The other inconvenient truth | Jonathan Foley | TEDxTC

Summary

In this insightful presentation, the speaker highlights the critical global issue of agriculture's impact on the environment, emphasizing how it dominates land use, water resources, and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. The talk explores the necessity of agriculture for human survival and the challenges posed by a growing population and changing diets. It calls for a collaborative approach to invent a new type of agriculture, blending commercial, organic, and environmental practices to sustainably feed nine billion people while protecting the planet for future generations.

Takeaways

• 🌏 Human presence is highly visible from space at night, with cities, oil fields, and fishing fleets dominating the planet's surface.
• 🛣️ Deforestation patterns, such as the 'fish bone' pattern in the Amazon, are driven by the expansion of roads and subsequent agricultural development.
• 🐄 The Amazon rainforest is being cleared for cattle farming, primarily for beef consumption in South America, impacting the environment significantly.
• 🌾 Agricultural practices, like soybean farming in the Bolivian Amazon, are influenced by global trade demands, as seen with the shift from rainforest to soybean fields for animal feed in Europe and China.
• 🌱 The extent of land used for agriculture is vast, with croplands and pastures covering an area equivalent to the size of South America and Africa combined.
• 💧 Agriculture is a major consumer of water resources, with practices such as desert irrigation in Arizona and the depletion of the Colorado River and Aral Sea exemplifying the strain on water supplies.
• 🌳 Agriculture is a leading cause of biodiversity loss and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, rivaling the impact of climate change.
• 🚜 The current trajectory of agricultural expansion threatens ecological balance, with the potential to double global agricultural production by intensifying farming on existing lands rather than clearing new areas.
• 🌱 There is a need to improve agricultural yields sustainably, focusing on areas with low current productivity without causing environmental harm.
• 🌿 The concept of 'terraculture' is introduced, advocating for a blend of commercial, organic, and conservationist approaches to create a holistic agricultural system.
• 🤝 The script calls for a collaborative approach among various stakeholders, including commercial agriculture, environmental conservation, and organic farming, to address the challenges of feeding a growing population without further damaging the planet.

Q & A

What is the 'other inconvenient truth' referred to in the script?

The 'other inconvenient truth' is a global issue at the intersection of land use, food, and environment, highlighting the significant impact of human activities on the planet, particularly in relation to agriculture and deforestation.

What is the significance of the night-time satellite images of Earth mentioned in the script?

The night-time satellite images of Earth are significant because they show the extent of human presence and activity on the planet, particularly the dominance of urban areas, oil fields, and fishing fleets, which are all illuminated and visible from space.

What is the 'fish bone pattern' of deforestation described in the script?

The 'fish bone pattern' of deforestation refers to the pattern created by roads that penetrate into the rainforest, branching out and leading to the clearing of land for agricultural purposes, such as cattle farming, which resembles the structure of a fish bone.

How has the landscape in the Bolivian edge of the Amazon changed from 1975 to 2003 according to the script?

The landscape in the Bolivian edge of the Amazon has changed dramatically from a rainforest to an area resembling Iowa, with vast soybean fields that are used for animal feed and are shipped to Europe and China.

What is the role of trade and globalization in the changes to the Amazon landscape?

Trade and globalization are responsible for the transformation of the Amazon landscape as they drive the demand for agricultural products like soybeans, which are used as animal feed in other parts of the world, leading to deforestation and land conversion for farming.

What does the script reveal about the scale of land used for agriculture globally?

The script reveals that agriculture occupies about 40 percent of the Earth's land surface, with 16 million square kilometers used for growing crops and another 30 million square kilometers for pastures and rangelands, which is equivalent to the size of South America and Africa, respectively.

How does the script illustrate the impact of agriculture on water resources?

The script illustrates the impact of agriculture on water resources by showing how water is diverted from rivers like the Colorado River to irrigate crops in arid regions, leading to a significant reduction in river flow and the drying up of once large water bodies like the Aral Sea.

What is the script's perspective on the role of agriculture in greenhouse gas emissions?

The script states that agriculture is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, accounting for 30 percent of human-induced emissions, which is more than transportation, electricity, or manufacturing.

What is the concept of 'terraculture' proposed in the script?

The concept of 'terraculture' is a new kind of agriculture that blends the best ideas from commercial farming, organic farming, and environmental conservation to create a sustainable and holistic approach to food production that is sensitive to both food security and environmental needs.

What challenges does the script present for the future of agriculture?

The script presents the challenge of doubling or even tripling global food production to feed a growing population while also protecting the environment and natural resources, which requires a new approach to agriculture that is sustainable and equitable.

What solutions does the script suggest to address the challenges of agriculture and environmental sustainability?

The script suggests a range of solutions including precision agriculture, new crop varieties, drip irrigation, gray water recycling, better tillage practices, smarter diets, and a collaborative approach that includes commercial agriculture, environmental conservation, and organic farming.

Outlines

00:00

🌏 Dominance of Human Activity on Earth's Landscapes

The speaker begins by highlighting the profound impact of human activities on the planet, observable from space. Nighttime satellite images reveal the extent of urbanization, industrialization, and fishing activities. The journey then shifts to the Amazon Basin, illustrating the transformation of pristine rainforests into agricultural lands for beef production, primarily for local consumption. This pattern of deforestation is noted as a common occurrence in tropical regions, emphasizing the scale of environmental alteration for food production.

05:02

🌱 The Expansion of Agriculture and Its Environmental Consequences

This section delves into the expansion of agricultural lands, particularly in the Amazon, where roads built in the 1970s have led to widespread deforestation. The conversion of jungles into soybean fields for international trade exemplifies the impact of globalization on land use. The speaker discusses the significant areas of land and water resources already consumed by agriculture, including the startling statistic that agricultural land use is equivalent to the size of South America and the water usage is depleting entire rivers, as illustrated by the Colorado River and the Aral Sea's tragic transformation.

10:03

🚜 The Challenge of Doubling Global Agricultural Production

The speaker addresses the impending challenge of increasing global agricultural production to meet the demands of a growing population and changing dietary habits. With current agricultural practices already consuming a substantial portion of the Earth's resources, the prospect of doubling production without causing further environmental harm is daunting. The potential strategies for achieving this are explored, including the expansion of farmland into sensitive ecological areas, which is deemed ecologically risky, and the alternative of improving yields on existing lands through sustainable practices.

15:04

🌱 The Need for a New Agricultural Revolution: Terraculture

The final paragraph outlines the concept of 'terraculture,' a new form of agriculture that integrates the best practices of commercial farming, organic farming, and environmental conservation. The speaker emphasizes the necessity of a collaborative approach to address the dual challenges of food security and environmental sustainability. The video concludes with a call to action for a global dialogue and investment in innovative solutions that can bridge the gap between agricultural productivity and ecological preservation.

Keywords

💡Land Use

Land use refers to the management and utilization of different types of land for various human activities, such as agriculture, forestry, and urban development. In the context of the video, land use is central to the discussion on the environmental impact of agriculture, as it highlights how much of the Earth's surface is dedicated to growing crops and raising livestock. The script mentions the transformation of landscapes, such as the Amazon rainforest, for agricultural purposes, leading to deforestation and environmental degradation.

💡Deforestation

Deforestation is the process of clearing large areas of forest land for non-forest purposes, often resulting in the removal of the entire tree cover. The video script describes the 'fish bone pattern' of deforestation in the Amazon, where roads built in the 1970s have led to the expansion of agricultural land, resulting in significant loss of forest cover. This process is a major contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss, as it destroys habitats and releases stored carbon into the atmosphere.

💡Agricultural Production

Agricultural production encompasses the processes and industry involved in growing crops and raising animals for food and other products. The script emphasizes the need to double or even triple global food production to meet the demands of a growing population while also protecting the environment. It suggests that increasing agricultural yields on existing lands through sustainable practices could be a viable solution to this challenge, rather than expanding farmland into sensitive ecological areas.

💡Globalization

Globalization is the process of increased interconnectedness and interdependence among countries, which has significant implications for trade, culture, and the environment. In the video, globalization is highlighted as a factor driving agricultural practices, such as the conversion of rainforests into soybean fields for export as animal feed to Europe and China. This example illustrates how global trade dynamics can have far-reaching environmental impacts.

💡Greenhouse Gases

Greenhouse gases are gases in the Earth's atmosphere that trap heat and contribute to the greenhouse effect, leading to global warming and climate change. The video script points out that agriculture is a significant emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 30% of human-induced emissions. This includes carbon dioxide from deforestation, methane from livestock, and nitrous oxide from fertilizers, making agriculture a key player in climate change mitigation efforts.

💡Biodiversity Loss

Biodiversity loss refers to the decline in the variety of species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity within a given area. The script identifies agriculture as the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss, as the expansion of agricultural lands leads to habitat destruction and fragmentation. The loss of biodiversity can disrupt ecosystems, reduce resilience to environmental changes, and affect the provision of ecosystem services.

💡Irrigation

Irrigation is the artificial application of water to land or soil to assist in the growth of crops, especially in arid or semi-arid regions. The video discusses how irrigation is the largest use of water on the planet, with significant environmental consequences such as the depletion of rivers like the Colorado and the Aral Sea. The script highlights the need for more efficient irrigation practices to conserve water resources.

💡Fertilizers

Fertilizers are substances added to soil or water to provide essential nutrients for plant growth. The script notes that the use of fertilizers has more than doubled the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the environment, leading to widespread water pollution and degradation of aquatic ecosystems. It suggests that over-fertilization is a significant contributor to environmental problems and that more sustainable agricultural practices are needed.

💡Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is an approach to farming that aims to meet the food needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The video script calls for a new kind of agriculture that is sustainable, equitable, and just, suggesting that a combination of commercial, organic, and conservation practices is needed to achieve this goal. The concept of 'terraculture' or farming for the whole planet is introduced as a way to integrate these approaches.

💡Terraculture

Terraculture is a term coined in the script to describe a new approach to agriculture that combines the best ideas from commercial farming, organic practices, and environmental conservation. It is presented as a holistic and integrated approach to farming that aims to meet the food security needs of the future while also addressing environmental security. The script suggests that such an approach is necessary to face the grand challenge of feeding a growing population sustainably.

💡Food Security

Food security refers to the availability of sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet the dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy life. The video script emphasizes the importance of achieving food security in the context of a growing global population and changing diets. It suggests that doubling global agricultural production may be necessary to ensure food security while also considering the environmental impacts of such production.

Highlights

The human presence on Earth is highly visible from space, especially at night, with cities and oil fields dominating the landscape.

Deforestation patterns, such as the 'fish bone' pattern in the Amazon, are driven by the creation of roads and subsequent agricultural expansion.

Globalization and trade have led to significant changes in land use, such as soybean fields replacing rainforests in Bolivia to meet international demands.

Agriculture is responsible for 40% of Earth's land surface, which is 60 times larger than all urban areas combined.

Agricultural practices consume 70% of the world's sustainable fresh water, with examples like the Colorado River being depleted for irrigation.

The Aral Sea's desiccation is a stark example of the environmental impact of diverting water for agricultural irrigation, leading to a regional ecological disaster.

Agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 30% of human-induced emissions.

The excessive use of fertilizers has doubled the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus, causing water quality issues in rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Agriculture is the leading cause of biodiversity loss, transforming landscapes and ecosystems at an unprecedented scale.

The need to double or even triple global food production by the end of the century poses a significant challenge to sustainable development.

The concept of 'terraculture' is introduced, advocating for a blend of commercial, organic, and conservationist approaches to agriculture.

The potential for improving agricultural yields exists in many parts of the world without further land expansion, by enhancing current farming practices.

The necessity for a global dialogue on agriculture, bringing together various stakeholders to collaboratively address the challenges of feeding the world sustainably.

The importance of considering both food security and environmental security in developing new agricultural practices for the future.

The transcript emphasizes the need for innovation in agriculture to meet the demands of a growing population without causing irreversible environmental damage.

The presentation calls for a broader conversation that includes precision agriculture, new crop varieties, drip irrigation, and smarter diets as potential solutions.

The challenge of feeding a growing world is presented as one of the greatest grand challenges in human history, requiring a concerted and correct effort.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Lara Cecilia Garau

Tonight, I want to have a conversation

about this incredible global issue that's at the intersection

of land use, food, and environment,

something we can all relate to,

and what I've been calling "the other inconvenient truth".

But first, I want to take you on a little journey.

Let's first visit our planet, but at night and from space.

This is what our planet looks like from outer space

at night time, if you were going to take a satellite

and travel around the planet.

And the thing you would notice first, of course,

is how dominant the human presence on our planet is.

We see cities, we see oil fields,

you can even make out fishing fleets in the sea.

We are dominating much of our planet, and mostly

through the use of energy that we see here at night.

But let's go back and drop it a little deeper

and look during the daytime.

What we see during the day is our landscapes.

This is part of the Amazon Basin, a place called Rondonia

in the south center part of the Brazilian Amazon.

If you look really carefully in the upper right hand corner,

you're going to see a thin white line,

which is a road that was built in the 1970s.

If we come back to the same place in 2001

what we're going to find is that these roads

spurred off more roads and more roads after that,

at the end of which is a small clearing in the rainforest,

where there are going to be a few cows.

These cows are used for beef.

We're going to eat these cows, and these cows are eaten

basically in South America, in Brazil and Argentina.

They're not being shipped up here.

But this kind of fish bone pattern of deforestation

is something we notice a lot of around the tropics,

especially in this part of the world.

If we go a little bit further south

on our little tour of the world,

we can go to the Bolivian edge of the Amazon,

here also in 1975.

And if you look really carefully,

there's a thin white line through that kind of seam,

and there's a lone farmer out there

in the middle of the primeval jungle.

Let's come back again a few years later, here in 2003.

And we'll see that that landscape actually looks

a lot more like Iowa than it does like a rainforest.

In fact, what you're seeing here are soybean fields.

These soybeans are being shipped to Europe

and to China as animal feed,

especially after the Mad Cow Disease scare

about a decade ago, where we don't want to feed animals

animal protein anymore, because that can transmit disease.

Instead, we want to feed them more vegetable proteins,

so soybeans have really exploded,

showing how trade and globalization

are really responsible for the connections

to rainforest and the Amazon.

An incredibly strange, interconnected world

that we have today.

Well, again and again what we find

as we look around the world in our little tour of the world

is that landscape after landscape after landscape

have been cleared and altered

for growing food and other crops.

So, one of the questions we've been asking

is, how much of the world is used to grow food,

and where is it, exactly?

And how can we change that into the future,

and what does it mean?

Well, our team has been looking at this

on a global scale using satellite data

and ground based data kind of to track farming

at a global scale.

And this is what we've found, and it's startling.

This map shows the presence of agriculture on planet Earth.

The green areas are the areas we use

to grow crops like wheat, or soybeans, or corn,

or rice, or whatever.

That's 16 million square kilometers worth of land.

If you put it all together in one place,

it'd be the size of South America.

The second area in brown is the world's pastures

and rangelands where our animals live.

That area is about 30 million square kilometers,

or about an Africa's worth of land,

a huge amount of land. And it's the best land,

of course, is what you see.

What's left is like the middle of the Sahara Desert,

or Siberia, or the middle of a rainforest.

We're using a planet's worth of land already.

If we look at this carefully,

we find that about 40 percent of the Earth's land surface

is devoted to agriculture, and it's 60 times larger

than all the areas we complain about:

our suburban sprawl, and our cities where we mostly live.

Half of humanity lives in cities today,

but its 60 times larger area is used to grow food.

So, this is an amazing kind of result,

and it really shocked us when we looked at that.

So we're using an enormous amount of land for agriculture,

but also we're using a lot of water.

This is a photograph flying into Arizona,

and when you look at it you're like, what are they growing here?

It turns out, they're growing lettuce in the middle of the desert

using water sprayed on top.

Now, the irony is it's probably sold

on our supermarket shelves in the Twin Cities.

But what's really interesting is

this water's got to come from some place,

and it comes from here, the Colorado River in North America.

Well, the Colorado on a typical day in the 1950s -

this is just, not a flood, not a drought,

kind of an average day - looks something like this.

But if we come back today during a normal condition

to the exact same location, this is what's left.

The difference is mainly irrigating the desert for food,

or maybe golf courses in Scottsdale.

You take your pick.

Well, this is a lot of water.

And again, we're mining water and using it to grow food.

And today, if you travel down further down the Colorado,

it dries up completely and no longer flows into the ocean.

We've literally consumed an entire river

in North America for irrigation.

Well, that's not even the worst example in the world.

This probably is, the Aral Sea.

Now, a lot of you will remember this

from your geography classes.

This is in the former Soviet Union between Kazakhstan

and Uzbekistan, one of the great inland seas of the world.

But there's kind of a paradox here,

because it looks like it's surrounded by desert.

Why is this sea here?

The reason it's here is because on the right hand side

you see two little rivers kind of coming down

through the sand, feeding this basin with water.

Those rivers are draining snow melt

from mountains far to the east, where snow melts,

travels down the river, through the desert,

and forms the great Aral Sea.

Well, in the 1950s, the Soviets decided

to divert that water to irrigate the desert

to grow cotton, believe it or not, in Kazakhstan,

to sell cotton to the international markets

to bring foreign currency into the Soviet Union.

They really needed the money.

Well, you can imagine what happens:

[if] you turn off the water supply to the Aral Sea, what's going to happen?

Here it is in 1973,

1986,

1999,

2004,

and about 11 months ago.

It's pretty extraordinary.

Now, a lot of us in the audience here live in the Midwest.

Imagine that was Lake Superior.

Imagine that was Lake Huron.

It's an extraordinary change.

This is not only a change in water

and where the shoreline is,

it's a change in the fundamentals of the environment of this region.

Let's start with this.

The Soviet Union didn't really have a Sierra Club,

let's put it that way.

So what you find at the bottom of the Aral Sea ain't pretty.

There's a lot of toxic waste,

a lot of things were dumped there, they're now becoming airborne.

One of those small islands

that was remote and impossible to get to

was a site of Soviet biological weapons testing.

You can walk there today. Weather patterns have changed:

19 of the unique 20 fish species found only in the Aral Sea

are now wiped off the face of the Earth.

This is an environmental disaster writ large.

But let's bring it home.

This is a picture that Al Gore gave me a few years ago

that he took when he was in the Soviet Union

a long, long time ago showing

the fishing fleets of the Aral Sea.

You see the canal they dug?

They're so desperate to try to kind of float the boats

into the remaining pools of water that they finally had to give up,

because the piers and moorings

simply couldn't keep up with the retreating shoreline.

I don't know about you, but I'm terrified

that future archeologists will dig this up

and write stories about our time in history and wonder,

what were you thinking?

Well, that's the future we have to look forward to.

We already use about 50 percent

of the Earth's fresh water that's sustainable,

and agriculture alone is 70 percent of that.

So we use a lot of water,

a lot of land for agriculture -

we also use a lot of the atmosphere for agriculture.

Usually when we think about the atmosphere,

we think about climate change

and greenhouse gases, and mostly around energy.

But it turns out, agriculture is one

of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, too.

If you look at carbon dioxide from burning tropical rainforest,

or methane coming from cows and rice,

or nitrous oxide from too many fertilizers,

it turns out agriculture is 30 percent of the greenhouse gases

going into the atmosphere from human activity!

That's more than all our transportation,

it's more than all our electricity,

it's more than all other manufacturing, in fact.

It's the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases

of any human activity in the world,

and yet we don't talk about it very much.

So, we have this incredible presence today

of agriculture dominating our planet,

whether it's 40 percent of our land's surface,

70 percent of the water we use,

30 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions.

We've doubled the flows of nitrogen and phosphorus

around the world simply by using fertilizers,

causing huge problems of water quality

from rivers, lakes, and even oceans.

And it's also the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss.

So without a doubt, agriculture

is the single most powerful force unleashed on this planet

since the end of the Ice Age, no question.

And it rivals climate change in importance,

and they're both happening at the same time.

But what's really important here to remember

is that it's not all bad.

It's not that agriculture's a bad thing.

In fact, we completely depend on it.

It's not optional, it's not a luxury.

It's an absolute necessity.

We have to provide food and feed, and yes,

fiber, and even biofuels

to something like seven billion people in the world today.

And if anything, we're going to have

the demands on agriculture increase into the future.

It's not going to go away:

it's going to get a lot bigger,

mainly because of growing population.

We're seven billion people today

heading towards at least nine,

probably nine and a half before we're done.

More importantly, changing diets

as the world becomes wealthier as well as more populous -

we're seeing increases in dietary consumption of meat,

which take a lot more resources than a vegetarian diet does.

So more people eating more stuff and richer stuff,

and of course, having an energy crisis at the same time

where we have to replace oil with other energy sources

that will ultimately have to include

some kinds of biofuels and bioenergy sources.

So, you put these together, it's really hard to see

how we're going to get to the rest of the century

without at least doubling global agricultural production.

Well, how are we going to do this?

How are we going to double

global agro production around the world?

Well, we could try to farm more land:

this is an analysis we've done where on the left

is where the crops are today.

On the right is where they could be,

based on soils and climate,

assuming climate change doesn't disrupt too much of this,

which is not a good assumption.

We could farm more land, but the problem is,

the remaining lands are in sensitive areas:

they have a lot of biodiversity, a lot of carbon,

things we want to protect.

So we could grow more food by expanding farmland,

but we'd better not,

because it's ecologically a very,

very dangerous thing to do.

Instead, we maybe want to freeze the footprint of agriculture

and farm the lands we have better.

This is work that we're doing

to try to highlight places in the world

where we could improve yields without harming the environment.

The green areas here show where corn yields

- just showing corn as an example -

are already really high, probably the maximum

you could find on Earth today for that climate and soil.

But the brown areas and yellow areas

are places where we're only getting maybe 20 or 30 percent

of the yield you should be able to get.

You see a lot of this in Africa, even Latin America,

but interestingly, Eastern Europe,

where Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries used to be,

is still a mess, agriculturally.

Now, this would require nutrients and water.

It's going to either be organic, or conventional,

or some mix of the two to deliver that.

Plants need water and nutrients.

But we can do this, and there are opportunities

to make this work.

But we have to do it in a way that is sensitive

to meeting the food security needs of the future

and the environmental security needs of the future.

We have to figure out how to make this tradeoff

between growing food and having healthy environment work better.

Right now, it's kind of all or nothing proposition.

We can grow food in the background

- that's a soybean field - and in this flower diagram

it shows we grow a lot of food,

but we don't have a lot of clean water,

we're not storing a lot of carbon,

we don't have a lot of biodiversity.

In the foreground, we have this prairie

that's wonderful from the environmental side,

but you can't eat anything. What's there to eat?

We need to figure out how to bring both of those

together into a new kind of agriculture

that brings them all together.

Now, when I talk about this, people often tell me,

well, isn't - blank - the answer, or organic food,

local food, GMOs, new trade subsidies, new farmvilles?

And yes, we have a lot of good ideas here,

but not any one of these is a silver bullet.

In fact, what I think they are

is more like silver buckshot.

And I love silver buckshot:

you put it together, and you've got something really powerful.

But we need to put them together.

So what we have to do, I think,

is invent a new kind of agriculture

that blends the best ideas of commercial agriculture

in the Green Revolution

with the best ideas of organic farming and local food,

and the best ideas of environmental conservation.

Not to have them fighting each other,

but to have them collaborating together

to form a new kind of agriculture,

something I call terraculture,

or farming for a whole planet.

Now, having this kind of conversation

has been really hard.

We've been trying very hard to bring these key points to people

to reduce the controversy and increase the collaboration.

I'm going to show you a short video

that does kind of show our efforts right now

to bring these sides together into a single conversation.

So let me show you that.

(Music) [Environment.]

[Institute on the environment – University of Minnesota]

[Driven to discover]

[The world population is growing]

[by 75 million people each year.]

[That's almost the size of Germany.]

[Today, we're nearing 7 billion people.]

[At this rate, we'll reach 9 billion people by 2040.]

[And we all need food.]

[But how?]

[How do we feed a growing world without destroying the planet?]

[We already know climate change is a big problem.]

[But it's not the only problem.]

[We need to face “the other inconvenient truth.”:]

[a global crisis in agriculture.]

[Population growth, meat consumption, dairy consumption, energy costs]

[bioenergy production = stress on natural resources.]

[More than 40% of Earth's land has been cleared for agriculture.]

[Global croplands cover 16 million square kilometers.]

[That's almost the size of South America.]

[Global pastures cover 30 million square kms.]

[That's the size of Africa.]

[Agriculture uses 60 times more land]

[than urban and suburban areas combined.]

[Irrigation is the biggest use of water on the planet.]

[We use 2,800 cube kilometers of water on crops every year.]

[That's enough to fill 7,305 Empire State Buildings every day.]

[Today, many large rivers have reduced flows.]

[Some dry up altogether.]

[Look at the Aral Sea, now turned to desert.]

[Or the Colorado river, which no longer flows to the ocean.]

[Fertilizers have more than doubled]

[the phosphorus and nitrogen in the environment.]

[The consequence?]

[Widespread water pollution]

[and massive degradation of lakes and rivers.]

[Surprisingly, agriculture is the biggest contributor to climate change:]

[it generates 30% of greenhouse gas emissions.]

[That's more than the emission from all electricity and industry.]

[Or from all the world's planes, trains and automobiles.]

[Most agricultural emissions come from tropical deforestation,]

[methane from animals and rice fields]

[and nitrous oxide from over-fertilizing.]

[There is nothing we do that transforms the world more than agriculture.]

[And there's nothing we do that is more crucial to our survival.]

[Here's the dilemma...]

[as the world grows by several billion more people,]

[we'll need to double, maybe even triple, global food production.]

[So where do we go from here?]

[We need a bigger conversation, an international dialogue.]

[We need to invest in real solutions:]

[incentives for farmers - precision agriculture -]

[new crop varieties - drip irrigation]

[gray water recycling - better tillage practices- smarter diets]

[We need everyone at the table:]

[advocates of commercial agriculture,]

[environmental conservation,]

[and organic farming...]

[must work together.]

[There is no single solution:]

[we need collaboration,]

[imagination,]

[determination.]

[Because failure is not an option.]

[How do we feed the world without destroying it?]

Jonathan Foley: And so, we face

one of the greatest grand challenges

in all of human history today:

the need to feed nine billion people

and do so sustainably and equitably and justly.

At the same time, protecting our planet

for this and future generations.

This is going to be one of the hardest things

we ever have done in human history,

and we absolutely have to get it right.

And we have to get it right on our first and only try.

So, thanks very much.

(Applause)