In 2004 Jason Clay wrote World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity by Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices. A well-respect author and conservationist with more that 20 years experience working with non-governmental organisations, he taught at Harvard University and has worked with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). He received his BA in anthropology at Harvard, studied economics and geography at the London School of Economics and anthropology and international agriculture at Cornell University,in the USA where he received his PhD in 1979.
In this book he shows how farming is the single largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functions of any single human activity.
He shows how the pattern can be broken and identifies activities that producers, policy makers, researchers, market-chain players and environmentalists can play in the creation of more sustainable agricultural practices within the evolving context of global trade.
The Introduction is split into two parts (chapter one and chapter two), the first part (chapter one), deals with agricultural trends and realities. He explains how in the late 1950s most small farms were virtually self sufficient, but by the 1960s farms were encouraged to grow by government programs. The growth of farming onto land that was once considered to poor quality to farm went under the plow.
Erosion increased and the once abundant wildlife, disappeared from those areas. The increased plowing caused ponds and rivers to become loaded with pesticides, nutrients and sediment, making the available water on the farms no longer safe to drink. These kinds of effects can be seen in almost every country of the world where farming has been made more efficient and more productive.
The second part of the introduction (chapter two), looks at agriculture and the environment and how like any other natural resources, modern farming practices has an impact on the environment. In the United Kingdom, 15 percent of all agricultural land has been lost to urbanisation. In the future, the highest losses of land due to urbanisation and population growth are likely to happen in China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil and Indonesia where half of the increase in world population will occur in the next generation.
Chapters three through to 23 deal with separate commodities, taking an overview of the production and the amount of land used in the production of that commodity. It also looks at the countries producing the commodities and those consuming it. Dr Clay also looks at the markets and the markets trends for each of the commodities. Towards the end of each chapter he deals with the environmental impact of production such as habitat conversion, soil erosion and degradation also pesticide use and the degradation of water quality.
Dr Clay goes onto highlight better management practices, and farming practices that could reduce the overall environmental impact that the industrial farming practices are having on the land. In this book Dr Clay has not only explained the problems and issues that farming is causing on a global scale, but suggests a number of ways to make global agriculture more sustainable. He highlights 11 generals areas in which policy could stimulate more widespread use of the ideas and suggestions in this book.
I found this book to be an interesting and thought provoking read, showing how farming in the early part of the 20th Century has evolved. And how we need to change to make global agriculture more sustainable for the future. This book would be a good asset to anyone teaching agriculture, and for students, as well as for ministers of agriculture departments within governments. A must have book for the bookcase.
This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.
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