Reaping the Benefits - Science and the Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture - Example

Reaping the benefits: Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. by Department The report of Royal Society, which is called “Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture” is aimed to demonstrate how diligent application of the most contemporary scientific innovations can enhance productivity of agriculture. Among the methods of agriculture stimulating it is possible to distinguish successful crop management, recent advances of genetics utilization, and development of farming practices. World products supplementation is one of the most crucial problems of this century connected to the fast pace of population increase that is forecasted to continue growing up to the middle of the 21st century. The countries of the third world are influenced immensely by the change of the prices for food, and in the future according to predictions, the need for food will increase in 50% affecting the prices accordingly. The changing climate patterns, such as temperature, precipitation, and natural disasters, invoke the problem of agriculture adaptation to the environment conditions. There are certain trends in crop production, which have been established in the recent 50 years due to noticeable increase in products demand. Africa, Latin America, and Asia are the primary continents with population growth and subsequent agricultural products requirement. However, it is reassuring that food supply is still outrunning the demands of world populations due to previous decent preparations. This is explained by the “green revolution” which happened from the 1950s to 1960s leading to the implementation of renovation practices and outstanding increase in the amount of agricultural products. Changes in crop practices, such as water management, fertilizers, pesticides, and harvest varieties, carbohydrates segregation led to substantial increase in food production. Several influential institutions elaborated mutual policy and united under the name of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in order to develop new agricultural advances. The “green revolution” stimulated invention of the new sorts of wheat and rise with high potential to disease resistance and other important genetic innovations. Nevertheless, there were some negative effects of the “green revolution” such as mechanization substitution of manual labor leading to unemployment and environmental pollution due to technological change. Scientific innovations are the primary sources of agriculture development. However, science interlinks with environmental, economic, and social studies as for successful products realization it is important to consider all three elements. One of the major tendencies of crop production is globalization as local patterns of agriculture products development and consumption influence significantly global market. Most of the countries today are greatly dependent on global markets, which are not very stable as are partially controlled by national governments. Dietary changes also affect agriculture worldwide as most of the people have shifted to consumption of larger amount of meat, fats, and refined cereals and lower amount of fruit, cereals, and vegetables. These tendencies are probably connected to urbanization and bigger amount of energy needed. The pace of consumption increase is especially evident in Asian countries, and the trajectory is not going to stop. Despite the sustainable crop increase the quantity of agricultural lands did not change significantly. However, there is certain limitation of crop production due to scarcity of lands in Asian countries, which make them seek alternative available lands. Therefore, the planet faces a dilemma in the question of yields production: to enlarge the areas or agricultural soils or to intensify the production of food on the already existing. The first variant is dangerous by the possibility of important ecosystems shortage. In order to examine the topic more accurately the authors of the report dwell on the concept of sustainability. According to Pretty (2008) sustainability encompasses four major aspects: persistence, benevolence, resilience, and autarchy. All these factors are interdependent and are crucially needed for sustainability maintenance. The system may be considered unsustainable if it cannot deliver the products over a long period of time, cannot benefit from perturbations, cannot retransform outputs into inputs, and is capable of producing the required goods not causing any damage to the environment. Agricultural industry guarantees employment to the major part of world population. As for rural areas of the world, agriculture is inevitable because all the village dwellers are involved into crop production in this or that way. Agriculture is also one of the main factors of poverty elimination in the world. Thus global agriculture business is inseparable from social policy that is why all the possible innovations should be implemented into life after adequate weighing of all pros and cons. Additional report concerning possible new approaches in agriculture was regarded. The most reliable recent research has been the World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report and the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, also published in 2008 (IAASTD 2008; World Bank 2008). The report is mainly concentrated on the UK agriculture; nevertheless, it represents fresh view on the issues regarded in the Royal Society analysis. The IAASTD demonstrates various approaches to agriculture advances and claims that utilization of the mixed non-scientific principles will be beneficial for agriculture. It also expresses positive expectation towards products supply of the world population. In general, most of the experts agree that there are numerous ways to supply the growing world population with needed quantity of products but it is necessary to utilize various scientific, ecological, engineering, economic approaches. However, there naturally appear certain constraints in yields production such as water limitations, soils structure, climate changes, weeds, and diseases. These obstacles of successful crops management vary according to the regions, countries, and time zones. In developed countries there normally exist better opportunities for technological advances and better agriculture management. Climate changes put the crops at risk of excessive precipitations, droughts, rise of the temperature. There were established certain areas which are expected to be dramatically influenced by the global climate changes. Certain Asian eastern deltas are at risk of flooding due to climate patterns change. The situation is urgent as these lands provide a lot population with rice. Therefore, crops adaption to the climate changes is one of the priorities of scientific research. Among the methods of adaptation there can be distinguished crops germplasm and innovative agriculture practices. Water shortage is one of the most crucial problems in agriculture as plants require stable amount of water for normal grow. Crops, however, are usually categorized between those that can survive during severe droughts but decrease in yields sufficiently and those that do not loose yields even at the water shortage. Most of the water used in agriculture is spent on irrigation. The irrigated areas increase slowly but with certain stability on global level. Irrigation procedures are often connected to environmental problems such as river reduction and desertification of the soils (Döll & Siebert 2002). The regions affected by the poor water supply frequently have certain climate peculiarities such as fast evaporation level, scarce amount of precipitations, and overpopulation.Water is one of the most valuable global resources as the majority of countries are dependent either on water supply or on agricultural products. That is why it is important to arrange global water irrigation management with regard of different social, geographical, economic, and environmental factors. Efficient water management and reducing water spent by irrigation are the major goals set by the UN. In the UK water shortage is not so crucial as most of the products are imported from the other countries, however, it is illogical to ignore possible global water crisis. Global temperature changes have double effect on agriculture. On the one hand, such changes speed up the process of plant development increasing the amount of yield accordingly. On the other hand, extreme temperature, unexpected frosts can be harmful to susceptible plants and result in crops decrease. Apart from direct consequences of temperature increase there might be observed some indirect such as elevated demand of water, certain stresses for the plants, decline of plant disease resistance, and spread of parasitic reed. Another alarming danger of climate changes is the concentration of ozone, which is extremely harmful for the plants. Ozone is capable to suppress photosynthesis and cause damage to the leaves (Sitch et al. 2007).The losses connected to ozone influence are bigger than the losses from all the climate changes in general. Wheat, rice, and soya are especially affected by ozone. Soil is not a renewable source, thus, it is extremely important to maintain sustainable agriculture. Urbanization and pollution put efficient soil preservation at risk, therefore, soil degradation is actively discussed in scientific circles. Soil quality is also of paramount importance for crops production, it depends on the way of utilization, geological base, and the level of erosion. Well-structured soil increase the efficiency and the quality of yields. The regions, where there is no enough of productive soil can be supported with artificial growing media. Salinity if not caused by natural conditions, is resulted from irrigation. High salinity is an obstacle to crops development as not all of them are tolerant to this factor. Prevalence of aluminum put the crops development under threat, as there is alarmingly low tolerance of the plants towards this element. However, such nutrients as potassium and nitrogen are essential for production, and their required balance must be maintained via biological fixation or recycling. Nitrogen, nevertheless, remains the major component of fossil fuel exploitation. The decrease of synthetic nitrogen is one of the goals of effective crops management. Among secondary soil nutrients it is possible to distinguish sulphur, calcium, and magnesium, which are crucial for crops development in certain areas. For other regions and soils there are additional nutrients, which are of great importance such as boron, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zink. Around 30% of crops are lost due to weeds, pests, and diseases, and without resistance measures the loss can reach 60% of important cultures such as wheat, rice, barley, maize, soya, sugar, and potato. Soil fumigation was predominately utilized to reduce negative impact of pests but according to the recent toxicity norm its usage was restricted despite the lack of sufficient alternatives. Alternative methods, such as gassing or shooting, rats are exploited in the wealthy regions while in the poor countries pests can significantly reduce crops (Sridhara 2006). Wasted energy, inputs and labor are the result of diseases and weed, which affect pre and post-harvest. Protective chemistry was and remains the major way of resistance to these negative factors. To reduce the negative impact of the above mentioned constraints agriculture is forced to utilize the latest scientific advances. Increase in crops yields of the last decades can also be explained by exploitation of the modern technological and scientific tools. However, there is still a number of approaches to be implemented in life. Among the most innovative methods of crops productivity increase is genome study as it allows to collect necessary information about DNA sequences and develop methods of its improvement. Plant breeding is a well-established method for enhancing the performance of crop plants by making defined crosses between genetically distinct parents, screening progeny for desired trait combinations, and selecting preferred samples with better combinations of characteristics that can then be bulked and developed into lines and varieties. Genetic modification is an insertion of selected genes of the same species or other sources, which allows speeding up the process of plant development and improving disease resistance. Among other perspective tools of plants improvement it is possible to distinguish modelling, which allows forecasting various effects of different allele on various sites (Hammer et al.2006). Chemical science has elaborated new ways of crops protection, among which it is necessary to dwell on herbecides, which are specially developed chemicals allowing to preserve the crops killing the weeds. However, the issue of tolerance and adaption of harmful plants demands additional research. Genetic protection of plants on the basis of R genes can also be enhanced significantly due to possibility of MAS utilization. Parasite-derived resistance is considered to be one of the most efficient approaches of GM to disease resistance. A fragment of genome is inserted in the host plant in order to create resistant sample, which can further be shared (Fuchs & Gonsalves 2007). In the nearest future both GM and MAS approaches would be greatly accelerated by more extensive crop genome sequences. Long-term approaches to disease resistance include the development of NHR (non-host resistance), which aim is studying of protective mechanisms of certain species to the special disease and introducing relevant genes to the other species. Examining of susceptible genomes, which are affected by pathogen, and decreasing their susceptibility is another NHR method. Among the methods of soil management aiming to reduce the damage and increase yield there exist zero-till systems of production, double digging, and charcoal adding to the soils. There is also possible to ally to new approaches of crops management, for instance, perennial crops instead of annual in order to preserve healthy soil balance or exploit lost crops or crops orphans. Therefore, numerous technologies and practices are able to increase yields, overcome existing constraints, and develop appropriate approaches to agriculture management. The choice is dependent on the location, circumstances, and the relevance of this or that method. However, new technologies implementation cannot solve all the problems without begetting new, and they often arise in the sphere of environment, human health, and economies. Intensified agriculture practices cause a number of adverse effects on ecological system such as local climate change, droughts, soil erosion, recourse overuse, water reduction. Deterioration of biodiversity is another negative effect of advanced mechanization, chemicals usage, and increased drainage. GM crops are not considered harmful or unhealthy; nevertheless, certain suspicious negative effects may arise later, such as lower tolerance to diseases or lower herbicides and insects’ resistance (Dunwell & Ford 2005). As crops are naturally connected to human health, their purity and quality must be at the top priority in global agriculture. Biopharmaceutical intervention into crops must be thoroughly regulated in order not let the products of trials into consumption. Technological and scientific novelties can be a constraint to successive farmer`s business if economic and social factors are not taken into consideration. Technologies may enlarge the gap between local smaller farmers and wealthy farmers with vast lands so it is important to maintain concurrent stability. Thus, technologies and practices have to be introduced with regards to farmers` organizations, public, private and charity sectors, and big global organizations. In the nearest 40 years humanity will face the problem of overpopulation, which will naturally increase food demand. Therefore, increase in crops production is inevitable; however, it must be undertaken without bigger farming lands involvement. Supplementary food production must take place without resources overuse and environmental damage. All the decisions concerning the future of agriculture must be taken on the global level as there still exist such problems as hunger and poverty, which can be solved with the help of innovative technologies and practices implementation. References Fuchs M & Gonsalves D (2007). Safety of virus-resistant transgenic plants two decades after their introduction: lessons from realistic fi eld risk assessment studies. Annual Review of Phytopathology 45, 173–202. Hammer G, Cooper M, Tardieu F, Welch S, Walsh B, van Eeuwijk F, Chapman S & Podlich D (2006). Models for navigating biological complexity in breeding improved cropplants. Trends in Plant Science 11, 587–593. Pretty JN (2008). Agricultural sustainability: concepts, principles and evidence.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, 1491, 447–465. Sridhara S (2006). Vertebrate Pests in Agriculture—The Indian Scenario. Scientific: Jodhpur, India. IAASTD (2008a). International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development: executive summary of the synthesis report. Available online Read More