WEBVTT

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Tonight, I want to have a conversation

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about this incredible global issue
that's at the intersection

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of land use, food, and environment,

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something we can all relate to,

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

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

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

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This is what our planet looks like
from outer space

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

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and travel around the planet.

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And the thing you would notice first,
of course,

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is how dominant the human presence
on our planet is.

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We see cities, we see oil fields,

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you can even make out
fishing fleets in the sea.

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We are dominating much
of our planet, and mostly

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

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

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and look during the daytime.

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What we see during the day
is our landscapes.

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

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in the south center part of
the Brazilian Amazon.

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

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you're going to see a thin white line,

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

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If we come back to the same place in 2001

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what we're going to find
is that these roads

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spurred off more roads
and more roads after that,

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

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where there are going to be a few cows.

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These cows are used for beef.

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

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basically in South America,
in Brazil and Argentina.

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They're not being shipped up here.

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But this kind of fish bone pattern
of deforestation

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is something we notice
a lot of around the tropics,

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especially in this part of the world.

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If we go a little bit further south

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on our little tour of the world,

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we can go to the Bolivian edge
of the Amazon,

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here also in 1975.

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And if you look really carefully,

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

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and there's a lone farmer out there

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in the middle of the primeval jungle.

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

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And we'll see that
that landscape actually looks

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

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

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These soybeans are being shipped to Europe

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and to China as animal feed,

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especially after the Mad Cow Disease scare

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

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animal protein anymore,
because that can transmit disease.

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Instead, we want to feed them
more vegetable proteins,

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so soybeans have really exploded,

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showing how trade and globalization

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are really responsible for the connections

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to rainforest and the Amazon.

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An incredibly strange,
interconnected world

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that we have today.

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Well, again and again what we find

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

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is that landscape after landscape
after landscape

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have been cleared and altered

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for growing food and other crops.

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So, one of the questions we've been asking

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

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and where is it, exactly?

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And how can we change that
into the future,

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and what does it mean?

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Well, our team has been looking at this

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on a global scale using satellite data

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and ground based data
kind of to track farming

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at a global scale.

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

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This map shows the presence
of agriculture on planet Earth.

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The green areas are the areas we use

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

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or rice, or whatever.

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That's 16 million square kilometers
worth of land.

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If you put it all together in one place,

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it'd be the size of South America.

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The second area in brown
is the world's pastures

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and rangelands where our animals live.

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That area is about 30 million
square kilometers,

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or about an Africa's worth of land,

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

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of course, is what you see.

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

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or Siberia, or the middle of a rainforest.

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

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If we look at this carefully,

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

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

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than all the areas we complain about:

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

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Half of humanity lives in cities today,

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

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So, this is an amazing kind of result,

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and it really shocked us
when we looked at that.

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

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but also we're using a lot of water.

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This is a photograph flying into Arizona,

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

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

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using water sprayed on top.

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Now, the irony is it's probably sold

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on our supermarket shelves
in the Twin Cities.

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But what's really interesting is

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this water's got to come from some place,

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

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

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

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kind of an average day -
looks something like this.

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But if we come back today
during a normal condition

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

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The difference is mainly
irrigating the desert for food,

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or maybe golf courses in Scottsdale.

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You take your pick.

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Well, this is a lot of water.

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

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

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

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We've literally consumed an entire river

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in North America for irrigation.

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

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This probably is, the Aral Sea.

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Now, a lot of you will remember this

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from your geography classes.

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This is in the former Soviet Union
between Kazakhstan

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

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But there's kind of a paradox here,

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because it looks like
it's surrounded by desert.

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Why is this sea here?

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

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you see two little rivers
kind of coming down

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through the sand,
feeding this basin with water.

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Those rivers are draining snow melt

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from mountains far to the east,
where snow melts,

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travels down the river,
through the desert,

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and forms the great Aral Sea.

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Well, in the 1950s, the Soviets decided

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to divert that water
to irrigate the desert

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

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to sell cotton
to the international markets

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to bring foreign currency
into the Soviet Union.

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They really needed the money.

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Well, you can imagine what happens:

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

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Here it is in 1973,

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1986,

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1999,

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2004,

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and about 11 months ago.

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It's pretty extraordinary.

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

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Imagine that was Lake Superior.

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Imagine that was Lake Huron.

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It's an extraordinary change.

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This is not only a change in water

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and where the shoreline is,

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

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Let's start with this.

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

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let's put it that way.

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

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There's a lot of toxic waste,

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

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One of those small islands

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that was remote and impossible to get to

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was a site of Soviet biological
weapons testing.

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You can walk there today.
Weather patterns have changed:

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

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are now wiped off the face of the Earth.

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This is an environmental disaster
writ large.

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But let's bring it home.

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

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that he took when he was
in the Soviet Union

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a long, long time ago showing

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the fishing fleets of the Aral Sea.

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You see the canal they dug?

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

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

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because the piers and moorings

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simply couldn't keep up
with the retreating shoreline.

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

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that future archeologists
will dig this up

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and write stories about our time
in history and wonder,

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what were you thinking?

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

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We already use about 50 percent

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

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and agriculture alone
is 70 percent of that.

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So we use a lot of water,

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a lot of land for agriculture -

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we also use a lot of the atmosphere
for agriculture.

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Usually when we think
about the atmosphere,

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we think about climate change

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and greenhouse gases,
and mostly around energy.

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But it turns out, agriculture is one

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of the biggest emitters
of greenhouse gases, too.

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If you look at carbon dioxide
from burning tropical rainforest,

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or methane coming from cows and rice,

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or nitrous oxide
from too many fertilizers,

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it turns out agriculture is 30 percent
of the greenhouse gases

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going into the atmosphere
from human activity!

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That's more than all our transportation,

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it's more than all our electricity,

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

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It's the single largest emitter
of greenhouse gases

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of any human activity in the world,

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

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So, we have this incredible presence today

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of agriculture dominating our planet,

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

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70 percent of the water we use,

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30 percent of our greenhouse
gas emissions.

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We've doubled the flows
of nitrogen and phosphorus

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around the world simply
by using fertilizers,

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causing huge problems of water quality

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from rivers, lakes, and even oceans.

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

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So without a doubt, agriculture

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is the single most powerful force
unleashed on this planet

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since the end of the Ice Age, no question.

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And it rivals climate change
in importance,

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and they're both happening
at the same time.

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But what's really important
here to remember

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is that it's not all bad.

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

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In fact, we completely depend on it.

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

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It's an absolute necessity.

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We have to provide food and feed, and yes,

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fiber, and even biofuels

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to something like seven billion
people in the world today.

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And if anything, we're going to have

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the demands on agriculture
increase into the future.

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It's not going to go away:

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it's going to get a lot bigger,

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mainly because of growing population.

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We're seven billion people today

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heading towards at least nine,

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probably nine and a half
before we're done.

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More importantly, changing diets

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as the world becomes wealthier
as well as more populous -

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we're seeing increases in
dietary consumption of meat,

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

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So more people eating
more stuff and richer stuff,

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

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where we have to replace
oil with other energy sources

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that will ultimately have to include

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some kinds of biofuels
and bioenergy sources.

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

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

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without at least doubling global
agricultural production.

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Well, how are we going to do this?

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How are we going to double

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global agro production around the world?

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Well, we could try to farm more land:

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

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is where the crops are today.

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On the right is where they could be,

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based on soils and climate,

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

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which is not a good assumption.

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We could farm more land,
but the problem is,

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the remaining lands
are in sensitive areas:

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

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things we want to protect.

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So we could grow more food
by expanding farmland,

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but we'd better not,

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because it's ecologically a very,

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very dangerous thing to do.

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Instead, we maybe want to freeze
the footprint of agriculture

00:11:36.899 --> 00:11:39.399
and farm the lands we have better.

00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:41.079
This is work that we're doing

00:11:41.079 --> 00:11:43.160
to try to highlight places in the world

00:11:43.160 --> 00:11:46.869
where we could improve yields
without harming the environment.

00:11:46.869 --> 00:11:49.549
The green areas here
show where corn yields

00:11:49.549 --> 00:11:51.380
- just showing corn as an example -

00:11:51.380 --> 00:11:53.741
are already really high,
probably the maximum

00:11:53.741 --> 00:11:56.722
you could find on Earth today
for that climate and soil.

00:11:56.722 --> 00:11:59.039
But the brown areas and yellow areas

00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.760
are places where we're only getting
maybe 20 or 30 percent

00:12:01.760 --> 00:12:03.610
of the yield you should be able to get.

00:12:03.610 --> 00:12:06.050
You see a lot of this in Africa,
even Latin America,

00:12:06.050 --> 00:12:07.877
but interestingly, Eastern Europe,

00:12:07.877 --> 00:12:10.740
where Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc
countries used to be,

00:12:10.740 --> 00:12:12.500
is still a mess, agriculturally.

00:12:12.500 --> 00:12:15.779
Now, this would require
nutrients and water.

00:12:15.779 --> 00:12:18.250
It's going to either be organic,
or conventional,

00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:20.099
or some mix of the two to deliver that.

00:12:20.099 --> 00:12:22.152
Plants need water and nutrients.

00:12:22.165 --> 00:12:24.319
But we can do this,
and there are opportunities

00:12:24.319 --> 00:12:25.500
to make this work.

00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:27.712
But we have to do it
in a way that is sensitive

00:12:27.712 --> 00:12:29.994
to meeting the food
security needs of the future

00:12:29.994 --> 00:12:32.631
and the environmental
security needs of the future.

00:12:32.631 --> 00:12:35.820
We have to figure out
how to make this tradeoff

00:12:35.820 --> 00:12:39.500
between growing food and having
healthy environment work better.

00:12:39.500 --> 00:12:42.299
Right now, it's kind of
all or nothing proposition.

00:12:42.299 --> 00:12:44.140
We can grow food in the background

00:12:44.140 --> 00:12:47.399
- that's a soybean field -
and in this flower diagram

00:12:47.399 --> 00:12:49.000
it shows we grow a lot of food,

00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:50.939
but we don't have a lot of clean water,

00:12:50.939 --> 00:12:52.639
we're not storing a lot of carbon,

00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:54.469
we don't have a lot of biodiversity.

00:12:54.469 --> 00:12:56.530
In the foreground, we have this prairie

00:12:56.530 --> 00:12:58.720
that's wonderful
from the environmental side,

00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:01.070
but you can't eat anything.
What's there to eat?

00:13:01.070 --> 00:13:03.400
We need to figure out
how to bring both of those

00:13:03.400 --> 00:13:06.099
together into a new kind of agriculture

00:13:06.099 --> 00:13:07.700
that brings them all together.

00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:10.083
Now, when I talk about this,
people often tell me,

00:13:10.083 --> 00:13:13.500
well, isn't - blank - the answer,
or organic food,

00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:18.230
local food, GMOs, new trade subsidies,
new farmvilles?

00:13:18.230 --> 00:13:20.300
And yes, we have a lot of good ideas here,

00:13:20.300 --> 00:13:23.699
but not any one of these
is a silver bullet.

00:13:23.699 --> 00:13:25.280
In fact, what I think they are

00:13:25.280 --> 00:13:27.000
is more like silver buckshot.

00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:28.660
And I love silver buckshot:

00:13:28.660 --> 00:13:31.519
you put it together,
and you've got something really powerful.

00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:33.369
But we need to put them together.

00:13:33.369 --> 00:13:35.399
So what we have to do, I think,

00:13:35.399 --> 00:13:37.859
is invent a new kind of agriculture

00:13:37.859 --> 00:13:40.850
that blends the best ideas
of commercial agriculture

00:13:40.850 --> 00:13:42.200
in the Green Revolution

00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:45.439
with the best ideas
of organic farming and local food,

00:13:45.439 --> 00:13:48.850
and the best ideas
of environmental conservation.

00:13:48.850 --> 00:13:50.649
Not to have them fighting each other,

00:13:50.649 --> 00:13:52.750
but to have them collaborating together

00:13:52.750 --> 00:13:54.704
to form a new kind of agriculture,

00:13:54.704 --> 00:13:56.799
something I call terraculture,

00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.100
or farming for a whole planet.

00:13:59.100 --> 00:14:01.000
Now, having this kind of conversation

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:02.400
has been really hard.

00:14:02.400 --> 00:14:05.430
We've been trying very hard
to bring these key points to people

00:14:05.430 --> 00:14:08.300
to reduce the controversy
and increase the collaboration.

00:14:08.300 --> 00:14:09.960
I'm going to show you a short video

00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:12.160
that does kind of show
our efforts right now

00:14:12.160 --> 00:14:14.850
to bring these sides together
into a single conversation.

00:14:14.850 --> 00:14:16.649
So let me show you that.

00:14:17.833 --> 00:14:20.899
(Music)
[Environment.]

00:14:20.899 --> 00:14:23.540
[Institute on the environment –
University of Minnesota]

00:14:23.540 --> 00:14:24.759
[Driven to discover]

00:14:24.759 --> 00:14:27.742
[The world population is growing]

00:14:27.742 --> 00:14:29.745
[by 75 million people each year.]

00:14:29.745 --> 00:14:32.579
[That's almost the size of Germany.]

00:14:32.579 --> 00:14:35.299
[Today, we're nearing 7 billion people.]

00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:38.250
[At this rate, we'll reach
9 billion people by 2040.]

00:14:38.250 --> 00:14:39.920
[And we all need food.]

00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:41.200
[But how?]

00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:44.399
[How do we feed a growing world
without destroying the planet?]

00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:47.262
[We already know climate change
is a big problem.]

00:14:47.262 --> 00:14:48.805
[But it's not the only problem.]

00:14:48.805 --> 00:14:51.640
[We need to face
“the other inconvenient truth.”:]

00:14:51.640 --> 00:14:54.393
[a global crisis in agriculture.]

00:14:54.393 --> 00:14:58.231
[Population growth, meat consumption,
dairy consumption, energy costs]

00:14:58.231 --> 00:15:00.900
[bioenergy production
= stress on natural resources.]

00:15:00.900 --> 00:15:04.160
[More than 40% of Earth's land
has been cleared for agriculture.]

00:15:04.160 --> 00:15:06.812
[Global croplands cover
16 million square kilometers.]

00:15:06.812 --> 00:15:09.250
[That's almost the size of South America.]

00:15:09.250 --> 00:15:11.590
[Global pastures cover
30 million square kms.]

00:15:11.590 --> 00:15:13.430
[That's the size of Africa.]

00:15:13.430 --> 00:15:15.832
[Agriculture uses 60 times more land]

00:15:15.832 --> 00:15:18.251
[than urban and suburban areas combined.]

00:15:18.251 --> 00:15:21.545
[Irrigation is the biggest
use of water on the planet.]

00:15:21.545 --> 00:15:25.699
[We use 2,800 cube kilometers
of water on crops every year.]

00:15:25.699 --> 00:15:29.850
[That's enough to fill 7,305
Empire State Buildings every day.]

00:15:29.850 --> 00:15:32.515
[Today, many large rivers
have reduced flows.]

00:15:32.515 --> 00:15:34.000
[Some dry up altogether.]

00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:38.500
[Look at the Aral Sea,
now turned to desert.]

00:15:38.500 --> 00:15:42.460
[Or the Colorado river,
which no longer flows to the ocean.]

00:15:42.460 --> 00:15:44.310
[Fertilizers have more than doubled]

00:15:44.310 --> 00:15:46.400
[the phosphorus and nitrogen
in the environment.]

00:15:46.400 --> 00:15:47.299
[The consequence?]

00:15:47.299 --> 00:15:49.329
[Widespread water pollution]

00:15:49.329 --> 00:15:51.799
[and massive degradation
of lakes and rivers.]

00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:55.470
[Surprisingly, agriculture is the biggest
contributor to climate change:]

00:15:55.470 --> 00:15:58.219
[it generates 30%
of greenhouse gas emissions.]

00:15:58.219 --> 00:16:01.350
[That's more than the emission
from all electricity and industry.]

00:16:01.350 --> 00:16:04.000
[Or from all the world's planes,
trains and automobiles.]

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:06.820
[Most agricultural emissions
come from tropical deforestation,]

00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:08.656
[methane from animals and rice fields]

00:16:08.656 --> 00:16:10.570
[and nitrous oxide from over-fertilizing.]

00:16:10.570 --> 00:16:13.860
[There is nothing we do that transforms
the world more than agriculture.]

00:16:13.860 --> 00:16:16.939
[And there's nothing we do that is more
crucial to our survival.]

00:16:16.939 --> 00:16:18.280
[Here's the dilemma...]

00:16:18.280 --> 00:16:22.000
[as the world grows
by several billion more people,]

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.530
[we'll need to double, maybe even triple,
global food production.]

00:16:26.530 --> 00:16:28.199
[So where do we go from here?]

00:16:28.199 --> 00:16:31.050
[We need a bigger conversation,
an international dialogue.]

00:16:31.050 --> 00:16:32.980
[We need to invest in real solutions:]

00:16:32.980 --> 00:16:35.230
[incentives for farmers -
precision agriculture -]

00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:37.039
[new crop varieties - drip irrigation]

00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:40.500
[gray water recycling
- better tillage practices- smarter diets]

00:16:40.500 --> 00:16:43.130
[We need everyone at the table:]

00:16:43.130 --> 00:16:45.049
[advocates of commercial agriculture,]

00:16:45.049 --> 00:16:46.590
[environmental conservation,]

00:16:46.590 --> 00:16:47.756
[and organic farming...]

00:16:47.756 --> 00:16:49.930
[must work together.]

00:16:49.930 --> 00:16:51.564
[There is no single solution:]

00:16:51.564 --> 00:16:52.864
[we need collaboration,]

00:16:52.864 --> 00:16:54.030
[imagination,]

00:16:54.030 --> 00:16:54.950
[determination.]

00:16:54.950 --> 00:16:57.392
[Because failure is not an option.]

00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:02.313
[How do we feed the world
without destroying it?]

00:17:02.313 --> 00:17:03.820
Jonathan Foley:
And so, we face

00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:05.500
one of the greatest grand challenges

00:17:05.500 --> 00:17:07.400
in all of human history today:

00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:09.880
the need to feed nine billion people

00:17:09.880 --> 00:17:13.699
and do so sustainably
and equitably and justly.

00:17:13.699 --> 00:17:16.000
At the same time, protecting our planet

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:18.000
for this and future generations.

00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:20.210
This is going to be one
of the hardest things

00:17:20.210 --> 00:17:21.869
we ever have done in human history,

00:17:21.869 --> 00:17:25.000
and we absolutely have to get it right.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.500
And we have to get it right
on our first and only try.

00:17:29.500 --> 00:17:32.000
So, thanks very much.

00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:35.000
(Applause)