I've herd enough of this...

Pun intended...

As we near the beginning of the second semester here at UCL it is time for me to bring this blog, at least for the near future, to a close. Inspired by the documentary 'Cowspiracy' I have for the past couple of months been investigating the environmental impact of agriculture, both in terms of livestock, as in the documentary, and in terms of crops. I began with the aim of looking into specific impacts of intensive farming but the blog quickly seemed to morph into one that would explore technologies and strategies designed to reduce environmental impact. I was pessimistic heading into the blog, ready to bash farming and declare we should all be going vegan, but coming out the other side I see the huge amount of interest there is in cleaning up farming practices at all levels. It was also interesting to look at a hypothetical situation in which intensive agriculture did not exist, where pre-war agricultural practices were maintained in line with post-war population growth. Such a situation would certainly not have us in a better place.

During the course of this blog COP22 took place, and for the first time agriculture took a central role in climate negotiations, bringing about discussion of many solutions of which the 4 pour 1000 initiative took center stage. Particular emphasis was put on African countries for which $30 billion has been raised to aim at agricultural adaptation in the Adapation of African Agriculture Initiative. If successful the initiative could triple agricultural production in Africa by 2030 all developed in a climate- conscious way. By the end of COP22, eighty percent of countries included agriculture as part of there mitigation goals.

With such interest in agriculture, and no shortage of innovative technologies I believe the outlook is positive. Humans have already caused significant global environmental change, and we have consigned the earth to yet more irreversible change in the near future, yet adaptation is happening. This week it was reported that last year the UK produced more electricity through wind power than through coal, something less than a decade ago that seemed inconceivable. The technology for change is there is farming too, and it is being designed such that farmers can still profit. I most certainly have faith that we are headed in the right direction and I look forward to keeping a keen eye on any developments in the farming industry.

And so that's it for this blog. I would like to thank everyone that has taken an interest, liked or commented on my posts. This project was a huge learning experience for me and I hope that along the way you read something that you found thought-provoking.

Goodbye for now!

Good tidings we bring to you and your king

Merry Christmas! I hope you're having a wonderful festive period, receiving lots of present and eating far too much! In keeping with the festive theme I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the farming practices and environmental impact of the Christmas Turkey Industry.

For the majority of us turkey only hits our dinner plates once a year, but the turkey industry is in fact huge, and is not limited solely to the month of December. Amazingly DEFRA's (2011) Poultry and meat statistics report states the 'carcass weight' of turkey makes up greater the 10% of total poultry production. In many European countries this value is even greater. Because demand for turkey is generally isolated to such a short period of time the market demands huge quantities of turkey be produced all at once. This means the market is generally dominated by industrial farms, owned by large corporations.

In general the environmental impacts related to turkey production are much the same to those of other poultry, including poor management of manure, litter and organic waste like bones and feathers, while also being associated with acidification, eutrophication and of course greenhouse gas emissions (Rodic et al, 2015). Gerber and others (2007) give a very detailed review of poultry related environmental impacts at local and at watershed level scales, with the problems largely boiling down to an excess of waste that cannot be managed by land disposal or recycling. Indeed poultry production's greatest issue is the associated pollution of nearby soil and water with nitrates, heavy metals, drug residues and pathogens. Willaims et al (2006) conducted an interesting study regarding the poultry sector as a whole, comparing organic (free-range) and non-organic (intensive) farming techniques. Curiously, organic poultry production is the only 'organic' animal production system to have more harmful environmental impacts than the non-organic, intensive counterpart. It would be interesting to see if this finding varies between different types of poultry which vary significantly in weight and from which we take different types of produce i.e for chickens we take both meat and eggs.

Perhaps due to the relative isolation of turkey production systems they have seen little academic interest until recently where it has become apparent that agriculture as a whole is having more significant environmental impact. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an approach that has been used for a number of other farm animals and is gaining traction in the turkey industry also. An LCA involves compiling environmental data for all the activities in an entire process, from birth of the livestock to the supermarket shelf. Environmental impacts are quantified in terms of 'primary energy (PE) use, global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EP) and acidification potential (AP)'. The tool can then be used to predict the impacts of changes in management or agricultural practice. 

Source: Andrew Moore's presentation to Perth Green Drinks, 2013

I found a couple of studies which focused only on Turkey production, one of which compared the environmental impacts of UK turkey production (Leinonen et al, 2015) and one that modeled the effects of mitigation strategies (Leinonen et al, 2014)

Leinonen and others (2015) compared controlled ventilation and non-controlled ventilation systems for male and female turkeys concerning environmental impact, and is one of the first studies to do so using detailed industry data, provided by the the main UK turkey production companies, which included figures for energy consumption, amount and type of feed and bedding, and final turkey weight. The study found the main variables affecting environmental impacts were feed conversion ratio (i.e the efficiency of turkeys), housing and manure emissions and slaughter weight (which is related to energy use per turkey).

The 2014 project modeled the effects of various mitigation strategies. One of these strategies is the replacement of soybean feed with rapeseed or sunflower feeds which both have lower land use change implications and can be imported from much close therefore cutting emissions from travel. While the theory behind this technique is sound the model showed no significant difference in environmental impacts, in large part due to the lower efficiency of the new feeds, therefore the birds would not grow to the same size. Another of the strategies was to adjust stocking density i.e bird weight / land area. As expected lowering stock density had greater environmental impact, particularly in terms of global warming potential. The most successful mitigation strategy was to use manure as fuel rather than as a fertilizer. The technique poses obvious biosecurity risks however it proved particularly advantageous in the model regarding acidification and eutrophication potential.

Final thoughts...


Festive themed post today looking at a Christmas-specific agricultural industry. I was surprised to see there is work being done in such a specific area and one article I read was keen to point out that the relatively small size of the turkey industry, dominated by only a few large farms, allows it to make efficiency and environmental impact changes easily in comparison to other agricultural industries in a time where there is increasing pressure on companies to do so. Poultry is particularly damaging to soil and water, and it the specific pressures of turkey being popular only at certain times of the year provides unique problems. Research in this area highlights the specificity required when looking at mitigation strategies within agriculture, even between similar agricultures industries such as those of poultry. 

The worst drought in over a century yet agriculture continues to prosper?

Remember the California drought? While it's no longer being reported on as frequently by many news outlets, California has entered it's 6th year of drought, with the most recent U.S Drought Moniter report declaring 43% of the state is considered in extreme-to-exceptional drought. Surely a lack of rainfall this severe would have some some pretty scary implications for America's most productive agricultural region?

Source: US Drought Moniter

Apparently not.

Alongside record-breaking drought statistics, California is also achieving record-high net income figures for the agriculture sector (Grueue, 2015). This seems odd considering agriculture, especially industrial agriculture, is heavily dependent upon freshwater. How can it be possible for agriculture to thrive when there is such a lack of rainfall?

To find the answer to this we have to look underground, literally, because the reason for California's continued agricultural success is groundwater.

Withdrawing water from aquifers is, at the moment, working for California, but it is undeniably only a temporary fix. California therefore is serving as a perfect example of the wide-ranging impacts agriculture has on water and the potential environmental damage this can cause.

An OECD report on the matter describes the global expansion in use of groundwater for irrigation as a 'silent revolution' which has happened over the past 4 decades, enabled by the 'on-demand' nature of groundwater which is not affected by lake or river level variations over short timescales. The advantages of having a constant supply of clean water for irrigation means that in many countries withdrawals have exceeded natural recharge rates.

In California, groundwater abstractions have been vital in sustaining agriculture for over a decade and there is certainly a case to say that abstractions even before the onset of drought were unsustainable. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), which was launched in 2002, takes measurements of the Earth's gravity field, from which information about natural systems can be inferred. Using this satellite data Famiglietti and others (2011) estimated a 31km³ loss in groundwater storage between 2006 and 2012. A more recent study (Howitt et al, 2014) then found a further 6.3km³ loss in only two years of drought between 2012 and 2014.

What does this mean for California?

In the short term excessive groundwater pumping can cause a number of environmental changes. One of these is sea-water intrusion. When groundwater is extracted from coastal aquifers the equilibrium between saltwater and freshwater at the aquifer-sea boundary shifts in the favour of sea water. This means that as groundwater levels decline, saltwater diffuses into the soils making them saline. Saltwater intrusion therefore spoils vital water sources both for human  and non-human use. 

Another environmental change caused by unsustainable groundwater abstractions is land subsidence. As the total volume of water held in soils drastically declines, the subsoil compacts, reducing in volume, allowing the land to be lowered, which can have devastating effects on infrastructure. This effect reduces the capacity of the aquifer to hold water in the future and is likely irreversible. Just take a look at this map which shows areas where subsidence has been attributed to groundwater abstraction. California's list goes on and on! 

Source: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthgwlandsubside.html

In the long term, California's overuse of groundwater could have serious implications.The problem will only get worse, groundwater quality will continue to decline, and water stress will increase. All of this in a time where the future looks to be even hotter and even drier. The end of Californian agricultural powerhouse?

State agencies such as the Department of Water Resources and State Water Resources Control Board have been tasked with overseeing new legislation that regulates groundwater abstraction in 127 of the most 'at risk' water basins. Management plans must be set up by 2022 and must ensure water use in their respective regions is fair and sustainable. But sustainable water use is likely to reduce agricultural output from the region and so the new legislation is not without significant opposition. Many farmers have already shown apprehension, where for the past century landowners have had free access to any and all of the water found beneath their land.  It's a difficult situation which triggers a number of opposing laws in the US and it is therefore expected that many major players will attempt to sue basin management agencies.

Final thoughts...

Slightly off-topic this week, although I think the story of California serves as a great example of the struggle between maintaining/increasing profit while preserving the environment and it's resources. Even in the face of sever environmental changes and water stresses, it is still incredibly difficult for legislation to be passed that can curb the activities of such profit driven industries. In fact many of the particularly commercial farms may be able to bypass new groundwater legislation using expensive legal processes. It will be interesting to see how the situation progresses in California, who are the winners and who are the losers, and ultimately at what point does the condition of the environment truly become the main priority.

Sequestering Methane?

We've all heard about carbon capture and it's potential to impede climate change. What of methane; the primary greenhouse gas produced by industrial livestock farming?

Theoretically atmospheric methane removal has no limit, unlike carbon capture which is inconceivable because CO2 vital to ecosystem success (Boucher and Folberth, 2010). This combined with the greater potency of methane (25x) makes methane sequestration technologies worth exploring.

There are a number of ways methane can be broken down and removed from the atmosphere although collectively they require high temperatures and produce unwanted waste products. As is often the case, nature has provided us an answer to this problem in the form of methanotrophs, bacteria which serve the opposite function to those found in the gut of ruminant animal, converting methane into more favourable chemicals.

Yoon and others (2009) recently conducted a study on the feasibility of atmospheric methane removal using biotrickling filters containing methanotrophs. Their model suggested the method would only be effective where methane concentration exceeds 500 ppmv. One such location that this occurs would be on a factory farm! Unfortunately the cost of this method is a major drawback. At up to 20x more expensive for equivalent carbon capture devices it is not an economically appealing system.

Source: https://emis.vito.be/en/techniekfiche/biotrickling-filter

It has been suggested that chemically mimicking these bacteria could be a more efficient and economically viable option (Ravilious, 2010). Rosenzweig and others (2010) were able to identify the make-up of the specific enzyme within methanotrophs that catalyzes the reaction which breaks down methane. It is hoped this finding could be implemented into previous biotrickling devices or future methane removal technologies.

Final thoughts...

Looking for studies that tackle the issue of methane sequestration specifically was difficult. Hypothetically methane-removal is a very appealing climate change mitigation strategy although it has become obvious to me that it is also an extremely complicated one. Small concentrations of methane in the atmosphere and it's low chemical reactivity mean sequestration is currently limited to specific environments and it is obvious in the literature that overcoming these problems remains the biggest concern. 

A world without agribusiness, COP22 and regenerative agriculture

Throughout this blog the tone tends towards the negative. Agribusiness causes this problem, agribusiness causes that problem and so on. I was interested to see if any alternative opinions had real substance. Many consider industrial farming as a necessary evil for a rapidly growing human population. It has many socioeconomic advantages which ultimately result in more efficient and therefore cheaper production of large amounts of food, which increases food security. Is it possible that without industrial farming we would be in a worse environmental and climatological situation?

A recent study (Burney et al, 2009) suggests that had humans not taken up the practice of widespread intensive farming we would indeed be much further along the climatic path of no return! In the study the authors build three models which represent different scenarios of agricultural advancement. One model is of our current reality whereby modern agricultural practices are in place, the second suspends agricultural yields at the levels of 1961 while increasing population and living standards and the third model is identical apart from also suspending living standards so that only population increases. Incredibly while fertilizer use would be lower, cropland would have to increase to nearly 1.8 billions hectares which dwarfs the 1.2 billion hectares that cropland currently takes up. Moreover the researchers believe the net effects of intensive agriculture have saved 161 gigatonnes of carbon since 1961!

Source: Burney et al, 2009

An earlier study cites the potential of increasing crop productivity as a means of climate change mitigation (Wise et al, 2009). If improvements to crop productivity continue at historical rates it could provide emissions mitigation in the same league as any other major renewable energy strategy. The study concludes that improving crop productivity should be added to any greenhouse gas limiting technology strategy of the future. 

Studies have also investigated the current and future benefits to intensive animal farming. Havlik and others (2013) investigates the role of 'livestock production system transitions' (LPST) which are more efficient and less demanding livestock systems. They modeled a scenario of swift LPST against an imagined reality whereby consumption levels increased but livestock productions systems did not advance. They also looked into the role of LPSTs under different emissions mitigation strategies. The results were very promising. Simply transitioning to more efficient systems would save huge amounts of land from conversion and could subsequently reduce emissions by 736 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (MtCO2e·y−1) and if these systems were also put under only moderate mitigation policies 3,223 MtCO2e·y−1 after the year 2030. It is conceded that the establishment of such systems would face many barriers and could only occur with significant investment in market infrastructure.

As it so happens COP22 was held earlier this month and at the forefront of discussion was agriculture. Specifically 'regenerative' agriculture which outlines improvements to agricultural practices in the context of environmental change while also sustaining or even increasing production. At the heart of this is French Minister for Agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll's, 4 per 1000 initiative, which has the simple aim of increasing the quantity of carbon contained in soils by 0.04% every year. This increased quantity of carbon will be taking from the pool of atmospheric carbon and in doing so reduce climate change! 

The science behind this is simple. Plant photosynthesis relies on sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. Fixing carbon as part of the photosynthetic process removes it from the atmosphere and eventually through plant decay this carbon will makes its way into soils as 'soil organic carbon'. Therefore the more the soil is covered by plant material the more carbon it will store.

Intensive farms contain massive amounts of biomass and, if managed well, could act as huge carbon sinks, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

The initiative outlines five key strategies towards reaching the 0.04% CO2 reduction goal:

1)  Never leave soils bare and work them less
2) Introduce intermediate crops
3) Add to hedgerows and further develop agroforestry practices
4) Optimizing pasture management
5) Cultivate unused or poor land in arid and semi-arid regions. 

The scope for this kind of farming is huge, especially when it is considered that better quality soils retain water better, are more resilient to erosion and most importantly produce higher quality crops, benefiting the farmer and the consumer. 

So far 34 countries are signed on to the initiative with a large number of NGO's, research institutes, agricultural organisations and private sector companies. The outlook is promising. A very recent study (Yigini and Panagos, 2016) modeled a number of climate and land cover changes in Europe and found overall increases in soil organic carbon stocks by 2050. There's only one place that carbon could have come from!

Final thoughts...

It's difficult to associate vast industrial farms with climate change mitigation and so far I have only been able to see it as unavoidable in a world where food security is of utmost importance. In it's current state it is undeniable monoculture and animal supplementation are negatively impacting the environment however it is interesting to see that without industrial farming the impacts could be far worse. With political and economical will (easier said than done!) intensive farms could well be turned into zones of carbon sequestration which could at the least make the agricultural processes carbon neutral and at the very best could begin to reduce global atmospheric carbon dioxide, decrease land degradation and deforestation and provide global food security!

Source: http://www.seppo.net/cartoons/displayimage.php?pid=902 

Cow business..

After last week taking a look at the environmental impact of palm oil plantations and the innovative use of yeasts that could see these impacts lessened I am straight back to what is becoming a recurring theme in this blog, cows!

As explained in previous posts, industrial farming of cow's has become a major contributor to global GHG emissions. Cows eat A LOT! They are ruminant mammals meaning they ferment ingested food in the first of their four stomachs before passing it onto the next stomach for digestion. During the break down of plant material (enteric fermentation) hydrogen is released which is used by digestive microbes (methanogens) to produce methane which must then be removed from the cows system back through the esophagus and out of the nose and mouth by exhalation or belching.

Processes of Enteric Fermentaiton
Source: Singh and Sikka (2008)

The most obvious and most effective way to reduce these emissions is to eat less beef and therefore reduce the global cattle population. This is fanciful and it is generally agreed that any strategy to reduce beef consumption would be ineffective. Luckily, as I was surfing the web looking for an answer to this problem I was met with an abundance of research that tackles this very matter! Dietary Changes


Research has been conducted since the 1960s looking at various dietary supplements that can reduce the methane producing ability of cattle (Lee and Beauchemin, 2014). One of the most effective of these has been the practice of chemically adding nitrates to cow feed. By doing this methanogens within the cows gut will produce ammonia (NH₃) preferentially to methane (CH₄), thus reducing the amount of methane that is released into the atmosphere. Zhou et al's (2011) in vitro study found methane production to be reduced by nearly 70% when rumen fluids were incubated with sodium nitrate (NaNO_3). 

Yes, 70%! In the USA this kind of reduction would be equivalent to reducing their population by 61.4 million cattle!

Unfortunately there is one very large problem with this method. If nitrates are broken down to nitrites in the rumen there can be interference with red blood cells which in a number of studies have resulted in cows dying or needing serious medical treatment. More research is therefore required before this method becomes appealing to farmers.

An alternative to directly adding nitrates to the diet is to add oils which appears to have a number of positive effects similar to those of nitrates. The most important of these is the suppression of methanogens. In a study by Mcginn et al (2004) as much as a 22% decrease in methane output was noted when ruminants were fed a diet supplemented with sunflower oil! Some oils have the added benefit of improving the productivity of the cow. Grainger et al (2008) found that increasing the oil component of the diet by 1%  using whole cotton seed, caused a decrease in methane emissions by 6% while also increasing milk output! More milk from a single cow perhaps means less cows overall would be needed?

Other studies have shown similarly promising results using a variety of other oils including palm oil (uh oh!). There is certainly potential here although there are concerns over whether repeated feeding over an extended period of time would allow the rumen to adapt to a new 'feed environment' and revert back to producing just as much methane as previously. 

anti-Methane Vaccine

What if we could suppress the population of methanogens in the gut? Less methanogens = less methane production. Simple!

Turns out this could be a viable option. The only hurdle is the very large number of methanogen strains that preside in the rumen and therefore an effective vaccine would need to be able to act on a range of different substrates (Wedlock et al, 2013). This makes the production of a vaccine an extremely difficult task. One study produced a vaccine that accounted for over 52% of the methanogen population in the ruminant animals they were testing and yet while methanogen population composition changed, there was no significant difference in methane output (Williams et al, 2009). 

Methane inhibitors

One of the most recent and most promising anti-methanogen technologies is that of the inhibitor. Different to vaccines in that they do not reduce the population of methanogens, these inhibitors have been shown to vastly reduce the capability of them to produce methane. An investigation into adding 3-nitrooxypropanol (3NOP) to animal feed has produced results showing 30% decreases in methane output while, importantly, having no negative effects on the cows growth or milk production. In fact those cows treated with the inhibitor saw increased weight gain and it is hypthesised that this is due to less energy being used in enteric fermentation and instead being used for tissue synthesis (Hristov et al, 2015). 

A win win for farmers!? 

Cows fitted with devices to measure the composition of exhaled gases.
Source: National Geographic

But is it enough? Final thoughts...

To me 30% doesn't seem like a 'climate-change-solving' reduction. It certainly is difficult to see 30% as a success when simply having 1 less burger a week could potentially have the same impact. It's all a step in the right direction but surely we need more than 30%!

I get the feeling I have only scratched the surface here. The vast amount of literature on this subject provides scope for an array of new technologies which can decrease bovine emission. All the methods here involve preventing the production of methane, what of the methods that can capture and utilise this methane post-production? Check back in the next few weeks to find out!

Palm Oil's latest competition... Yeast?!

My last post hinted at being more conscious of the products we use and the food we eat in the context of environmental change. While the distinction between eating beef and chicken is easy, some products contain ingredients that have enormous environmental impacts, yet we may never have even heard of them!

Palm oil is derived from a tree species known as Elaeis guineensis (the African palm oil tree). While it originated in Africa the tree can be grown anywhere with a warm and moist climate, most notably South East Asia where 85% (World Wildlife Fund) of global palm oil is produced.

What other species thrive in warm and wet conditions? Answer: those that comprise a rainforest.

This is where the problems arises. Palm oil became the most consumed vegetable oil in the world in 2002 and while you may not cook with it you can be sure it is in a number of the products you use on a day to day basis such as shampoo or detergent. Such a high demand for the product means more and more land is needed to produce it. When this land inevitably overlaps with tropical forests the economic incentive is to clear the land and expand palm oil plantations.

Perhaps the most obvious change that occurs when rainforest is replaced with palm oil plantations is the change in biodiversity. An area which once would have contained literally millions of different species is reduced to the equivalent of a desert. Plantations exhibit monoculture whereby to be most efficient palm oil tree and only palm oil trees are grown and harvested.

A palm oil 'green desert'. 

These ecosystems are irreplaceable and so when they are gone, so too are the benefits that they bring (Bell and de Zylva, 2014), not to mention the loss of huge carbon sinks which remove CO2 from the atmosphere and produce O2 through photosysnthesis (Pan et al, 2011)

How can we reduce Palm Oil consumption?

The trouble with palm oil is that it's found in practically everything! This makes simply not using it very difficult and making conscientious consumer decisions almost impossible. Luckily it appears there may be an alternative. 

Yeast?!

Yes yeast. A very specific strain called Metschnikowia pulcherrima which has previously been used in South African wine-making produces an oil with very similar characteristics to that of palm oil. Importantly this yeast can be grown practically anywhere and survive off almost any organic feedstock! This means as long as the matter contains carbohydrates it could feasibly be used to kickstart the growth of the yeast (Whiffin, 2015)

No more deforestation? 

Land uses for yeast production would be massively lower than those of palm oil, up to 100 times less. Importantly, the production would not require the warm, moist conditions that oil palm trees do and therefore would not require land occupied by precious rainforest. 

There is real promise to this discovery as well. The laboratory that made this discovery has received significant backing. At the end of last year they received a £4.4 million grant to fund further research into scaling the process up to an industrial scale and determining if this would be viable globally (University of Bath, 2015).

In this video, lead engineer Dr Chris Chuck explains where they hope to take the project in the near future (credit to University of Bath). 

Many hurdles still await the engineers at Bath however it is inspiring to see work being done in areas such as this to create viable, and sometimes improved alternatives to established uses of natural resources. I'm certainly interested to see what alternatives are popping up in other aspects of the industrial farming business! Eco-friendly fertilisers, selective pesticides, less noxious cows?!