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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

252
00:10:41,950 --> 00:10:43,800
that will ultimately have to include

253
00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:46,229
some kinds of biofuels
and bioenergy sources.

254
00:10:46,229 --> 00:10:49,200
So, you put these together,
it's really hard to see

255
00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,539
how we're going to get
to the rest of the century

256
00:10:51,539 --> 00:10:55,240
without at least doubling global
agricultural production.

257
00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:56,880
Well, how are we going to do this?

258
00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:58,270
How are we going to double

259
00:10:58,270 --> 00:11:00,800
global agro production around the world?

260
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:03,100
Well, we could try to farm more land:

261
00:11:03,100 --> 00:11:05,340
this is an analysis we've done
where on the left

262
00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:07,110
is where the crops are today.

263
00:11:07,110 --> 00:11:09,634
On the right is where they could be,

264
00:11:09,634 --> 00:11:11,430
based on soils and climate,

265
00:11:11,430 --> 00:11:14,289
assuming climate change
doesn't disrupt too much of this,

266
00:11:14,289 --> 00:11:16,000
which is not a good assumption.

267
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:18,649
We could farm more land,
but the problem is,

268
00:11:18,649 --> 00:11:21,103
the remaining lands
are in sensitive areas:

269
00:11:21,103 --> 00:11:23,719
they have a lot of biodiversity,
a lot of carbon,

270
00:11:23,719 --> 00:11:25,635
things we want to protect.

271
00:11:25,635 --> 00:11:28,649
So we could grow more food
by expanding farmland,

272
00:11:28,649 --> 00:11:29,800
but we'd better not,

273
00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:31,609
because it's ecologically a very,

274
00:11:31,609 --> 00:11:33,079
very dangerous thing to do.

275
00:11:33,079 --> 00:11:36,899
Instead, we maybe want to freeze
the footprint of agriculture

276
00:11:36,899 --> 00:11:39,399
and farm the lands we have better.

277
00:11:39,399 --> 00:11:41,079
This is work that we're doing

278
00:11:41,079 --> 00:11:43,160
to try to highlight places in the world

279
00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:46,869
where we could improve yields
without harming the environment.

280
00:11:46,869 --> 00:11:49,549
The green areas here
show where corn yields

281
00:11:49,549 --> 00:11:51,380
- just showing corn as an example -

282
00:11:51,380 --> 00:11:53,741
are already really high,
probably the maximum

283
00:11:53,741 --> 00:11:56,722
you could find on Earth today
for that climate and soil.

284
00:11:56,722 --> 00:11:59,039
But the brown areas and yellow areas

285
00:11:59,039 --> 00:12:01,760
are places where we're only getting
maybe 20 or 30 percent

286
00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:03,610
of the yield you should be able to get.

287
00:12:03,610 --> 00:12:06,050
You see a lot of this in Africa,
even Latin America,

288
00:12:06,050 --> 00:12:07,877
but interestingly, Eastern Europe,

289
00:12:07,877 --> 00:12:10,740
where Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc
countries used to be,

290
00:12:10,740 --> 00:12:12,500
is still a mess, agriculturally.

291
00:12:12,500 --> 00:12:15,779
Now, this would require
nutrients and water.

292
00:12:15,779 --> 00:12:18,250
It's going to either be organic,
or conventional,

293
00:12:18,250 --> 00:12:20,099
or some mix of the two to deliver that.

294
00:12:20,099 --> 00:12:22,152
Plants need water and nutrients.

295
00:12:22,165 --> 00:12:24,319
But we can do this,
and there are opportunities

296
00:12:24,319 --> 00:12:25,500
to make this work.

297
00:12:25,500 --> 00:12:27,712
But we have to do it
in a way that is sensitive

298
00:12:27,712 --> 00:12:29,994
to meeting the food
security needs of the future

299
00:12:29,994 --> 00:12:32,631
and the environmental
security needs of the future.

300
00:12:32,631 --> 00:12:35,820
We have to figure out
how to make this tradeoff

301
00:12:35,820 --> 00:12:39,500
between growing food and having
healthy environment work better.

302
00:12:39,500 --> 00:12:42,299
Right now, it's kind of
all or nothing proposition.

303
00:12:42,299 --> 00:12:44,140
We can grow food in the background

304
00:12:44,140 --> 00:12:47,399
- that's a soybean field -
and in this flower diagram

305
00:12:47,399 --> 00:12:49,000
it shows we grow a lot of food,

306
00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:50,939
but we don't have a lot of clean water,

307
00:12:50,939 --> 00:12:52,639
we're not storing a lot of carbon,

308
00:12:52,639 --> 00:12:54,469
we don't have a lot of biodiversity.

309
00:12:54,469 --> 00:12:56,530
In the foreground, we have this prairie

310
00:12:56,530 --> 00:12:58,720
that's wonderful
from the environmental side,

311
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:01,070
but you can't eat anything.
What's there to eat?

312
00:13:01,070 --> 00:13:03,400
We need to figure out
how to bring both of those

313
00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:06,099
together into a new kind of agriculture

314
00:13:06,099 --> 00:13:07,700
that brings them all together.

315
00:13:07,700 --> 00:13:10,083
Now, when I talk about this,
people often tell me,

316
00:13:10,083 --> 00:13:13,500
well, isn't - blank - the answer,
or organic food,

317
00:13:13,500 --> 00:13:18,230
local food, GMOs, new trade subsidies,
new farmvilles?

318
00:13:18,230 --> 00:13:20,300
And yes, we have a lot of good ideas here,

319
00:13:20,300 --> 00:13:23,699
but not any one of these
is a silver bullet.

320
00:13:23,699 --> 00:13:25,280
In fact, what I think they are

321
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,000
is more like silver buckshot.

322
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:28,660
And I love silver buckshot:

323
00:13:28,660 --> 00:13:31,519
you put it together,
and you've got something really powerful.

324
00:13:31,519 --> 00:13:33,369
But we need to put them together.

325
00:13:33,369 --> 00:13:35,399
So what we have to do, I think,

326
00:13:35,399 --> 00:13:37,859
is invent a new kind of agriculture

327
00:13:37,859 --> 00:13:40,850
that blends the best ideas
of commercial agriculture

328
00:13:40,850 --> 00:13:42,200
in the Green Revolution

329
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,439
with the best ideas
of organic farming and local food,

330
00:13:45,439 --> 00:13:48,850
and the best ideas
of environmental conservation.

331
00:13:48,850 --> 00:13:50,649
Not to have them fighting each other,

332
00:13:50,649 --> 00:13:52,750
but to have them collaborating together

333
00:13:52,750 --> 00:13:54,704
to form a new kind of agriculture,

334
00:13:54,704 --> 00:13:56,799
something I call terraculture,

335
00:13:56,799 --> 00:13:59,100
or farming for a whole planet.

336
00:13:59,100 --> 00:14:01,000
Now, having this kind of conversation

337
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:02,400
has been really hard.

338
00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:05,430
We've been trying very hard
to bring these key points to people

339
00:14:05,430 --> 00:14:08,300
to reduce the controversy
and increase the collaboration.

340
00:14:08,300 --> 00:14:09,960
I'm going to show you a short video

341
00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:12,160
that does kind of show
our efforts right now

342
00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:14,850
to bring these sides together
into a single conversation.

343
00:14:14,850 --> 00:14:16,649
So let me show you that.

344
00:14:17,833 --> 00:14:20,899
(Music)
[Environment.]

345
00:14:20,899 --> 00:14:23,540
[Institute on the environment –
University of Minnesota]

346
00:14:23,540 --> 00:14:24,759
[Driven to discover]

347
00:14:24,759 --> 00:14:27,742
[The world population is growing]

348
00:14:27,742 --> 00:14:29,745
[by 75 million people each year.]

349
00:14:29,745 --> 00:14:32,579
[That's almost the size of Germany.]

350
00:14:32,579 --> 00:14:35,299
[Today, we're nearing 7 billion people.]

351
00:14:35,299 --> 00:14:38,250
[At this rate, we'll reach
9 billion people by 2040.]

352
00:14:38,250 --> 00:14:39,920
[And we all need food.]

353
00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:41,200
[But how?]

354
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:44,399
[How do we feed a growing world
without destroying the planet?]

355
00:14:44,399 --> 00:14:47,262
[We already know climate change
is a big problem.]

356
00:14:47,262 --> 00:14:48,805
[But it's not the only problem.]

357
00:14:48,805 --> 00:14:51,640
[We need to face
“the other inconvenient truth.”:]

358
00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:54,393
[a global crisis in agriculture.]

359
00:14:54,393 --> 00:14:58,231
[Population growth, meat consumption,
dairy consumption, energy costs]

360
00:14:58,231 --> 00:15:00,900
[bioenergy production
= stress on natural resources.]

361
00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:04,160
[More than 40% of Earth's land
has been cleared for agriculture.]

362
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,812
[Global croplands cover
16 million square kilometers.]

363
00:15:06,812 --> 00:15:09,250
[That's almost the size of South America.]

364
00:15:09,250 --> 00:15:11,590
[Global pastures cover
30 million square kms.]

365
00:15:11,590 --> 00:15:13,430
[That's the size of Africa.]

366
00:15:13,430 --> 00:15:15,832
[Agriculture uses 60 times more land]

367
00:15:15,832 --> 00:15:18,251
[than urban and suburban areas combined.]

368
00:15:18,251 --> 00:15:21,545
[Irrigation is the biggest
use of water on the planet.]

369
00:15:21,545 --> 00:15:25,699
[We use 2,800 cube kilometers
of water on crops every year.]

370
00:15:25,699 --> 00:15:29,850
[That's enough to fill 7,305
Empire State Buildings every day.]

371
00:15:29,850 --> 00:15:32,515
[Today, many large rivers
have reduced flows.]

372
00:15:32,515 --> 00:15:34,000
[Some dry up altogether.]

373
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:38,500
[Look at the Aral Sea,
now turned to desert.]

374
00:15:38,500 --> 00:15:42,460
[Or the Colorado river,
which no longer flows to the ocean.]

375
00:15:42,460 --> 00:15:44,310
[Fertilizers have more than doubled]

376
00:15:44,310 --> 00:15:46,400
[the phosphorus and nitrogen
in the environment.]

377
00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:47,299
[The consequence?]

378
00:15:47,299 --> 00:15:49,329
[Widespread water pollution]

379
00:15:49,329 --> 00:15:51,799
[and massive degradation
of lakes and rivers.]

380
00:15:51,799 --> 00:15:55,470
[Surprisingly, agriculture is the biggest
contributor to climate change:]

381
00:15:55,470 --> 00:15:58,219
[it generates 30%
of greenhouse gas emissions.]

382
00:15:58,219 --> 00:16:01,350
[That's more than the emission
from all electricity and industry.]

383
00:16:01,350 --> 00:16:04,000
[Or from all the world's planes,
trains and automobiles.]

384
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,820
[Most agricultural emissions
come from tropical deforestation,]

385
00:16:06,820 --> 00:16:08,656
[methane from animals and rice fields]

386
00:16:08,656 --> 00:16:10,570
[and nitrous oxide from over-fertilizing.]

387
00:16:10,570 --> 00:16:13,860
[There is nothing we do that transforms
the world more than agriculture.]

388
00:16:13,860 --> 00:16:16,939
[And there's nothing we do that is more
crucial to our survival.]

389
00:16:16,939 --> 00:16:18,280
[Here's the dilemma...]

390
00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:22,000
[as the world grows
by several billion more people,]

391
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:26,530
[we'll need to double, maybe even triple,
global food production.]

392
00:16:26,530 --> 00:16:28,199
[So where do we go from here?]

393
00:16:28,199 --> 00:16:31,050
[We need a bigger conversation,
an international dialogue.]

394
00:16:31,050 --> 00:16:32,980
[We need to invest in real solutions:]

395
00:16:32,980 --> 00:16:35,230
[incentives for farmers -
precision agriculture -]

396
00:16:35,230 --> 00:16:37,039
[new crop varieties - drip irrigation]

397
00:16:37,039 --> 00:16:40,500
[gray water recycling
- better tillage practices- smarter diets]

398
00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:43,130
[We need everyone at the table:]

399
00:16:43,130 --> 00:16:45,049
[advocates of commercial agriculture,]

400
00:16:45,049 --> 00:16:46,590
[environmental conservation,]

401
00:16:46,590 --> 00:16:47,756
[and organic farming...]

402
00:16:47,756 --> 00:16:49,930
[must work together.]

403
00:16:49,930 --> 00:16:51,564
[There is no single solution:]

404
00:16:51,564 --> 00:16:52,864
[we need collaboration,]

405
00:16:52,864 --> 00:16:54,030
[imagination,]

406
00:16:54,030 --> 00:16:54,950
[determination.]

407
00:16:54,950 --> 00:16:57,392
[Because failure is not an option.]

408
00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:02,313
[How do we feed the world
without destroying it?]

409
00:17:02,313 --> 00:17:03,820
Jonathan Foley:
And so, we face

410
00:17:03,820 --> 00:17:05,500
one of the greatest grand challenges

411
00:17:05,500 --> 00:17:07,400
in all of human history today:

412
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:09,880
the need to feed nine billion people

413
00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,699
and do so sustainably
and equitably and justly.

414
00:17:13,699 --> 00:17:16,000
At the same time, protecting our planet

415
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:18,000
for this and future generations.

416
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,210
This is going to be one
of the hardest things

417
00:17:20,210 --> 00:17:21,869
we ever have done in human history,

418
00:17:21,869 --> 00:17:25,000
and we absolutely have to get it right.

419
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:29,500
And we have to get it right
on our first and only try.

420
00:17:29,500 --> 00:17:32,000
So, thanks very much.

421
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:35,000
(Applause)