By VICTORIA A. HAYS
A freelance
journalist residing in Rochester,
Illinois, she has also written an article
on solar energy for Illinois Issues.
Can demands for energy, land use and health be met and the world still be fed?
Agricultural production
WITH TOP SOIL so dark it looks like
plowed asphalt, Illinois' agricultural
resources have always been considered a
stable blessing. But that view may be
altered as the pressure to produce more
food for more people collides with our
demands for energy, growth, health and quality of life.
About four billion people are now
alive on Earth, and world population is
increasing at a rate of approximately 2
per cent per year. The United Nations
believes that one-half billion humans
are already malnourished. According to
the Production Yearbook 7972 published by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) only 11 per cent of
the earth's land surface is arable and
naturally suitable for crop production.
Comparatively, 25 per cent of the
United States (470 million acres) is
considered arable.
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Our soil is a tremendous resource of
importance to the entire world, yet we
are losing it at an appalling rate just
when our need for it is soaring. Since
1945, about 45 million acres of cropland
have been lost to urbanization,
highways and other special uses. This
represents an area almost the size of the
state of Nebraska. Strip mining disturbs
at least another 153,000 acres annually,
not counting land affected by acid mine
drainage. And erosion is the greatest
spoiler of all. Since the nation was
founded 200 years ago, at least a third of
the topsoil on U.S. croplands has been
eroded away.
Can we use more land for food
production? We add about 1.25 million
acres of new cropland per year, usually
through drainage or irrigation, but such reclamation schemes have a high cost in
energy and ecology, as well as in dollars.
If we cannot; feed the increasing
population by creating additional
arable land, we must examine ways to
increase the effectiveness of the land we
already have. But to feed a world
population which could reach seven
billion in less than 25 years, we would have to double food production on
available arable land.
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Production in Illinois
The Midwest region produces 80 per cent
of the nation's corn, oats, soybeans and
flaxseed, and more than 50 per cent of
its cereal grains (wheat, barley and
hay. In 1974, Illinois ranked first
(16.8 per cent) in the nation's production
of soybeans with 207.5 million bushels,
second (17 per cent) in the nation's
production of corn with 830.9 million
bushels, and 12th (3 per cent) in the
nation's production of wheat with 53.7
million bushels. Soybeans provided 29
per cent and corn 33 per cent of Illinois'
total farm income, which totaled close to
$5 billion in 1974. The state ranks
second in the total amount of dollars
received from crop income. It is
estimated by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture that Illinois corn and soybean
production will continue to increase,
with Illinois producing 1.3 billion
bushels of corn and 342 million bushels
of soybeans by 1985.
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Doubling production is a big order. It
is estimated that a three-fold increase in
the energy used for agriculture would be
required during the next 25 years. The
mechanical methods of increasing
efficiency teamed with use of
improved strains of seed, disease
resistant plants, and the use of chemical
fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and
herbicides have allowed us to spur production to increasingly high levels.
But the use of these techniques and
products has created problems, too.
Erosion causes loss of more than 50
million tons of plant nutrients (nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium) from
cropland each year, according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture (US DA)
calculations. Fertilizers permit farmers
to harvest from one acre what it would
previously have required several acres to
produce. This spectacular success has
tended to make the use of chemical
fertilizers almost obligatory in the
United States and increases the
possibilities of overuse. Are we using
"too much of a good thing?"
The production of fertilizer accounts
for between 46 and 57 per cent of the
energy consumed in getting unirrigated
corn and grain harvested and ready to
leave the farm. The major, most
convenient source of nitrogen fertilizer
is natural gas. Approximately 2 per cent
of United States and nearly 5 per cent of
the world supplies of natural gas are
used to manufacture fertilizer, and
natural gas is the least plentiful of the
fossil fuels. In this country, if use of
natural gas continues to increase at 4.7
per cent annually, total depletion would
occur shortly after 1980. The second
source of nitrogen fertilizer is naphtha, a
product of petroleum refining, so the
future of this source is also uncertain. In
addition to its cost in terms of energy,
use of fertilizers contributes to
eutrophication (a condition which
lowers the ability of the water to support
plant and animal life) in the water
supplies which receive agricultural
runoff from erosion.
Insecticides, fungicides and
herbicides, while dramatically reducing
the loss of harvest to insects, fungi and
weeds, are potentially dangerous to
human health. Although the immediate
dangers of these selective poisons is
August 1977 / Illinois Issues / 13
readily understood, their long-term
effects on human health are not yet
completely known. Pesticides such as
DDT, Dieldrin, Hexlachor, Chlordane,
and Mirex are recognized carcinogens.
They are known to cause malignant
tumors in test animals, but many people
and most of the affected manufacturers
either refuse to accept the validity of
tests using laboratory animals, or
maintain that the benefits of using
^chemicals outweighs any dangers. They
maintain that it has not yet been proven
that these chemicals cause human
cancers.
No one knows how much of a cancer-causing agent is required to cause a
specific form of human cancer. What is
known is that the time between
exposure to a human carcinogen and the
development of its attributable
malignancy can vary from seven years in
the case of diethylstibestrol (DES) to 30
years with industrial asbestos. Many of
the most widespread agricultural
pesticides are called "persistent
pesticides" because after use they do not
break down into harmless ingredients; they remain potent for many years.
When applied to agricultural lands,
these chemicals are carried into water
supplies where they are ingested by fish and subsequent fish-eaters and
other animals. Once eaten, the
persistent pesticides are stored in body
fats where they accumulate throughout
the life of the animal. Virtually every
human being has accumulations of these
chemicals in his or her body. Nursing
mothers transmit the chemicals to their
infants. Cow milk in Illinois, as well as
the water supply, contains concentrations of Dieldrin, a pesticide used for
many years to control soil insects that
attack corn. In 1976, Dieldrin contamination of fish caught in Lake Springfield, Lake Pana, Shelbyville Reservoir
and Rend Lake prompted the Illinois
Department of Conservation to advise
fishermen to limit consumption of the
fish. Commercial fishing at Lake Carlyle is banned, even though use of Dieldrin was halted in 1974. Our persistent
pesticides are going to be with us for many years to come. The National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization maintain that up to 90 per cent of all human cancers are caused by exposure to carcinogens in our environment, and the incidence of cancer is constantly rising throughout the industrialized; areas of the world.
From his first major environmental
message President Jimmy Carter may
have indicated a new thrust by the
federal government to keep carcinogens
out of the environment: "The presence
of toxic chemicals in our environment is
one of the grimmest discoveries of the
industrial era .... Rather than coping
with these hazards after they have
escaped into our environment, our
primary objective must be to prevent
them from entering the environment at
all."
Although use of the most suspect of
the carcinogenic pesticides such as
DDT, Aldrin and Dieldrin, and Chlordane is now regulated, the long-term
effects of their use is not known.
Furthermore, many of the newer pesticides have immediate effects, which
make them very hazardous to manufacture and apply.
Agricultural methods
Obviously, with the depletion of our
fossil fuels and the lurking large-scale
health hazards inherent in massive use
of farm chemicals, we must explore
additional avenues to reach our productivity goal. We cannot abandon use of
the chemical tools that have helped
make our agricultural industry a global
resource, but we may have reached the
practical limits of their application.
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When agriculture shifted from animal
to machine power, and when fertilizers
and pesticides first became available for
purchase, farmers demanded proof that
the new ways were, better than the old.
To bring about change in our current
agricultural practices, farmers must
once again have proof. Scientists in
research centers supported by government, universities and private industry
are starting to find this needed proof.
A 1964 analysis of corn culture in northeastern Illinois indicated that conservation techniques such as contour plowing and crop rotation could, over a 20-year period, cost the farmer $39 per acre.
A current study published in the February 1977 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics
indicates that the economics of less
conventional farming techniques may
soon be more encouraging. Dr. William
Lockeretz and five associates at the
Center for the Biology of Natural
Systems at St. Louis' Washington
University conducted an investigation of 14 matched pairs of farms in the Corn
Belt comparing the costs and benefits reported by farmers using chemical
fertilizers and pesticides with those of farmers using only organic fertilizer
and no pesticides. The data collected
over a two-year period compared yields,
production costs and energy consumption for crop production in 1974 and
1975. The results indicated that farmers
using organic methods received an
average of 10 per cent less in market
value per acre than those employing
conventional methods. However the
operating costs of the organic farms were so much lower that the profits from
crop production were the same. The
conventionally operated farms used 2.3
times more energy, while the farms on
which organic methods were practiced
required 12 per cent more labor. The
nutrient value of the land on the
conventional acreage remained stable
but that of the organic areas diminished
slightly. "The fact that... the organic
group appears to be doing reasonably
well despite not using the chemicals
that are generally regarded as key
elements in the high productivity of
modern agriculture is an indication
that less chemically intensive methods
may enable U.S. agriculture to adjust to
possible future energy problems without
serious economic sacrifices," says
Lockeretz.
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14 / August 1977 / Illinois Issues
This study is a comparison of extremes, involving farms on which none
of the accepted chemical products were employed, yet these farmers aren't
suffering economically as a result of their practices. Furthermore, the comparisons do not reflect the anticipated
cost of fertilizer produced from dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, the possible
results of prolonged exposure to agricultural chemicals on health or the
effects of these two opposites on soil
erosion. The study, which includes four
pairs of farms in Illinois, is continuing,
however, and future results may reflect some of these factors.
So research may provide proof that
changes in agricultural practices are
economically feasible. What changes
are these and will they prove effective?
In November 1976, the World Bank
released a report concerning the world
food problem which stated that malnutrition (which bank economists believe
has been underestimated by 30 percent)
is caused primarily by the way food is
distributed. Yet this conclusion doesn't
address the basic solution of the food
problem population control. Knowing food distribution and birth control
can make or break the future of the
endeavor, we still need to pursue new
methods of increasing the productivity
of the world's arable areas without
destroying the land or health of future
generations. Efforts by farmers, manufacturers and regulators will be needed
to achieve this goal.
Farmers, themselves, can help. Elimination of fall plowing could prevent
most winter erosion. Assuming it's
desirable to use only as much chemical
fertilizer as is absolutely necessary,
farmers can further utilize natural
fertilizers such as manure or green
fertilizers consisting of ground cover
crops like rye, vetch or clover, plowed
under to decompose in the soil.
To control pests, the farmers can
employ more crop rotation. The life
cycles of many insects, such as the corn
root worm, depend on having the same
crop grown on the land for more than
one season in succession. If the farmer
alternates crops, the insect life cycles are
disrupted. Continued use of specific
Pesticides also leads to the development
of immune varieties of insects against
which pesticide is no longer effective. General application of broad
spectrum pesticides kills many kinds of
insects, including beneficial predators, which would otherwise provide a degree
of natural control of pest insects. The
Washington University study indicates
that such methods are able to control
normal insect populations effectively
enough to allow farmers using completely organic methods of pest control no pesticides at all to operate competitively with farmers using conventional insecticides. It seems reasonable that using improved planting techniques coupled with selective use of pesticides rather than the accepted practice using pesticides for preventionwould be an advantageous combination.
Private industry, prompted by knowledge of developing insect resistances, as
well as law suits from environmental
groups and governmental regulations,
has been actively developing alternative
products.
Government involvement
The government is directly involved
in two ways. It controls a substantial
portion of the funds necessary for
scientific research into alternative
pesticides and improved agricultural
techniques, and it also embodies authority to regulate the uses of agricultural
chemicals. The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), signed by
former President Gerald R.. Ford on
October 12, 1976, and the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide
Act of 1972 now give the federal
government authority to require that
potentially harmful chemicals be more
thoroughly tested before they are
released into general use. Previously,
the only way to remove a hazardous
chemical or pesticide from the market
was through legal action. Additional
federal authority to eliminate hazardous
chemicals from the environment may be
granted following President Carter's announcement.
State and local governments share
responsibilities when it comes to control
of the loss of agricultural land to
urbanization, highways and strip mining. Local property taxes contribute to
the demise of farms when farmers are
unable to pay taxes on farm land, which
gets rezoned by developers. Tax reform
and land use policies to prevent such
actions are essential if we are to prevent
loss of valuable arable land.
These actions that can be taken range
from individual decision making to broad national programs. What stands
in the way of these solutions? The
answer seems buried in attitudes and economics.
Opposition to change is a basic
problem. Discussion of population
control raises religious, nationalistic
and cultural barriers. Individual farmers practicing nontraditional agricultural methods may be dismissed as
nonconformists. The effects of soil
conservation are not immediately recognizable in terms of dollars, and the long-term effects of contaminating our water and soil with carcinogenic chemicals are
not yet being felt. The nature of the
potential health threat, itself, is strangely ineffective in motivating change.
When smoking in the United States
continues to rise despite the proven
cancer connection, is it any wonder our
farmers are reluctant to accept the
concept of potential, but unproved, human harm?
Industry has not rushed to take the
lead in accepting new concepts either. A
group of chemical industry executives
considered the TSCA a "threat to sales,
profits, jobs and innovations."
But if individuals and industry are
reluctant to change, consider the previous attitude of government. Former
U.S. Secy. of Agriculture Earl Butz
considered the Delaney Amendment
banning use of known carcinogens as
additives to human food, "utter nonsense," blaming "food faddists and
extremists" for alarming the public. The
Ford administration consistently opposed the TSCA until it passed.
The attitude problems have been
compounded by the economic problems. There's big money in providing a
needed product food to an eager
market the world. Everybody wants a
piece of the action, and nobody wants to
sacrifice now for tomorrow's gain. The
farmers' needs are real, the industries
which manufacture agricultural machinery and products employ people
whose needs are real, and the government gets its money from taxes, and we
all know how real that situation is.
Hanging over the whole scene is the
shadow of the energy crisis. To achieve a
state of balance between food and
energy in the future, we must begin to
act now. If our life expectancy remains
at the current level, children born today
will live to experience the conditions
either caused or made possible by their
parents' actions.
August 1977 / Illinois Issues / 15