New report on agriculture, GHG emissions, climate change, and the farm income crisis

Cover of Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis by Darrin Qualman

How can we reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by half by mid-century?  And how can steps to do so help strengthen and safeguard family farms?  These two questions are the focus of a new report written by Darrin Qualman in collaboration with the National Farmers Union (NFU).  The report is entitled Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis: A Transformative Strategy for Canadian Farms and Food Systems and it’s available from the NFU website.

The report looks at the climate crisis and the farm income crisis.  It concludes that our farms’ high emissions and low net incomes have the same cause: overdependence on purchased inputs: fertilizers, chemicals, fuels, etc.

The report shows clearly that the GHG emissions coming out of our farm and food systems are simply the downstream byproducts of the petro-industrial inputs we push in.  “Push in millions of gallons of fossil fuels and they will come out as millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.  Push in megatonnes of fertilizers and they will come out as megatonnes of nitrous oxide.  As we have doubled and redoubled input use, we have doubled and redoubled the GHG emissions from agriculture,” states the report.  From this novel observation comes an inescapable conclusion: “Any low-emission food system will be a low-input food system.”

The report takes a long-term view and states that “10,000 years of human history makes one thing crystal clear: farming does not create GHG emissions; petro-industrial farm inputs create GHG emissions.”  It goes on to state that “Two things happen when farmers become overdependent on  purchased inputs: emissions go up, and net incomes go down.”

The report is optimistic, however, arguing that solutions to climate problems can also be solutions to farm income problems.  On average, farmers are now retaining just five cents out of every dollar they earn.  The other 95 cents go to pay for inputs—to pay fertilizer, chemical, seed, fuel, and machinery companies and other input and service providers.  But as input use is reduced as a way to reduce emissions, margins and net incomes can go up.  Steps to deal with the climate crisis can also be steps to solve the farm income crisis.

The report explores dozens of practical on-farm measures and government policies that can, taken together, reduce agricultural emissions by half by mid-century.  The report, however, does not underestimate the scale of the task ahead.  It acknowledges that “farmers, other citizens, all sectors, and all levels of government must mobilize, with near-wartime-levels of commitment and effectiveness, to slash emissions.  ”

The report is a hopeful blueprint for the transformation of our farms and food systems.  “We are looking at a future wherein agriculture must increasingly re-merge with nature and culture to create a much more integrated, life-sustaining, and community-sustaining agroecological model of human food provision, nutrition, and health.”

Darrin Qualman worked as Director of Research for the National Farmers Union from 1996 to 2010.  He is the author of the book, published in 2019, Civilization Critical: Energy, Food, Nature, and the Future.

Click HERE to read the report.

Darrin Qualman’s book, Civilization Critical, is now available

Civilization Critical, Darrin Qualman, front cover

My book is done!  Published and printed!  I’m very excited.  I’ve included information on ordering and availability below.

The title is Civilization Critical: Energy, Food, Nature, and the Future.  The book charts the past, present, and possible futures of our global petro-industrial consumerist civilization.  It looks at how we produce our food and how we fuel and provision the incredibly powerful systems of industry.  The book includes chapters on energy, the Industrial Revolution, transport, farming, efficiency, and progress.

Most important, Civilization Critical provides a wholly new analysis of our problems and their potential solutions—new ideas about material and energy flows and the structure of global civilization.  The book argues that a nineteenth- and twentieth-century transition to linear systems and away from the circular patterns of nature (and of all previous civilizations) is the foundational error—the underlying problem, the root cause of climate change, resource depletion, oceans full of plastics, and a host of mega-problems now intensifying and merging, with potentially civilization-cracking results.

So?  Are we doomed?  No.  Doom is a choice.  One we’re currently making, but there are other options.  The book concludes that we face a momentous decision.  On the one hand, we possess a profusion of technologies and options that can deliver us from our predicament: solar panels, wind turbines, electric transport, low-emission agriculture, aggressive recycling, increased economic equality and security, and improved systems of governance.  On the other hand, we remain committed to increasing consumption and economic growth such that current plans—two to three percent economic growth per year—will cause the global economy to grow eight times larger in the coming century.  We possess powerful means of destruction, but also of deliverance.  Civilization Critical lays bare our choice, and the very negative or very positive outcomes within our grasp.

How to get a copy of Civilization Critical

The book is available directly from the publisher, Fernwood Press.  The cost is $25 plus $5 shipping.  https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/civilization-critical

The book is in stock in Saskatoon at Turning the Tide books, 615 Main Street (just off Broadway).  https://turning.ca/  Turning the Tide will also ship books throughout Canada and the United States.

You can order Civilization Critical at your favourite bookstore.  Please support local, independent bookstores.

And, of course, it’s available from Amazon.