Forecasting Farming’s Future

40 Years OutDennis T. Avery, Hudson Institute

before

Florida Agriculture in the Classroom

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

June 22, 2011

Key Predictions

• Temperature outlook for next 25 yrs—moderate cooling.

• No massive man-made global warming.

• Carbon taxes and emissions limits will founder—probably soon.

• Biofuels will lose their mandate. Soon, despite the Iowa Caucuses.

• Whole world will get rich—and buy high-quality diets rather than wind turbines..

• 7 billion affluent people create biggest farm sales opportunity ever. Especially high-protein foods.

Current Situation

• Must double current food output by 2040: At least 8

billion affluent people--plus millions more pets.

• Population growth almost over.

• Higher food yields are saving 5 billion lives per year

from hunger.

• Higher yields also saving 7 million square miles of

wildlands—land area of South America.

• Now must triple yields—again—on the best land..

Must Intensify Farming

• Failure to triple yields will cost wildlands. Poor farmers would plow more poor land.

• Most of the world’s good land already being farmed. Brazil has a bit more in Cerrados.

• Farm best land to save species:

Great Plains: bison, antelope, wolf ( 3)

Australia: kangaroos (1)

Brazilian Cerrados: ants and

termites (2)

Amazon: estimated 1 million species.

We Lack Technology to Triple Yields

• Green Revolution technology already widely used.

• High-yield research has stalled into “sustainability.”

• Biotech has demonstrated massive potential, but

Greens oppose. “Pollen pollution” unproven “health

risks.”

• Private-sector forging ahead: Monsanto, DuPont,

Syngenta--and Bill Gates.

• Major new investments must be made. Will they

benefit U.S. farmers?

Key Competitors

* Brazil:

14 million hectares of Cerrados pasture with no

crop constraints. Land cheap.

Far from export ports. Farmers now building

their own roads.

* Argentina: Land and technology, but their

government steals openly.

* World needs to value existing cropland, not plow

more.

Key Growth Markets for Food

• China: 1.3 billion people, GDP growth 9%. Land-short. Soybeans rather than corn.

• India: 1.3 billion. 7% GDP growth. Continuing expansion of milk and poultry.

• Egypt: 80 million people. Importing food, exporting strawberries.

• Bangladesh: 162 million people. Indian economic growth model or Moslem no-growth?

• Nigeria: 154 million people. Oil money, but graft.

Water Scarcity

• Second-scarcest farming resource.

• Farmers use 70%--at only 40% efficiency.

• Solution simple: Money

• Investments:

Computer-controlled center pivots.

More supplemental irrigation.

Lined canals.

Plastic surface sealant?

New dams?

The Fading Population Challenge

• Births per woman in poor countries down 85%

since 1960.

• All countries reach stability (2.1) by 2050.

• Kids in cities are expensive ego investment.

• Scarcity of young people soon. Not enough to

fund Social Security?

• Farmers no longer accused of “producing too

much food.”

The Rising Challenge of Affluence

• Population will rise another 30%, then peak out.

• Affluent consumers up from 1.5 billion to 7 billion--due to urbanization, technology, trade.

• Massive increased demand for preferred foods: Meat Dairy foods

Soy products

• More high-value farm exports—for food and feed.

• Far more purchased inputs to raise yields.

The Pet Challenge

• Fewer children—but more pets.

• If China gets half of U.S. pet saturation—250 million

non-vegetarian animals.

• Global shift from food scraps to purchased pet food.

• Even parents who won’t vaccinate kids vaccinate

dogs and cats.

• They use pesticides to prevent fleas in their homes.

• Urban teaching moment?

High Yield Farming Stops CO2!

• New: Stanford University. Burney et al, 2010. “Greenhouse Mitigation Through Agricultural Intensification.” Proceedings of the national Academies of Science.

• High yields saved 6.6 million sq. mi. of wildlands.

• Soil carbon saved equals one-third of world industrial emissions since 1850!!!

• Must now re-emphasize high yields, fertilizers, pesticides and refrigeration —to avoid more soil carbon losses due to low yields!

• Don’t plow more land, raise yields.

The New Pesticide Rule:

• The search for still-safer pesticides must go

forward.

• But the Precautionary Principle no longer says,

“Stop Spraying.”

• High yields crucial for feeding people, saving

wildlife, minimizing greenhouse emissions.

• World Wildlife Fund/USA agrees.

The Triumph of No-Till Farming

• Soil erosion cut by up to 95%--while keeping yields high.

• Soil moisture doubled.

• “dirty fallow” displaced on Canadian Prairie.

• No-till triumph in India: higher wheat yields, less irrigation water.

• Without chemistry, no-till fields choked with weeds.

• Organic farmers reject no-till, must plow, suffer erosion.

The Safety Concerns

• Everything is toxic at high doses.

• Chlorine canceled in water for Lima, Peru. Cholera

killed 5,000--quickly.

• EU wants to ban most active pesticide ingredients—

without demonstrated risks. Precaution!

• Chemophobia kills: 50 million needless malaria

deaths in the tropics.

• Two hundred people just killed in EU by organic

bean sprouts. But “electronic pasteurization” could

kill all food-borne bacteria.

• Focus on real safety, not “organic.”

Organic Farming’s Massive Nitrogen Constraint

• Organic yields 60% of conventional.

• Organic farms grow “green manure” instead

of food.

• “Organic Can Feed the World” 2007 paper

Authors overstated green manure’s

nitrogen delivery by three-fold.

• Lack of N fertilizer would mean vast hunger,

nutritional diseases and food wars!

An African Dust Bowl?

• Africa now risking bigger Dust Bowl than U.S.

in 1930s. Rising population, shortened “bush

fallows.”

• Ten African countries trying to “jump-start”

Green revolution with fertilizer, seed

subsidies.

• OECD--$20 billion assistance.

• Potential big impact on public perception of

high-yield farming.

High Yields Endorse Confined Feeding

• Hogs--land area of Pennsylvania to put outdoors.

• Chickens--land area of New Jersey.

• Confined animals more comfortable, need 15% less

cropland to grow their feed!

• Feedlot cattle emit 40% less methane. Grass hard to

digest.

• Grain-fed dairy cows cut dairy carbon footprint.

EPA and Our Amazingly

Moderate Climate Crisis

•Just 0.2 degrees C net warming--over 78 years!

•NO warming trend since 1998.

•California: Urban temperatures up 3 F per century.

Rural counties no upward trend.

•Urban heat islands: inflated official temp record 40

percent in past 50 years.

The “Consensus” View of Global Warming

•Warming man-made, with greenhouse gasses.

•Will cause major—and dangerous—rise in global

temperatures.

•Polar ice melt—sharply higher sea levels.

•Floods, droughts and storms all worsen.

•Polar bears endangered.

AGW Impact on Chinese Rice

• “Radical new direction needed in food production to

deal with climate change.”

• U. of Washington predicted 20-30% drop in crop

yields as temps rise too high.

• But….Xiong, 2009, warmth plus CO2 as fertilizer,

rice yields gain 3-19%.

• China rice and wheat now moving further north;

more double cropping in south.

British wine grapes as climate sensors

• 1st century AD: Romans grew wine grapes in Britain

during their occupation.

• Dark Ages (600-950AD) too cold for British wine.

• 11th Century: Medieval Warming. 50 British wineries

on tax rolls. Then warming ended.

• Little Ice Age (1300-1950) -- Britain too cold for wine

grapes. Ice festivals on Thames River.

• Only since 1950 have British hobbyists

grown wine grapes again.

Are we thinking cycles yet?

How Did We Find the 1500 Yr Cycle?

• Greenland and Antarctic ice cores in the 1980s--

oxygen isotopes.

• Seabed sediments worldwide: Plankton microfossils,

mineral ratios.

• Cave stalagmites worldwide—oxygen isotopes.

• North American fossil pollen: 9 plant reorganizations

in past 14,000 years—in 1500-year rythm.

Climate swings of past 12,000 years

•

Co2 can’t explain pre-1940 warming,

post-1940 cooling

Latest temperatures

Where’s the Runaway Warming?

• Sunspots began predicting a global cooling

after 2000. Arrived in 2007.

• Last week, U.S. National Solar Observatory

presented new measurements of solar

activity—declining sunspots, weakening

magnetic activity.

• Predicts decades of global cooling!

Previous Solar Coolings

• AD 1645-1715: “Maunder Minimum,” coldest

period of the Little Ice Age.

• 1880-1915: Less drastic cooling, much shorter

minimum. 1940-1975: Moderate cooling.

• No way to predict exact length of the coming

cold .

• Could reproduce any of the previous results!

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation

• In 1996, we discovered a 60-year cycle in the

Pacific.

• Tree rings show Pacific has controlled short-

term global temperatures in 30-year spurts for

past 400 years.

• In 2008, a NASA satellite found Pacific Ocean

entering a cool phase that should historically

last 25-30 years.

Both Sunspots and Pacific Now

Predict Long Global Cooling

• Science Magazine’s Richard Kerr: “Things may be about to get very dull on the sun. . .a hibernating sun would have only a slight cooling effect on the climate” (No story here, folks.)

• Associated Press: Sunspots may disappear for years, maybe decades. But scientists say it is nothing to worry about. . .And it might mean a little less increase in global warming.” (Dull, right?)

• The sun going quiet as EPA tries to triple energy prices to “save the planet”? That’s dull?!?

Why Global Warming Won’t Destroy Species

• The 750-yr 1500-year cycle shifts always abrupt.

•Wild species have been through 500 previous

moderate warmings.

•Ontario pollen shows beech trees dominated

warmings, oaks dominated coolings, pines

dominated cold periods. None went extinct.

•Polar bears will grab basking seals on th beach.

Global Warming Overreach

• If Hansen’s models correct in 1988, planet now 0.6 C

warmer than it is. Overreach.

• EPA carbon limits: Farmers would pay far more for

nitrogen, feed, carbon emissions penalties from

livestock. Obama said $8 gasoline would be good.

Overreach.

• Ten years out, imagine half the N fertilizer gone.

Children hungry. Would we let govt take the rest of the

fertilizer? Overreach.

Climate Likelihood for 21st Century?

• Small further warming--less than 0.5 C.

• 1500-year cycle gains half its warming in early

decades, as in 1850-1940.

• More U.S. drought as tropic rain belts move

north? Likely.

• Drought will be the big risk. California and

mid-Atlantic both had century-long mega-

droughts during Medieval Warming.

Impact of Global Warming on Food

• Higher levels of atmospheric CO2: act like fertilizer.

Boost plants’ nutrient and water efficiency.

• Drought-tolerant corn from Monsanto—modest

progress.

• Egyptian researchers moved barley gene to wheat,

can grow wheat in near-desert.

Dealing With the EPA

• “Only a fool would impose greenhouse

emissions--during a recession when

temperatures aren’t rising!” Dennis Avery,

2009

• “A step-change in global temperature trends?”

British Minister of Transport, Jan., 2011

• Delay the EPA while the climate cools. Time

is your friend.

Winning the Future• Greens will lose face as global farming fails.

• But “conservation” still resonates.

• One desperate farmer strategy left: spend money.

• Ads in cost-effective consumer magazines.

Saving kids from going blind due to Vitamin A

deficiency.

Saving millions of acres of wildlands and their

species.

Confinement feeding kinder to hogs.

• Is now the time?.

Best of Luck With Your Challenge

• Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1,500

Years, S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery. 2007.

New York Times non-fiction best-seller.

$24.95.

• Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic:

The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield

Farming. 2nd edition, 2000. Hudson Institute.

• $20.