Into the Future: Building a Sustainable and Resilient Agricultural System for a Changing Global Environment

• Author: Mary Jane Angelo
• Pages: 325-332

Page 325

Chapter 18

Into the Future:

Building a Sustainable and Resilient Agricultural

System for a Changing Global Environment

Mar y Jane Angelo

During the time this book was being written, the world’s population crossed the threshold of seven

billion inhabitants.1 While many of the more auent countries, including the United States and

most of the European Union, were muddling through severe economic turmoil, parts of the devel-

oping world continued to experience unprecedented improvements in their standard of living. As the global

population grows, demand for food and ber will continue to increase. As populations in some countries,

particularly many in Asia, become more auent, their d iets will become more varied and they will con-

sume more animal products. ese changes will inevitably add increasing stressors to an already precarious

global food system.

To complicate matters, all of these changes are occurring a gainst the backdrop of immense uncerta inty

surrounding not only worldwide nancial stability but a lso global climate change. One recent sign that

agriculture may be faced with changing climactic conditions is the recent revision of the U.S. Department

of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Plant Hardiness Zone Map,2 which shows a shift in most areas to warmer zone

designations.3 As we move forward into an uncertain future, our global and national food systems must

adapt to changing conditions.

As described in this book, our modern industrial agricultu ral system has a number of signicant short-

comings. e current form of centralized industrial a griculture is a major contributor to many problems,

including air and water pollution, inecient energ y use, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and human

health eects. It is not the type of sustainable and resilient system that will be needed to ensure food secu-

rity in a world with a growing population and complex and unpredictable modications likely to occur as

a result of global climate change.

A. The Link Between Agriculture and Climate Change

e academic and popular literature is lled with discussions of the link between carbon emissions and

climate change, and the potential global harms t hat are likely to occur as a result.4 According to most sci-

entists, no environmental problem in human history is as potentially harmful as the climate change crisis.5

e vast majority of scientists predict that without dramatic and timely reductions in releases of carbon

into the atmosphere, various g lobal climatic cha nges w ill occur t hat wi ll ma ke all other environmental

1. See Sam Roberts, U.N. Says 7 Billion Now Share the World, N.Y. T, Oct. 31, 2011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/united-

nations-reports-7-billion-humans-but-others-dont-count-on-it.html?_r=1.

2. USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/ (last visited Nov. 26, 2012).

3. USDA is careful to point out that the new map should not be used as evidence of climate change. See http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

PHZMWeb/AboutWhatsNew.aspx.

4. See, e.g., I P  C C, C C 2007: T P S B, S  P-

 10 (2007), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf (stating that most of the increase in global

temperatures is very likely attributable to greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations).

5. See Raymond B. Ludwiszewski & Charles H. Haake, Climate Change: A Heat Wave of New Federal Regulation and Legislation, F. L., June

2009, at 32 (explaining that global climate change is currently the top environmental concern).