We’re winding down National Ag Week with this post on Agriculture and Climate. IATP provides a brief summary and some great resources below.
And speaking of resources, you can download our Food and the Climate Crisis poster/placemat right here.
Stay tuned for the launch of PHP’s Climate Challenge this summer!
From the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy:
From flooding, to drought, to extreme weather events, climate change is already impacting agriculture in the United States. And, as the National Climate Assessment wrote in late 2018, climate-driven disruptions are going to accelerate in both severity and cost in the coming years. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works at the intersection of climate and agriculture to advocate for policies that empower communities to develop grassroots solutions to create a climate-resilient agricultural system.
IATP is monitoring developments and movements at the global, national and state levels that can help farmers and policymakers advance a more climate-resilient agriculture together. Our new bimonthly newsletter, the Climate and Agriculture Policy Monitor, tracks and shares these initiatives and explains what steps can be taken now for a more climate-resilient agricultural system in the future.
At IATP, we believe agriculture can play a critical and essential role in responding to climate change.
PHP believes this too!
I am a lifelong Presbyterian raised on a small family farm. I also spent a decade studying agriculture (animal and crop sciences) in the USA & N.Z. Understanding we most likely all want the same things and have a deep devotion to God and his creation, this wonderful planet we inhabit, I am still very troubled by what I read on some of this site. Specifically the “food & climate crisis placemat’ and the article by Andrew Bartlett in the most recent ‘Presbyterians Today’ both have a disappointing lack of cited scientific references and accurate representations of actual ag production facts in them. I do hope the authors are able to present the sources they used in preparing the article and ‘placemat’. I am awaiting their responses. Until then I hope that they will reflect why as”Presbyterians we have always stood behind family farmers”, but rather if they and the rest of the 98-99% of Americans are not in production agriculture really have been standing in front of us as we have been feeding them.
Yes, we do want the same things ~ devotion to God and creation! We also strongly agree that everyone should thank farmers, farmworkers and all the many workers in our food-farm system for their hard and life-sustaining work – daily!
The facts provided on the placemat were sourced from ActionAid, Center for Food Safety, FAO, GRAIN, IFPRI, IPCC, Rodale Institute, World Food Programme, and World Watch. All are based on scientific research. There are many facts given in the placemat, can you let us know if there are particular ones that you are interested in?
In regards to the Presbyterians Today column, there are statistics about the number of gallons of water that go into producing a pound of beef, and statistics about carbon dioxide emissions. These are highly debated numbers. The one I chose to cite was that producing a pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. This comes from the National Geographic and is based on the 2010 study by Mekonnen and Hoekstra entitled, “The green, blue and grey water footprint of farm animals and animal products.” It is from the Water Footprint Network and is available here: https://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report-48-WaterFootprint-AnimalProducts-Vol1.pdf
Another fact was about the amount of agricultural land used in the U.S. to raise animals for food and grow grain to feed them, which is 80% (or almost half the total land mass of the lower 48 states). This comes from “Major Uses of Land in the United States” by Marlow Vesterby and Kenneth S. Krupa.