Juliana Spahr
It was at the beginning of the 19th century when people realised that humans as a society have an impact on their surroundings, on the environment, on the planet. As the years passed, there was a growing awareness that the rising temperatures were caused by the human greenhouse gas emissions, coming from the unsustainable usage of fossil fuels, deforestation, and intensive agriculture. Nowadays scientists are looking for ways to replace fossil fuels with renewable alternatives, which on the other hand involve changes in land use. This comes to conflicts of interest with the growing effort to preserve ecosystems and soil quality, and the goal of ensuring global nutrition. The question is therefore, to what extent land use and land cover changes to produce biofuels can still be considered compatible with our idea of sustainability.
Image from: (Food and Land Use Coalition, 2019)
Why did we change the land use in first place and what are the risks and consequences?
Before humans became sedentary and established civilizations, the lands were covered with wild vegetation, forests, and grassland. Humans were nomads and travelled from place to place to find the best living conditions, a safe place for their shelters with a good availability of food to gather or to hunt. But once they settled, first punctual then expanding all over the planet, it was necessary to make the land suitable for meeting the basic needs to survive; Forests were cleared and the created free space was partly built on, but mostly used for agricultural and breeding purposes. As the population increased and evolved, human traces became more and more visible, and the nature had to give way to urban centres, agricultural areas, and recreational spaces. The food production system had to evolve to guarantee a regular and good yield and prevent famine periods. Monocultures were established and did increasingly expose plants and soils to influences such as wind and water erosion, direct sunlight, and nutrient leaching. The loss of biodiversity in combination with the forest loss is exacerbating climate change and thus visibly altering the microclimate of the growing regions. Longer and more pronounced dry periods, greater temperature fluctuations and more frequent flooding are the consequences. The resulting weakened ecosystem becomes more susceptible to pests and diseases. Farmers respond to the declining crop yields by using mineral fertilizers and pesticides, which reduce profits and further damage the soil. This negative spiral is driving smallholders into poverty or causing them to cut down the remaining forests to open new cultivation areas on still fertile soils (HALBA, 2022; Nonhebel, 2003). A solution to this problem could be the return to agroforestry, where arable land and/or pasture are established in association with perennial tree and shrub species in the same unit of land area. Because of the high biodiversity all the herbicides and pesticides would not be needed that much anymore. But it would also be the return to extensive agriculture because the systematic mechanization would not be possible anymore. Such a scenario would therefore need more land to maintain the same productivity (FAO, 2015).
The controversy of land use changes for sustainable purposes
We live in a very controversial time. On one hand, we are increasingly feeling the pressure of climate change, the looming disasters that are slowly unfolding, giving us a taste of what we will face if we do not act. On the other hand, we are resistant to change, we want to continue to live as we are doing now, we do not see alternatives to economic growth to guarantee our high standard of living, even though we know that this is not a sustainable behaviour. A behaviour that we cannot afford, if not at the expense of others— people in more unfortunate countries, animals, or plants— but ultimately at the expense of ourselves as well.
It is known that climate change is primarily caused by uncontrolled CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, which is why we are trying to find a compromise between economic growth and sustainability in the form of sustainable development. The use of fossil resources is the most criticized aspect of human CO2 emissions, especially when they are used as fuels, for transport, in the machinery industry or even just to heat our homes. Fossil fuels are a limited resource – the regeneration time is much longer than the extraction rate. Therefore, over the years, efforts have been made to replace fossil fuels for energy production by renewable forms of energy. In addition to solar, hydroelectric, and wind energy (which would not be sufficient to meet all energy needs), attempts have been made with biofuels, like bioethanol, obtained through the fermentation process of lignocellulosic biomass. The advantages compared to fossil fuels also include a better biodegradability and lower toxicity (Vasić et al., 2021). The crops predominantly used for bioethanol production are sugarcane, corn, and sugar beets. The United States and Brazil are known for their commitment to biofuel production (Statista, 2020). Brazil has embarked on a “large-scale biofuel campaign” through which it has achieved complete independence from mineral oil by providing fuel and electricity through the cultivation and processing of sugarcane. However, this decision has serious side effects. Bioethanol is considered carbon-neutral because when it is burned, it releases the same amount of CO2 that the plants previously consumed in photosynthesis. But to grow these plants, Brazil is clearing primary rain forest, mostly by slash-and-burn methods. By doing so, the CO2 balance of the Amazonas is getting more and more positive. This is an important aspect to take into consideration when comparing the environmental footprint of these two fuels. Also, the fact that biofuels could be considered as a waste of calories, when thinking about the 800 million people at risk of hunger (International Driving Authority, 2021). To avoid biases, it is important, that a complete life cycle assessment of the different energy forms is completed and not only an evaluation of the carbon footprint.
Soil protection and conservation in agriculture and a correlated example with the Ukrainian crisis
To prevent soil deterioration and to maintain the physical and chemical properties of the farmland’s soil as constant as possible, some law and regulations were passed, and agricultural methods established. One method, which was already practiced in the Middle Age in the feudal system, is crop rotation. It consists in choosing some species of plants with different needs to be cultivated in a determined agricultural area, and then rotated on the same land in a regular period. The purpose of this is not only to maintain soil fertility, but also to prevent the development of harmful organisms and the transmission of diseases and pests, as well as controlling the number of weeds and optimize the use of water and nutrient resources (Agroscope, 2022). Setting aside land for ecological purposes is not particularly popular among farmers, because it is not as profitable as having always the same plants, but it is also a prerequisite for EU subsidies. The EU regulations stipulate, for example, that winter wheat cannot be cultivated on an area for two years in a row, as it needs soil that is very rich in nutrients; a longer cultivation would lead to soil leaching, to eutrophication, and to nitrate contamination of the groundwater. Now, in context of the Russian aggression in Ukraine (a wheat exporter of worldwide importance) and the consequent sky rocking prices for wheat and animal feed, the question arises whether it is more important to protect the soil quality or to guarantee the nourishment of the global population. In fact, German agriculture minister Cem Özdemir (from the Green party) said he would make a request in Brussels to postpone the regulation on crop rotation to enable more wheat cultivation in Germany. This would allow farmers in Germany to grow wheat twice in a row during the upcoming fall sowing season, but the environment and the soils would have to pay the price for it (Meier, 2022).
Conclusions
There are no quick and easy solutions for a regulation of land use, and choices need to be weighted in the context they are made. There are always people who are going to lose, but if we do not act now, we will create life conditions where also the richer countries have no chance to survive. If we continue to live like this, sooner or later we will reach the deterioration of natural vegetation and the irreversible erosion of fertile land, which would have an important impact on our food production system and at the end on our life basis.
Bibliography
Agroscope. (2022). Fruchtfolge. https://www.agroscope.admin.ch/agroscope/de/home/themen/pflanzenbau/ackerbau/ackerbausysteme/rotation.html
FAO. (2015). Agroforestry. https://www.fao.org/forestry/agroforestry/80338/en/
Food and Land Use Coalition. (2019). Our Efforts in Russia | Food and Land Use Coalition. https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/country/russia/
HALBA. (2022). Policy und Massnahmenplan Agroforstwirtschaft 2022. https://www.halba.ch/content/dam/halba/dokumente/Policy und Massnahmenplan Agroforstwirtschaft 2022_DE.pdf
International Driving Authority. (2021). Pros and cons of bioethanol. https://idaoffice.org/posts/pros-and-cons-of-bioethanol/
Meier, A. (2022). Wegen des Kriegs in der Ukraine: Özdemir will mehr Weizenanbau ermöglichen – Politik – Tagesspiegel. Der Tagesspiegel. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wegen-des-kriegs-in-der-ukraine-oezdemir-will-mehr-weizenanbau-ermoeglichen/28328098.html
Nonhebel, S. (2003). GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND LAND USE. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0335-2
Statista. (2020). Biofuel production by country 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274168/biofuel-production-in-leading-countries-in-oil-equivalent/
Vasić, K., Knez, Ž., & Leitgeb, M. (2021). Bioethanol Production by Enzymatic Hydrolysis from Different Lignocellulosic Sources. Molecules, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/MOLECULES26030753