Can the agricultural and environmental community agree on a pathway to food and environmental security?

Abstract

Since the dawn of agriculture, food security was improved by replacing hunting with domesticated animals and gathering was replaced with planting seeds in the soil. In many areas, agricultural practices resulted in ecological systems being replaced with domesticated plants and animals. This fundamental process created the food resources needed to build the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Hanging gardens of Babylon. However, these food production systems also contributed to the Irish potato famine, the North America Great Plains dust bowl, and the extinction of many animals. From these spectacular successes and failures, we learned that food and environmental security requires a skilled workforce and that new innovations are often needed to solve complex problems. For example, during the transition from the European Middle Age to the 16th century, European farmers learned that food and economic security was improved by switching from a two-field rotation (one seeded and one fallow or resting) to the Norfolk rotation that consisted of wheat (Triticum aestivum), turnips (Brassica rapa), barley (Hordeum vulgare), and clover (Trifolium). This rotation increased productivity, improved diets, and provided the food needed for the industrial revolution.

Over time, we also learned that sustainable food production requires careful attention to soil and environmental health. For example, a multiyear drought during the 1930's when combined with the plowing of the North America Great Plains led to the “Dust Bowl”. Based on these and other lessons, we hypothesize that to avoid future food and economic insecurity, we need a common vision that considers soil, ecosystem, human, and environmental health (D. E. Clay et al., 2012; Smart et al., 2015).

Building a unified vision is complicated by scientific disagreements, social differences, and a lack of consensus on the fundamental facts. For example, how much land is used to produce annual crops in the North America Great Plains? The answer to this question is complicated by different databases producing different answers (Lark et al., 2015, 2017; Reitsma et al., 2016; USDA, 2020; Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, 2024) and by research papers that make unvalidated predictions. For example, Rashford et al. (2010) predicted that in the Prairie Pothole region of North America, approximately 12.1 million ha (30 million acres) of grasslands would be converted to cultivated crops by 2011 if the corn (Zea mays) selling price continued to increase. Subsequent analysis showed that even though prices increased, the predicted wide-scale land use changes never occurred (Joshi et al., 2019; Lark et al., 2015; Wright & Wimberly, 2013). The lack of change was attributed to farmers who valued multiple income streams and whose actions were modified by family stories that were passed down from one generation to the next (Joshi et al., 2019).

A secondary problem is that different disciplines and occupations define terms differently. For example, an economist might define marginal as land with a low potential to produce a profit, whereas a soil scientist might define marginal as land with a high erosion potential. This means that “marginal” has a different meaning to different people and, therefore, may be a poor benchmark for comparisons (Csikós & Tóth, 2023).

Modeling programs have been created to provide a benchmark for comparison. One analysis approach is called a life cycle analysis (LCA) (Sieverding et al., 2020). In an LCA, the direct and indirect impacts on producing a product from cradle to grave on greenhouse gas are summed to determine a score. Direct effects are directly related to the practices used to produce a given product. For example, how much nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide was emitted by applying fertilizer? Whereas indirect effects are not directly linked to the production of a product. Problems with this analysis are that different models produce different scores, environmental and ecological health might not be considered, and there is not a consensus on what indirect effects should be included in LCA calculation. In addition, LCA models may not account for recent scientific discoveries (S. A. Clay et al., 2024) or consider changes in soil and environmental health.

An approach to assess the potential impact on soil erosion is the USDA-land capability classification (LCC) system (Soil Conservation Service-USDA, 1961). The land capability classification system separates land into eight categories ranging from I to VIII. Class I land does not have a limitation and LCC values II–VIII can be identified as having limitation linked to erosion (e), wetness (w), soil (s), and climate (c). The LCC system has been used to identify long-term sustainability risks (Joshi et al., 2019; Lark et al., 2015; Rashford et al., 2010; Wright & Wimberly, 2013). However, while providing useful information, the LCC approach does not provide a complete assessment on environmental health.

Meeting the goal of improving the economic and environmental sustainability of our food production system is a challenge because many people are focused on the “Now” as opposed to the future. We believe that to create a common vision, (1) transparent and thoughtful dialog across disciplines is required, (2) we need to agree on the definitions of key terms, (3) clear boundaries on discussions between disciplines are needed, (4) different visions for the future should be discussed respectfully, (5) the commonality between these visions needs to be identified, and (6) finally, we need to discuss what is needed to reach this common vision. We believe that to address our 21st-century challenges, it is important to look back before we look forward.

David E. Clay: Conceptualization; writing—original draft. Nicholas J. Goeser: Conceptualization; writing—review and editing. Jack Cornell: Funding acquisition; project administration; writing—review and editing.