Climate catastrophe is here and it is terrifying. News reports are finally reflecting the decades-old scientific consensus linking extreme weather events to greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere at alarmingly increasing rates since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, primarily from the burning of coal, oil, and gas.
Many factors contribute significantly to the heating up of the Earth’s atmosphere, causing climate chaos with unprecedented rapidity, including severe heat waves, droughts, forest fires, massive flooding, rising oceans, destruction of ice caps and glaciers, life-destroying acidification of the oceans, desertification of previously productive agricultural lands, and the wholesale destruction of species.
Industrial agriculture—with its reliance upon heavy tillage of soils, monocropping, synthetic herbicides, and synthetic pesticides—is one of the major culprits. According to the U.N.’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agriculture represents 10-12% of the greenhouse gases generated globally. (Smith and Martino, 2007.) Yet, that number is likely much larger if one considers food waste generated on farms and deforestation for virgin agricultural lands. Some reports suggest that number might be as high as 37%. (IPCC, 2019.) In short, industrial agricultural practices produce a significant amount of the greenhouse gases causing the climate crisis.
Climate chaos and industrial agriculture act together as a destructive spiral, affecting one another with an increasingly negative feed-back loop. Industrial agriculture produces greenhouse gases, thereby contributing to climate change. Then, the climate crisis, on average, adversely impacts the ability of agriculture to generate food and other goods. As the climate continues to heat up, the ability to produce agricultural goods will significantly diminish, threatening starvation, ultimately, for millions of people.
Many regions where agriculture is currently thriving will become increasingly inhospitable for production. One current example of this is Napa Valley. According to a recent New York Times article, the iconic wine-growing region of California is experiencing such intense droughts and fires that growers and producers of wine grapes are now paying upwards of five times the baseline amount for insurance, while others are simply being told they are uninsurable. (Flavelle, 2021.) In short, insurance companies have concluded that wine growers in the Napa Valley region present too high of a risk to insure at affordable rates because of the unprecedented threat of drought and fires. Private insurers are now making the judgment that growers in the wealthiest nation, within one of the wealthiest agricultural zones, cannot mitigate the impacts of climate change to make growing wine grapes financially viable.
So, what do we do?
There may be means of ameliorating the climate crisis, through more sustainable agricultural practices and ending the burning of fossil fuels. There are also means of adapting to climate chaos, such as facilitating a more resilient form of agriculture that can better withstand the detrimental effects of the climate crisis. Broadly speaking, agroecology encompasses the solutions needed for reversing industrial agriculture’s impact on climate change, while simultaneously facilitating resiliency—with the added benefit of providing incomes for some of the world’s poorest. (McIntyre, 2009.)
|
|
Agroecology is the integration of research, education, action and change that brings sustainability to all parts of the food system: ecological, economic, and social. It’s transdisciplinary in that it values all forms of knowledge and experience in food system change. It’s participatory in that it requires the involvement of all stakeholders from the farm to the table and everyone in between. And it is action-oriented because it confronts the economic and political power structures of the current industrial food system with alternative social structures and policy action. The approach is grounded in ecological thinking where a holistic, systems-level understanding of food system sustainability is required.”
(Gliessman, 2018, p. 1.) |
|
Agroecology holds immense potential to cool the earth’s climate. It can do this by incorporating carbon sequestering cover crops and green manures, non-fossil-fuel-reliant pest mitigation techniques, decreased distances for products to travel to markets, and polycultures that are capable of increasing yields dramatically per given area.
Additionally, agroecological farming methods build climate resiliency within farm-scapes. This is done by a number of factors, such as promoting genetic diversity within seed varieties, which allows for adaptability of specific crops via seed saving; building up organic matter in soils, which allows for greater water storage capacity in soils; utilizing polycultures, which promotes greater genetic variability and acts as a sort of natural insurance for crop failures (if one crop fails, others still exist in the same plot providing growers with a backup crop); agroforestry, which permits the existence of carbon sequestering forests to exist alongside crops; and so much more. (McIntyre, 2009.)
The Justice Party strongly supports the adoption of agroecological methodologies in the United States and beyond, with subsidies, education, and tax incentives that will aid in the adoption of those methodologies. To support the adoption of increasingly climate-friendly agroecological farming practices, the Justice Party supports the following:
Additionally, agroecological farming methods build climate resiliency within farm-scapes. This is done by a number of factors, such as promoting genetic diversity within seed varieties, which allows for adaptability of specific crops via seed saving; building up organic matter in soils, which allows for greater water storage capacity in soils; utilizing polycultures, which promotes greater genetic variability and acts as a sort of natural insurance for crop failures (if one crop fails, others still exist in the same plot providing growers with a backup crop); agroforestry, which permits the existence of carbon sequestering forests to exist alongside crops; and so much more. (McIntyre, 2009.)
The Justice Party strongly supports the adoption of agroecological methodologies in the United States and beyond, with subsidies, education, and tax incentives that will aid in the adoption of those methodologies. To support the adoption of increasingly climate-friendly agroecological farming practices, the Justice Party supports the following:
|
|
1. Working with indigenous peoples to strengthen, document, and re-establish foodways that have been destroyed or jeopardized by settler colonial tendencies, including genocide, and ethnocide. It is important to recognize that industrial agriculture’s rise within the Americas was reliant upon the colonial theft of indigenous peoples’ lands and knowledge systems. (Dale, 2020.) Thus, the rise of industrial agriculture is intertwined within a hegemonic colonial system and therefore must be assessed and dismantled for agroecology to effectively reduce carbon emissions and promote resiliency.
2. Promoting research that benefits small-scale resilient land-holders, rather than large, industrial farmers. Land grant universities were originally created for the purpose of helping individual farmers in the United States. Corporate take-over of the regulatory bodies that control funding for Land Grant Universities facilitated the cooption of a significant portion of the research, thereby greatly enriching a few corporations at the expense of individual farmers. (Berry, 2015.) The Justice Party advocates the support of research that benefits family farmers, not the corporations that have done so much harm to family farming in the United States. 3. Supporting the provision of technical and financial support for small-scale growers that adopt agroecological farming methods, while simultaneously emphasizing the fact that agroecology is a knowledge-based system that flourishes when non-hierarchical forms of knowledge exchange exist. 4. Promoting the recognition that agroecology is not simply a conglomeration of technical farming methods, but it is also a social movement that is highly political, reflexive, and intertwined with food sovereignty and indigenous sovereignty. (Holt-Gimenez, 2006.) 5. Work with relevant stakeholders, such as non-profits, farmers, and government bodies, to build coalitions that foster the adoption of agroecology. The Justice Party recognizes that the current agricultural-corporate regime that dominates global economic institutions must be confronted and their power eroded. Only through coalition-building and the democratic power of the people can we begin restructuring agricultural economic policy to benefit agroecology. |
To conclude, the climate crisis is an existential threat to all of humanity. Industrial agriculture is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, yet alternatives exist. Agroecology is a vital approach to agriculture globally and within the United States. Agroecology is capable of increasing yields, ameliorating the threat of massive starvation, providing incomes to the world’s poorest people, building resiliency within farm-scapes for an increasingly chaotic climate, and sequestering greenhouse gases in soils and biomass. Accordingly, the Justice Party stands behind agroecology and seeks to aid in its adoption and support.
Bibliography
Berry, Wendell. The unsettling of America: Culture & agriculture. Catapult, 2015.
Dale, Bryan. "Alliances for agroecology: From climate change to food system change." Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 44.5 (2020): 629-652.
De Schutter, O. (2010). Agroecology and the right to food. United Nations.
Flavelle, C. (2021, July 18). Scorched, Parched and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine Country. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/climate/napa-wine-heat-hot-weather.html?searchResultPosition=1.
Gliessman, Steve. "Defining agroecology." (2018): 599-600.
Holt-Giménez, Eric. Campesino a campesino: voices from Latin America's farmer to farmer movement for sustainable agriculture. Food First Books, 2006.
McIntyre, Beverly D. International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development (IAASTD): Synthesis report with executive summary: A synthesis of the global and sub-global IAASTD reports. No. E14-197. 2009.
Rotz, S. 2017. 'They took our beads, it was a fair trade, get over it': Settler colonial logics, racial hierarchies and material dominance in Canadian agriculture. Geoforum 82:158-69. doi: lO.lO 16/j.geoforum.2017.04.0 10.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2019. Climate Change and Land: IPCC 830 Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems. Summary for Policymakers www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/.
Berry, Wendell. The unsettling of America: Culture & agriculture. Catapult, 2015.
Dale, Bryan. "Alliances for agroecology: From climate change to food system change." Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 44.5 (2020): 629-652.
De Schutter, O. (2010). Agroecology and the right to food. United Nations.
Flavelle, C. (2021, July 18). Scorched, Parched and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine Country. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/climate/napa-wine-heat-hot-weather.html?searchResultPosition=1.
Gliessman, Steve. "Defining agroecology." (2018): 599-600.
Holt-Giménez, Eric. Campesino a campesino: voices from Latin America's farmer to farmer movement for sustainable agriculture. Food First Books, 2006.
McIntyre, Beverly D. International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development (IAASTD): Synthesis report with executive summary: A synthesis of the global and sub-global IAASTD reports. No. E14-197. 2009.
Rotz, S. 2017. 'They took our beads, it was a fair trade, get over it': Settler colonial logics, racial hierarchies and material dominance in Canadian agriculture. Geoforum 82:158-69. doi: lO.lO 16/j.geoforum.2017.04.0 10.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2019. Climate Change and Land: IPCC 830 Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems. Summary for Policymakers www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/.
