Growing Returns

Farmers and ranchers can help bring birds back from the brink

By Stacy Small-Lorenz / Bio / Published: September 9, 2014

A raptor adapted to the open grasslands, the Swainson's hawk has become increasingly dependent on agriculture, especially alfalfa crops, as native communities are converted to agricultural lands.

A raptor adapted to the open grasslands, the Swainson’s hawk has become increasingly dependent on agriculture in California, especially alfalfa crops, as native communities are converted to agricultural lands.

The 2014 State of the Birds report, released this week, sends a message that is both somber and hopeful: we can bring vulnerable bird species back from the brink of extinction, but there is a lot of work to be done.

While some once-abundant species have rebounded in response to habitat restoration and management, others continue to decline. If we want to put our nation’s birds on a path to recovery, farmers and ranchers have a critical role to play.

Success stories show the way

Iconic bird species like bald eagles, brown pelicans and peregrine falcons that were once teetering on the edge of extinction are thriving again. California condors, with their spectacular 10-foot wingspans, went extinct in the wild in 1987. Today, 225 individuals soar once again over several western states.

Five reasons to care about climate change and agriculture

By Rebecca Shaw / Bio / Published: September 4, 2014

Rebecca Shaw is an expert panelist at the 2014 Society of Environmental Journalists conference in New Orleans, talking about “Feeding Eight Billion People in a Warming World.”

You may have seen the recent news about the potential impacts of drought on craft breweries like Lagunitas. Or the articulate Mother Jones headline – Lay Off the Almond Milk, You Ignorant Hipsters. Talking about climate change in terms of beer and almond milk isn’t a bad strategy for capturing the attention of thirsty Americans, but it’s not just our favorite beverages that are at risk.

Climate change poses a number of potential threats to the global food system, namely because of the impacts to agriculture. Here are five reasons why everyone from beer drinkers in California to bean farmers in Latin America should care about climate change and agriculture.

1. Rising temperatures could burn a hole in your wallet. The 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report found that, with average temperature increases of 3 to 4ºC, we will see large negative impacts on farm yields and severe risks to food security. Not only are food markets sensitive to climate extremes, but food prices are expected to rise anywhere from 3 to 84 percent by 2050.

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Posted in Agriculture / Tagged adaptation, agriculture, almond milk, beer, climate change, drought, food security, GHG mitigation, habitat, IPCC, irrigation efficiency, water use, wildlife, wine | Comments are closed

California’s salad bowl tosses up new ideas in sustainability

By Robert Parkhurst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 27, 2014

EDF’s Robert Parkhurst participated in the 2014 California Educational Fellowship, organized by the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation and its alumni.

I recently had the unique opportunity to learn firsthand how central California farmers are constantly changing the way specialty crops are grown, squeezing more from fewer resources and reducing their impacts on the environment.

I joined a handful of other ag policy experts in a visit to the Salinas Valley, considered “the salad bowl of the world,” where we learned about the current issues and complex challenges facing the state’s farmers and ranchers. The trip was organized by the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation.

Running about 90 miles from Monterey to San Luis Obispo, the Salinas Valley alone grows more than 85 percent of the nation’s artichokes, 55 percent of the nation’s lettuce and 30 percent of the nation’s strawberries. It also leads the state of California in the production of broccoli, celery, mushrooms and cabbage.

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Posted in Water / Tagged drip irrigation, pest control, Salinas Valley, water use | Read 1 Response

Stories of young farmers, water and resilience

By Aaron Citron / Bio / Published: August 15, 2014

Mike De Smet. Photo credit: National Young Farmers Coalition

I recently blogged about the growing gap between water supply and demand in the Colorado River Basin, and how the default solution too often involves permanently taking water out of agricultural irrigation and transferring it to meet the needs of a growing urban population.

Alternative solutions do exist – ones that don’t leave farmland unproductive and threaten the agricultural economy that sustains us all. To prove this point, I would like to turn to the stories of a few young farmers who, despite record drought in the arid Southwest, have begun to adapt through innovative drought mitigation and water-saving practices, proving that increased productivity and healthy ecosystems can coexist.

Posted in Agriculture, Water / Tagged water use | Comments are closed

Water filters can fight dead zones without hindering farm production

By Eileen McLellan / Bio / Published: August 15, 2014

Updated (October 23, 2014): Interior, Agriculture Departments Partner to Measure Conservation Impacts on Water Quality

A treatment wetland built under the Iowa Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Photo from Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship

“Is the water safe?”

In the United States, we take it for granted that the answer to that question is “yes.” But the residents of Toledo, OH, learned recently that their water wasn’t safe to drink for a few days because toxins associated with an algal bloom in Lake Erie had contaminated the city’s water supply. Meanwhile, a Maryland man was released from the hospital after nearly losing his leg and his life to flesh-eating bacteria contracted from swimming in the Chesapeake Bay.

These types of incidents are caused by nutrient pollution. Although nutrient pollution can come from many sources, runoff from agriculture is the dominant contributor to the problem in Lake Erie, the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Agriculture-associated nutrient pollution also impacts local streams and lakes, causing fish kills and closing swimming beaches. A recent study in Minnesota suggested that more than 70 percent of nitrogen in state waters comes from cropland.

What needs to be done, and how much will make a difference? Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, Coasts and Watersheds / Tagged Chesapeake Bay, dead zone, Gulf of Mexico, hypoxia, Interior department, Lake Erie, natural resources conservation, nutrient pollution, USDA, USGS, water quality, watershed, wetland buffer | Comments are closed

We can have food security and a healthy environment

By David Festa / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 13, 2014

The way we produce food is getting a lot of attention these days, and for good reason. If current projections hold, we’ll have 9 billion mouths to feed by 2050 – 2 billion more than we have today.

Throughout history, when we’ve needed to expand food production, we’ve gone to nature’s vast storehouse and made withdrawals. In doing so, we’ve filled wetlands, dried up rivers, degraded habitat, and polluted our air and water.

We’ve already drawn down nature’s account to dangerously low levels, and we still need to produce more.

If we’re going to meet growing needs for food and water, we’re going to have to do it in ways that not only stop harming the environment, but actually improve the ecosystems that serve us. Business as usual just isn’t going to cut it.

Farmers lead the way

During the past decade, we’ve been in quiet conversations with farmers and ranchers about how to facilitate this transformation. As we’ve walked their land, we’ve seen some encouraging things. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged farmers, food security, golden cheeked warbler, irrigation, ranchers, water, water use, Woolf Family Farms | Read 1 Response

Lake Erie’s fertilizer problem isn’t over, but we’re working on it

By Karen Chapman / Bio / Published: August 6, 2014

Fertilizer is the engine of agriculture, but its inefficient use means that excess fertilizer ends up in our waterways, contaminating freshwater supplies and causing algae blooms, such as those that recently cut off water supplies to hundreds of thousands of residents in Toledo, OH. In addition to impacts on communities, algae blooms also affect ecosystems, killing millions of fish and harming the seafood and recreation industries.

Nutrient runoff from fertilizer is a problem that many stakeholders, including farmers, have been trying to fix for many years, both in the Western Lake Erie Basin and beyond. The efforts to date have had a real impact, but that impact has not been nearly enough to solve the problem of dangerous and costly dead zones.

We need to do much more at a much larger scale, while also increasing productivity to feed a growing population.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged Adapt Network, fertilizer runoff, General Mills, Lake Erie, Ohio, Toledo, toxic algae, Walmart, water contamination, water quality | Comments are closed

New USDA roadmap a breakthrough for farmers and climate mitigation

By Robert Parkhurst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 31, 2014

woman The U.S. Department of Agriculture just published an important roadmap for America’s farmers and ranchers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and evaluate opportunities for reducing them.

Previously, insufficient data and lack of scientific consensus have impeded natural resource stewards from calculating GHG fluxes from management practices – especially since biological systems are dynamic and complex. But the new Gree nhouse Gas Report provides thorough guidelines for understanding how different management practices influence GHG emissions on farms, ranches and forests.

This is a major breakthrough in mitigating the impacts of climate change on working lands. By helping landowners better understand their impacts, farmers, ranchers and forest owners will be better equipped to calculate their emissions and account for these impacts through voluntary participation in GHG mitigation or carbon sequestration projects across the country.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged carbon sequestration, GHG mitigation, USDA | Comments are closed

The Colorado River Basin can’t afford to leave farmers out to dry

By Aaron Citron / Bio / Published: July 24, 2014

On Colorado River Day, it’s worth considering how we can write the next chapter in the water story of the American West.

With the recent news that Lake Mead is at its lowest level in history, it’s impossible to ignore the trajectory of America’s hardest-working river. In the Colorado River Basin, we are already using more water annually than is being supplied by snowpack and other precipitation. The Bureau of Reclamation and others predict that this gap in water supply and demand will increase to nearly 4 million acre-feet by 2060, with significant shortages possible as early as 2017.

It has become clear that, over time, our water uses are going to have to change. In thinking about where – in what sectors – this change should take place, we must also consider the environmental, cultural and economic services that each sector provides.

Posted in Water / Tagged agriculture, colorado river, colorado river day, denver water, drought, irrigation, irrigation efficiency, water use | Comments are closed

We don’t have to pit wildlife against the economy

By David Festa / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 14, 2014

Greater sage grouse. Photo credit: Steven Nehl

This post was co-written by Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and executive director of Partners for Western Conservation.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A rancher, an environmentalist, and an oil company exec walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and asks, “Is this a joke?”

On the surface we may seem like an odd group, but ranchers, energy companies and environmentalists are finding each other willing partners in solving big conservation problems.

Colorado is one of 11 Western states where an iconic rangeland bird, the greater sage grouse, nests in high desert topography that’s also perfect ground for cattle ranching. And in recent years, Colorado’s booming oil and gas industry has encroached on the bird’s habitat.

That puts the bird’s future on a collision course with the state’s two largest economic drivers: agriculture and energy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces a 2015 deadline to decide if the greater sage grouse should be protected by an Endangered Species Act listing. Listing could severely crimp both energy production and ranching across a vast territory.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, Colorado Cattlemen's Association, energy, greater sage-grouse, habitat exchange, mitigation banking, Partnerships, ranching, rangeland, sage grouse, Terry Fankhauser, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | Comments are closed