Envisioning Food Systems for resilient landscapes, lifestyles and livelihoods ... by RIEL

Envisioning Food Systems

for resilient landscapes, lifestyles and livelihoods in a carbon, water, energy & nutrient-constrained world

Andrew Campbell

Kinglake Ranges Food Futures Visioning Session Kinglake, 13 October 2010 www.triplehelix.com.au

Personal declarations • Farming background south-western Victoria – Family farming in the district since 1860s, own farm managed since 1987 – 450ha near Cavendish: 30% farm forestry, 10% environmental reserves, 60% leased to a neighbour for prime lambs

• Forestry & rural sociology: Creswick, Melbourne & Wageningen • Forester Victorian government – Vacation work at Toolangi 1978

• First National Landcare Facilitator ‘89-92 • Environment Australia SES 1995-2000 • CEO Land & Water Australia 2000-06

Outline 1. Drivers for more sustainable food systems – – – – –

Food security Climate change Water Energy Land & nutrients

1. Challenges & opportunities

– Technical – Policy – Community

For more info e.g. Paddock to Plate

Policy Propositions for Sustainable Food Systems & Background Paper

www.triplehelix.com.au 4

1. Drivers for more sustainable food systems

• World food demand • Climate chaos • Water scarcity • Energy security

• Soil, nutrients & other resource constraints • Human health & animal welfare 5

• The policy responses to all of the

The Food System • Has a very large environmental footprint – E.g. more than half total household water consumption

• Is critically dependent on climate, water, energy, land and nutrients • Is affected by constraints or perturbations in any of these factors

The core problem: population & carbon emissions

Source: WBCSD & IUCN 2008; Harvard Medical School 2008

Some people are (wrongly) trying to represent the last decade as indicating a cooling trend.

Water • Each calorie takes one litre of water to produce, on average • Like the Murray Darling Basin, all the world’s major food producing basins are effectively ‘closed’ or already over-committed

Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Annual Storage Inflow GL (19132007)

In Victoria, last 7 years the driest 7 years since records have been kept. Inflows to Melbourne storages since 1997 35% lower than prior to 1997.

Climate change impact on water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin

Feeding the world • The world needs to increase food production by about 70% by 2050, & improve distribution • We have done this in the past, mainly through clearing, cultivating and irrigating more land – and intensification, better varieties, more fertiliser, pesticides etc

• Climate change and oil depletion is narrowing those options, with limits to water, land, energy & nutrients • Rich consumers have major concerns about modern industrial food systems 12

– human health, animal welfare, environment, fair trade

But maybe we ain’t seen nothin yet….

World

Energy & nutrients â&#x20AC;˘ The era of abundant, cheap fossil fuels is coming to a close

Australia

â&#x20AC;˘ Rising oil costs = rising costs for fertiliser, agrichemicals, transport and food

Energy (2) “ a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production before 2020. The risks presented by global oil depletion deserve much more serious attention by the research and policy communities.” UK Energy Research Centre, An assessment of the evidence for a near-term peak in global oil production, August 2009

“we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day” Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist IEA, 3 August 2009 “The challenge of feeding 7 or 8 billion people while oil supplies are falling is stupefying. It’ll be even greater if governments keep pretending that it isn’t going to happen.” George Monbiot, The Guardian 16.11.09 16

Land & soil • The FAO recently assessed trends in land condition (measured by net primary productivity) from 1981-2004 • Land degradation is increasing in severity and extent: – >20 percent of all cultivated areas >30 percent of forests >10 percent of grasslands • 1.5 billion people depend directly on land that is being degraded • Land degradation is cumulative. Limited overlap between 24% of the land surface identified as degraded now and the 15% classified in 1991, because NPP has flatlined near zero in flogged areas 17

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000874/index.html

Water, energy, and GDP Water and energy have historically been closely coupled with GDP in Australia

Energy & GDP

Water & GDP

Our challenge now is to radically reduce the energy, carbon and water-intensity of our economy

from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (2007)

Climate-water-energy feedbacks • Saving water often uses more energy, and viceversa • Efforts to moderate climate often use more energy +/or water •

E.g. coal-fired power stations with CCS will be 25-33% more waterintensive

• Using more fossil energy exacerbates climate chaos 20

from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (2007)

Where does “Business as Usual” take us? •

A food system less capable of delivering healthy, affordable food reliably in a variable climate –

Murrindindi among the highest levels of food insecurity in Victoria > 11% of people run out of food, unable to afford more (before fires)

•

Intensifying pressure on the resource base

•

Greater exposure & vulnerability to rising energy & nutrient prices

•

Intensifying competition for rural land & water

•

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions

•

Ever-declining water security and energy security

•

Exacerbating pressures on rural communities

2. Technical challenges & opportunities 1. To decouple economic growth from carbon emissions 2. To increase water productivity,

decoupling the every calorie = 1 litre relationship

3. To increase energy productivity – –

more food energy out per unit of energy in while shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy

1. To develop more sustainable food systems – –

while conserving biodiversity and improving landscape amenity, soil health, animal welfare & human health

1. To achieve all of the above simultaneously! 22

The integration imperative • Managing whole landscapes - “where nature meets culture” (Schama) - landscapes are socially constructed - beyond ‘ecological apartheid’ - NRM means people management - engage values, perceptions, aspirations, behaviour

• Integration -across issues – e.g climate, energy, food & water -across scales – fixing the Federation -across the triple helix -landscapes, lifestyles & livelihoods 23

Types of Response We need to be operating in each of these quadrants Develop research partnerships +/or link into existing collaborations

Source: FFI CRC EverCrop

The Cynefin knowledge framework* • Climate change spans all of these domains • If temp increase > 2ºC, then disorder & chaos will reign • The challenge is to handle the necessary range of simultaneous responses – to work in all of these domains at once – to develop a system-wide perspective – & the knowledge systems and learning strategies to underpin that perspective * David Snowden & Mary Boone (2007) “Leader's Framework for Decision Making” Harvard Business Review

We need a third agricultural revolution — what might it look like? • Closed loop farming systems (water, energy, nutrients, carbon) • Better understanding of soil carbon & microbial activity • Radically reducing waste in all parts of the food chain • Farming systems producing renewable bioenergy (2nd generation) • Smart metering, sensing, telemetry, robotics, guidance 26 •

Urban food production, recycling waste streams &

A two-tiered food system? • Potential divergence of the food system into two tiers: 1. High volume, undifferentiated commodities on low margins for world market prices — farmers price takers 2. More differentiated, highly specified produce for more discerning markets, emphasising both functional and nonfunctional brand attributes tailored to customer demands

• The obvious option for Kinglake is the second one • This means high levels of quality assurance, distinctive regional branding strategies, close contact with customers, local value adding where possible. 27

• Cities suck in water, energy and nutrients from their hinterland • Much of which becomes waste • Replumbing, rewiring and restumping is required on a massive scale • Cities also suck in people, and are part of the solution, not the problem • Peri-urban areas like Kinglake Ranges should see the city as a major ally and opportunity 28

Innovation & Research Opportunities

• Urban food production (shorter supply chains)

• Forensic mapping of stocks and flows of water, energy, nutrients and biomass in urban and peri-urban areas to identify opportunities for use in food production • Integrate the above 2 points into Food Sensitive Urban Design • Opportunities from waste (e.g. algal biodiesel) • Spatial optimisation for food, water, carbon & energy from a regional planning perspective • Integrated farming of food, energy (biofuels & bioenergy) & carbon — site and landscape scale 29

3. Policy challenges & opportunities — time for new alliances & perspectives • Healthy farms, healthy landscapes, healthy soils, healthy food, healthy people & healthy communities are interconnected • We are not used to seeing the farming system, the energy system or the water system, or planning & urban design for that matter, as connected to the health system Source: Tyrchniewicz and McDonald (2007)

Perspectives from the top of the APS Terry Moran, Institute of Public Administration, 15 July 2009: Reflecting on the challenges of public sector reform:

“ By and large, I believe the public service gives good advice on incremental policy improvement. Where we fall down is in long-term, transformational thinking; the big picture stuff. We are still more reactive than proactive; more inward than outward looking. We are allergic to risk, sometimes infected by a culture of timidity…. The APS still generates too much policy within single departments and agencies to address challenges that span a range of departments and agencies… We are not good at recruiting creative thinkers. ” 31

http://www.dpmc.gov.au/media/speech_2009_07_15.cfm

A food policy agenda • Propositions from Campbell (2009) “Paddock to Plate” (published by the ACF & also at www.triplehelix.com.au)