U.S. farmers are under pressure to produce more, pollute less, fulfill consumer preferences, and make a living — all with increasingly scarce natural resources and the uncertain effects of climate change, says a new report from the National Academies National Research Council.
To help U.S. agriculture evolve to meet these demands, the report concludes, national agricultural policies and research programs should look beyond focusing only on low costs and high production and adopt a holistic perspective to farming that encompasses multiple end goals, says the report.
USDA and state universities need to work closely together on such research and increase their study of the economics and social effects of such practices, the authors recommend.
Most current research, the report claims, is conducted to address a particular problem — how to rid soybean fields of a particular weed, or how to increase tomato production while using less water — and two-thirds of public agricultural research spending is focused on such study.
The report's authors also call for a broader, integrated approach to research that's more open-ended and pulls in a variety of disciplines. In particular, the authors want USDA, National Science Foundation, public universities and farmer-led groups to set up a research initiative focused on the effects farming has on land and watersheds.
The report also says public policies have had only a mixed effect on agricultural sustainability. It recommends that USDA spend more on its own study of the effects of current public policies such as farm subsidies and policy ideas in the bureaucratic pipeline.
U.S. farmers have become more efficient producers, but this greater productivity has come at a cost. For example, water tables have declined markedly in some agricultural areas, and pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilizers and pesticides have infiltrated surface water and rivers, creating oxygen-starved zones in waterways. The agricultural sector also is the largest contributor of two greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide and methane, in the US .
Additionally, the report finds that farmers face other challenges, such as consumer concerns about the treatment of farm animals and food safety. "Farmers' income is also not keeping up with rising production costs, primarily due to the higher prices of external inputs such as seeds, fuel, and synthetic fertilizer," the report notes, adding that more than half of U.S. farm operators need to work off the farm to supplement their income and to obtain health care and retirement benefit plans.
Although the report lays out a framework toward attaining sustainable farming systems, it also stresses that farmers' decisions to employ new practices are influenced by external forces, such as science, markets, public policies, land tenure arrangements, and their own values, knowledge, skills, and resources. The report points out that efforts to promote widespread adoption of different farming practices and systems "would require knowing how individual, household, farm, and regional characteristics affect farmers' response to incentives and disincentives."
The report was sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine , and National Research Council comprise the National Academies.
