close to the additional warmth we need to protect our tenderest plants during the coldest of cold spells. Our coldest nights come on clear, crisp days when the sun shines brightly, which should allow the tubes to absorb plenty of heat. This winter will reveal how the solarium performs under those conditions.

Last week NASA reported that 2010 through September has been the hottest year on record.

According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunder Blog, 18 nations have recorded a hottest all-time temperature this year, which is a new record. The year 2007 is in second place, with 15 such records. No nations have recorded an all-time coldest temperature so far this year.

Egypt did not make the list of countries setting new record highs. Nevertheless, according to Mohamed Eissa, chairman of the Egyptian Meteorological Authority:

This year, Egypt had its hottest summer in years.

One result: rising food prices.

A recent report by the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC) cited in the local media said crop productivity had dropped by almost 70 percent this year due to rising temperatures. The report – sent to the Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza – said most crops could not tolerate such a sharp increase.

Egypt wasn’t alone in experiencing crop losses. Extreme heat in Russia this summer caused a spike in grain prices due to drought-induced decrease in grain production. The heat also contributed to a decrease in potato and vegetable crops, productivity of livestock and poultry, increased storing expenses for wholesalers and retailers, increased losses in handling and delivery of perishable products, and overall higher levels of food loss.

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters concludes that climate change will see large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis becoming more common due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events. Some areas of the world are becoming hotter and drier, even as more intense monsoon rains increase the risk of flooding and crop damage.

The study is titled Increased crop failure due to climate change: assessing adaptation options using models and socio-economic data for wheat in China.

Another new study titled Drought under global warming: a review warns global warming will lead to multiple, devastating global droughts. This graphic from the study shows increasing severity of drought as the century progresses:

Study author Aiguo Dai emphasizes that quantitative interpretation of the PDSI values shown above requires caution because many of the PDSI values, which are calibrated to the 1950–1979 model climate, are well out of the range for the current climate, based on which the PDSI was designed. Nevertheless, the graphic above, together with all the other studies cited in the study, suggests that drought may become so widespread and so severe in the coming decades that current drought indices may no longer work properly in quantifying future drought.

Now here’s a surprise. From Science Daily:

Side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms and their fruit found the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse.

The paper, titled Fruit and Soil Quality of Organic and Conventional Strawberry Agroecosystems, is published in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE.

All the farms in the current study were in California, where conventional farms use the ozone-depleting methyl bromide (which is slated to be replaced by the highly toxic methyl iodide).

In addition to finding organic strawberries are tastier and better for your health, researchers found the organic soils excelled in a variety of key chemical and biological properties, including carbon sequestration, nitrogen, microbial biomass, enzyme activities, and micronutrients.

The Science Daily article quotes lead author John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science:

Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems. We also show you can have high quality, healthy produce without resorting to an arsenal of pesticides.

The authors offer a summation of the study’s methodology, findings, conclusions and significance:

At multiple sampling times for two years, we evaluated three varieties of strawberries for mineral elements, shelf life, phytochemical composition, and organoleptic properties. We also analyzed traditional soil properties and soil DNA using microarray technology. We found that the organic farms had strawberries with longer shelf life, greater dry matter, and higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds, but lower concentrations of phosphorus and potassium. In one variety, sensory panels judged organic strawberries to be sweeter and have better flavor, overall acceptance, and appearance than their conventional counterparts. We also found the organically farmed soils to have more total carbon and nitrogen, greater microbial biomass and activity, and higher concentrations of micronutrients. Organically farmed soils also exhibited greater numbers of endemic genes and greater functional gene abundance and diversity for several biogeochemical processes, such as nitrogen fixation and pesticide degradation.

Our findings show that the organic strawberry farms produced higher quality fruit and that their higher quality soils may have greater microbial functional capability and resilience to stress. These findings justify additional investigations aimed at detecting and quantifying such effects and their interactions.

Battered by record heat and a drought that has destroyed millions of hectares of crops, Russia – the world’s third largest wheat exporter – has banned grain exports.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced:

In connection with the unusually high temperatures and the drought, I consider it right to impose a temporary ban on the export from Russia of grain and other products produced from grain.

Putin said Russia’s policy after December 31 would be determined by the results of the harvest. Russia has slashed its 2010 grain harvest forecast to 70-75 million tonnes, compared with a harvest of 97 million tonnes in 2009.

The record heat and drought have spawned widespread wildfires. Peat bog fires outside Moscow have shrouded the capital in smog. Wheat prices have soared as Russia sizzles.

Jeff Masters at Wunder Blog reports the Russian population affected by extreme heat is at least double the population of Moscow, which is just over ten million; and the death toll in Russia from the 2010 heat wave is probably at least 15,000, and may be much higher. The only comparable heat wave in European history occurred just seven years ago in 2003, and killed an estimated 40,000 – 50,000 people, mostly in France and Italy.

Masters observes this is the worst heat wave in Russian history:

Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow’s history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record five times in the past two weeks. Temperatures the past 27 days in a row have exceeded 30°C in Moscow. Alexander Frolov, head of Russia’s weather service, said in a statement today, “Our ancestors haven’t observed or registered a heat like that within 1,000 years. This phenomenon is absolutely unique.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says its time to face up to the reality of climate change:

None of us can say what the next summer will be like. The forecasts vary greatly. Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.”

Fat chance of that happening, here. No matter what the evidence, it’s business as usual, pursue growth at any cost, and let the future take care of itself.

Update: Peak Oil News has posted this great graphic showing the distribution of fires:

Scientists are saying the record heat wave in Russia and the deadly heat and flooding in Asia may become the norm rather than the exception. The Peak Oil News piece quotes Professor Michael Mann, a noted paleo-climatologist researcher:

The record heat waves we’re seeing this summer aren’t simply a random event in isolation. They are embedded in the warmest 6 month period the globe has seen in the instrumental record spanning the past 150 years. And a wealth of paleoclimate evidence suggests that the past few decades are the warmest period in at least a thousand years, and perhaps much longer.

The mobile slaughterhouse could play a critical role in the burgeoning local food movement. This photo of a “slaughtermobile” is from an article in the Washington Post. The article reports the USDA is paying more attention to small and mid-size farms, encouraging organic and sustainable agriculture, and investing in projects to bring locally grown meat and produce to consumers.

A mobile slaughterhouse, with a team composed of a butcher and a federal meat inspector, travels from farm to farm.

USDA’s efforts to help small farmers are focused within its “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program, which seeks to help make the link between local production and local consumption.

USDA has published a Mobile Slaughter Unit Compliance Guide to help those who want to establish a mobile slaughter unit under Federal inspection and operate in accordance with Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) regulations.

The Land Institute near Salina, Kansas has been crossing selected strains of wild intermediate wheatgrass grain with annual wheat varieties to breed a commercially practical perennial grain. Gene Logsdon at OrganicToBe.org reports that pancakes made with flour (trademarked Kernza ™) from the resulting grain is pretty tasty.

The flour makes a light dough and the pancakes taste just a tad sweeter than ordinary wheat flour.  * * * It is exceptionally high in some nutrients known to be important to human health and deficient in many modern diets: Omega 3 fatty acids, calcium, lutein, and betaine. It is particularly high in folate, important for preventing stroke, cancer, heart disease and infertility. Folate is also believed to be important for maintaining good mental health in old age.  My mind generally glazes over when reading about nutrient values of various foods so that folate might come in handy. To me the important thing is that for once something that is good for me tastes good too. Kernza ™ does not have enough gluten in it to use alone for leavened breads, but as more and more crosses are made with it and regular wheat, all things are possible.

Being able to grow grain without plowing up millions of acres of soil every year would cut down on erosion and help build soil tilth while enabling farmers to cut way back on fuel and greenhouse gas emissions – saving farmers both time and money in the bargain.

But the search won’t be over until researchers come up with a good perennial bread flour.

Shirin Wertime has a must-read article at Culture Change that poses the question: what will happen to our food system as fossil fuels become increasingly scarce and expensive? The following is my summary of some of the highlights.

Today’s agri-food systems are almost entirely dependent on fossil fuel energy for everything from food production to transportation to food preparation and storage. The structure of agriculture production, aided and abetted by government policies, has spurred the expansion of farm specialization and consolidation, monocultures, the delocalization of agricultural production, and the adoption of industrial farming practices. The increase in globalized food production, which has come at the expense of local production, is sustainable only as long as cheap energy supplies can subsidize the transportation of goods across long distances. It will take deep-rooted structural and institutional changes as well as lifestyle changes on the part of individuals, their governments, and societies to transition to a more sustainable, non-petroleum based food system which oil depletion and rising costs will inexorably force on us.

Farming itself has become the least profitable and least energy intensive segment of the entire economy of agriculture. Only one-fifth of the energy that goes into our mouths is actually used for growing food.  The rest goes to transport, processing, packaging, marketing, and food preparation and storage. Farmers end up with only 10% of the total food dollar, while 25% pays for farm inputs and 65% goes for transportation, processing and marketing. A century ago, farmers ended up with closer to 40% of the food dollar and most farm inputs were produced by the farmers themselves by using draft animal power, storing seeds, and using animal manure for fertilizer.

As oil declines, industrial agriculture in its current form will become impossible. It will prove increasingly difficult to feed the world with diminishing fertile land and water resources. The current structure of power relations and resource control in the United States prevents the widespread move away from fossil fuel based agriculture and transition to localized, sustainable agriculture. Without a change in the status quo, small local and sustainable producers cannot compete against fossil fuel subsidized agribusiness. But the reality is that the present agricultural system cannot be maintained for much longer. Decreasing oil production and rising oil prices will effectively bankrupt the American agri-food system. Without petroleum and all of its benefits, there will be little choice but to revert to a system of local, organic production and consumption.

Peak oil will turn our entire world upside down. There will be a return to localized, small-scale photosynthesis-based, appropriate-tech agricultural production and an end to the domination of economic and power structures that place profit above all else.

Now, I can buy all of this except the last part of the last sentence. I’ll believe in the end of avarice only when I see it.

The focus of public and policy debate about the climate change impact of food has mostly been on transport.  “Food miles” has become shorthand for thinking about the climate change impact of food. But food system related emissions  result not only from the transport of food. Emissions also result from the conversion of land for farming, the process of farming itself, the energy used in food processing and retail, and from food waste.

A new report from Britain titled Local food and climate change – the role of community food enterprises looks at all stages of the supply chain. Using a life cycle analysis, the report takes into account emissions impacts at all stages, from agricultural production (and its associated inputs) through to processing, packing, transport, retailing, home storage and preparation, and final disposal. Its conclusion: carefully designed local food networks can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in every part of the food chain.

Farming itself is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is a major source of methane, which is many times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (methane is 25 times more potent than CO2 over a 100 year time horizon but 72 times as potent over 20 years); and nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that agriculture is responsible for 13.5% of emissions worldwide. If the connection between deforestation and agriculture is taken into account, farming’s contribution to causing climate change rises considerably. In Latin America, for example, about 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the reminder. Deforestation is responsible for just under 18% of emissions around the world.

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture arise both from the process of farming itself and from the production of inputs such as fertilizers, fuel for machinery, energy for heating and materials, and animal feed. The process by which fertilizer is produced is both energy intensive (generating carbon dioxide) and results in the production of the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Emissions arise from land use change as soils are disturbed, vegetation destroyed and forests cut down. Farming practices are closely intertwined with the use of external inputs. Conserving soil carbon through methods such as conservation agriculture, organic farming, integrated nutrient management, cover cropping, agroforestry and the use of biochar not only reduces emissions from the soil but also conserves soil nutrients and reduces the need for fertilizers.

The emissions impacts of raising livestock, both direct (livestock raised on recently converted land) and indirect (the raising of crops such as soybeans and corn for animal feed) are significant: in Britain, meat and dairy consumption is responsible for 58% of food-related emissions; and globally, livestock are estimated to account for 70% of agricultural land use (30% of the Earth’s land surface) and more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to agriculture.

In assessing emissions from the food transportation system, how close food is produced to its point of consumption proves to be far from the only factor. Route planning, loading, the timing of deliveries compared with traffic and vehicle efficiency are all factors in road freight emissions. And reducing emissions from transport is not just about reducing the distance that food travels between the supplier and the retailer – transport between the retailer and the customer is even more important. It is no use reducing emissions associated with transporting food from the farm to retail, only for the good work to be undone by longer or more frequent shopping trips by car.

Emissions reductions from more efficient transport can be undone by higher emissions from storage, packaging and processing of food products. The best way to reduce emissions from food processing is to reduce the extent to which food is processed at all. But this takes thought – if processing reduces the need for later cooking or refrigeration, or uses food that would otherwise go to waste, it is unlikely that eliminating processing in favor of fresh produce would reduce overall greenhouse gases. Refrigeration is a big culprit, contributing to climate change both because of the energy used to operate the equipment and because of the impact of refrigerant gases, which are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. And the interactions among refrigeration, packaging, food transport, food product innovations and various socio-economic developments have helped create cultural norms and practices that are highly energy-dependent. For example, take out-of-season consumption of fruits and vegetables. It may be less greenhouse gas-intensive to ship fruit and vegetables from Mexico or South America during the winter than to produce them locally in heated greenhouses. Similarly, emissions associated with storing apples for many months or keeping foods frozen can more than make up for the transport emissions saved by not bringing them from around the world. People have gotten used to having most foods to be available throughout the year. Slashing emissions from our food systems requires that we once again learn to live with seasonal variations.

If greenhouse gas emissions from the food system are to be reduced significantly, we will need to change the balance of the food we eat. A lower impact diet is seasonal, largely based on food that comes from plants, and can include some meat and dairy products grown to high environmental standards. Eating less – in particular, less factory-farmed meat and poultry – would be an effective way to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions.  And, as a bonus, we would be healthier for it.

In the United States, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of honeybee colonies have failed to survive the winter.

As an article in the U.K. Guardian explains, if honeybees are in terminal collapse the world could be on the brink of biological disaster:

The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

* * *

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Scientists believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies.

Losses in some commercial honeybee operations are running at 50% or greater. Continued losses of this magnitude are not economically sustainable for commercial beekeepers.

The Guardian article includes a litany of the catastrophic consequences of honeybee colony collapse:

Flowering plants require insects for pollination. The most effective is the honeybee, which pollinates 90 commercial crops worldwide. As well as most fruits and vegetables – including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots – they pollinate nuts, sunflowers and oil-seed rape. Coffee, soya beans, clovers – like alfalfa, which is used for cattle feed – and even cotton are all dependent on honeybee pollination to increase yields.

In the UK alone, honeybee pollination is valued at £200m. Mankind has been managing and transporting bees for centuries to pollinate food and produce honey, nature’s natural sweetener and antiseptic. Their extinction would mean not only a colourless, meatless diet of cereals and rice, and cottonless clothes, but a landscape without orchards, allotments and meadows of wildflowers – and the collapse of the food chain that sustains wild birds and animals.

The planet is beset with a number of unprecedented crises that, as Dennis Meadows points out, are symptomatic of an underlying problem: exponential physical growth in a finite world.

At Countercurrents.org, Helena Norberg-Hodge makes a compelling case that “going local” – shifting economic activity back into the hands of local businesses instead of concentrating it in fewer and fewer mega-corporations – may be the single most effective thing we can do to begin to tackle the problem.

Norberg-Hodge points to food as a clear example of the multi-layered benefits of localization.  Local food systems can help reinvigorate entire rural economies and have social and environmental benefits:

• While globalized agriculture demands monocultural production of cash crops, a food system oriented towards local and regional markets gives farmers incentives to diversify.
• Diversity creates many niches on the farm for wild plant and animal species.
• Diversified farms can get by without heavy machinery or heavy doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
• Most of the money spent on food goes to the farmer, not corporate middlemen.
• Small diversified farms employ more people per acre than large monocultures. Wages paid to farm workers benefit local economies and communities far more than money paid for heavy equipment and the fuel to run it: the latter is almost immediately siphoned off to equipment manufacturers and oil companies, while wages paid to workers are spent locally.
• Local food systems provide better food security.
• Small-scale, diversified farms have a higher total output per unit of land than large-scale monocultures.

Agribusiness interests dominate at the state, national, and international levels. For example, the Agribusiness Council is upfront about its aspirations for dominance of the global food system:

The Agribusiness Council (ABC) is a private, nonprofit/tax-exempt, membership organization dedicated to strengthening U.S. agro-industrial competitiveness through programs which highlight international trade and development potentials as well as broad issues which encompass several individual agribusiness sectors and require a “food systems” approach. Examples of such issues are commercialization of new technology/crops, environmental impacts, human resource development, trade and investment policy, natural resource management, and rural development.

touts its incestuous relationship with  the U.S. government:

Initiated under Federal government auspices by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, The Agribusiness Council was formed by a group of business, academic, foundation and government leaders in order to facilitate American agribusiness participation in agricultural trade and development programs with developing countries – and represent private-sector agriculture interests to Federal government decision-makers.

and makes no bones about its objectives:

As an organization with international linkages, The Agribusiness Council seeks to strengthen the U.S. agricultural sector’s international outreach through stimulating private enterprise trade and investment solutions in Third World agro-industrial development.

Agribusiness interests may be too entrenched and government too corrupt to change. But we can change. We have the power to opt out of the global food system and to begin to grow local food systems, from the ground up.

The planet is beset with a number of unprecedented crises that, as Dennis Meadows points out, are symptomatic of an underlying problem: exponential physical growth in a finite world.

At Countercurrents.org, Helena Norberg-Hodge makes a compelling case that “going local” – shifting economic activity back into the hands of local businesses instead of concentrating it in fewer and fewer mega-corporations – may be the single most effective thing we can do to begin to tackle the problem.

Norberg-Hodge points to food as a clear example of the multi-layered benefits of localization.  Local food systems can help reinvigorate entire rural economies and have social and environmental benefits:

• While globalized agriculture demands monocultural production of cash crops, a food system oriented towards local and regional markets gives farmers incentives to diversify.
• Diversity creates many niches on the farm for wild plant and animal species.
• Diversified farms can get by without heavy machinery or heavy doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
• Most of the money spent on food goes to the farmer, not corporate middlemen.
• Small diversified farms employ more people per acre than large monocultures. Wages paid to farm workers benefit local economies and communities far more than money paid for heavy equipment and the fuel to run it: the latter is almost immediately siphoned off to equipment manufacturers and oil companies, while wages paid to workers are spent locally.
• Local food systems provide better food security.
• Small-scale, diversified farms have a higher total output per unit of land than large-scale monocultures.

Agribusiness interests dominate at the state, national, and international levels. For example, the Agribusiness Council is upfront about its aspirations for dominance of the global food system:

The Agribusiness Council (ABC) is a private, nonprofit/tax-exempt, membership organization dedicated to strengthening U.S. agro-industrial competitiveness through programs which highlight international trade and development potentials as well as broad issues which encompass several individual agribusiness sectors and require a “food systems” approach. Examples of such issues are commercialization of new technology/crops, environmental impacts, human resource development, trade and investment policy, natural resource management, and rural development.

touts its incestuous relationship with the U.S. government:

Initiated under Federal government auspices by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, The Agribusiness Council was formed by a group of business, academic, foundation and government leaders in order to facilitate American agribusiness participation in agricultural trade and development programs with developing countries – and represent private-sector agriculture interests to Federal government decision-makers.

and makes no bones about its objectives:

As an organization with international linkages, The Agribusiness Council seeks to strengthen the U.S. agricultural sector’s international outreach through stimulating private enterprise trade and investment solutions in Third World agro-industrial development.

Agribusiness interests may be too entrenched and government too corrupt to change. But we can change. We have the power to opt out of the global food system and to begin to build local food systems, from the ground up.

New research shows that modern farming – the kind practiced on nearly all farmland in the United States and touted around the world as the “green revolution” – destroys soil carbon. Synthetic nitrogen contributes to climate change and undermines long-term soil productivity because synthetic nitrogen breaks down organic matter faster than plant residue creates it.

In papers published in 2007 and 2009 University of Illinois researchers Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth argue that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content. They hypothesize that nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which then feast on organic matter. Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of the additional crop residue left behind as a result of increased fertilization.

Tom Philpot summarizes their findings in a post at Grist:

And their analysis gets more alarming. Synthetic nitrogen use, they argue, creates a kind of treadmill effect. As organic matter dissipates, soil’s ability to store organic nitrogen declines. A large amount of nitrogen then leeches away, fouling ground water in the form of nitrates, and entering the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas with some 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide. In turn, with its ability to store organic nitrogen compromised, only one thing can help heavily fertilized farmland keep cranking out monster yields: more additions of synthetic N.

The loss of organic matter has other ill effects, the researchers say. Injured soil becomes prone to compaction, which makes it vulnerable to runoff and erosion and limits the growth of stabilizing plant roots. Worse yet, soil has a harder time holding water, making it ever more reliant on irrigation. As water becomes scarcer, this consequence of widespread synthetic N use will become more and more challenging.

In short, “the soil is bleeding,” Mulvaney told me in an interview.

The idea that synthetic fertilizers destroy soil health is not new. Philpot quotes from the book The Soil and Health by British agronomist Sir Albert Howard, a touchstone of organic farming first published in 1947:

The use of artificial manure, particularly [synthetic nitrogen] … does untold harm. The presence of additional combined nitrogen in an easily assimilable form stimulates the growth of fungi and other organisms which, in the search for organic matter needed for energy and for building up microbial tissue, use up first the reserve of soil hummus and then the more resistant organic matter which cements soil particles.

A recent report by UNEP and the UN Conference on Trade and Development is consistent with the researchers’ results, finding that in Africa yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used, with yields jumping 128% in east Africa. The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming and produced environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought.