Home Page  Farming Is Intensive Farming Sustainable?
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Is Intensive Farming Sustainable? |
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Written by John Fitzgerald
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Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
It is safe to say, that The Green Party, An Comhaontas Glas, has a support base
that is located mainly in the large urban centres of Ireland. In the Dail, five
of the party's six TD's are from our capital city, Dublin. The sixth, Dan Boyle,
is from Cork City. Most green representatives in local politics, with the exception
of deputy leader, Cllr Mary White and Cllr Tom Kelly from Meath, are seated in
either city, town or borough councils.
In rural Ireland, especially in agricultural communities, voting patterns in the
national and local elections have always tended to be traditional and conservative.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have received the most popular support in the countryside
down through the years. The Labour Party, though the third largest party in the
country, has made little impact in areas containing strong farming communities.
Based on those considerable factors, finding support for green issues in the countryside
would always be a challenge.
As an unsuccessful Green Party candidate in the 2004 local elections, I was acutely
aware of this major challenge at the outset of my campaign. I stood for election
in a large rural electoral area in South Kilkenny and given the sensitivities
and some of the animosities towards green issues, the extent of my canvass was
somewhat restricted. I must say though, that the practice by some opposition candidates,
as well as government ministers, who unfairly highlighted the Green Party's agricultural
policy as a threat to farmer’s livelihoods, did not help matters either.
This level of awareness was high enough to restrict my canvass only to locals
and relatives involved in agriculture.
In my opinion, this animosity towards the Green Party's agricultural policy is
difficult to understand, as the real threat to farmer’s livelihoods comes
not from EU regulation driven environmental protection policies and issues of
sustainability, but from the outcome of the world trade talks and corporate globalisation.
Green Party agricultural policies focus mainly on environmental protection, safe
food and animal welfare, all of which are included in the general thrust of the
recently introduced European Union "Decoupling" measures, and are vital
elements in the quest for sustainable agriculture going forward.
Sustainable agriculture is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity at the
moment. Sustainability implies that agriculture not only secures a sustained food
supply, but that its environmental, socio-economic and human health impacts are
recognised and accounted for within current and future agricultural policies.
Until about four decades ago, the link between agriculture and natural ecological
systems was quite strong and signs of environmental degradation were seldom evident.
Crop yields in agricultural systems depended on internal resources, recycling
of organic matter and built-in biological control mechanisms. Agricultural yields
were modest, but stable. Production was safeguarded by growing more than one crop
or variety in a field, thus ensuring healthy soils and preventing pest and disease
outbreaks. Inputs of nitrogen were gained by rotating major field crops.
But as agricultural modernization progressed, the ecology-farming linkage was
often broken as ecological principles were ignored and/or overridden. The breaking
of this "harmony " with nature has led to a general consensus amongst
ecologists and many agricultural scientists, that modern agriculture confronts
the environment rather than protecting it. There are growing concerns about the
long-term sustainability of existing intensive food production systems. Evidence
has accumulated showing that whereas the present intensive farming systems have
been extremely productive and competitive, they also bring a variety of unsustainable
economic, environmental and social problems.
Evidence also shows that policies concentrating on subsidised production have
led to this environmental crisis by favouring large farm size, specialized production,
crop monocultures and mechanization. Today as more and more farming systems are
integrated into international economies, imperatives to diversity disappear and
monocultures are rewarded by economies of scale. In turn, lack of rotations and
diversification take away key self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures
into highly vulnerable production systems that are dependent on high chemical
inputs.
Because agriculture exists within a symbiosis of land and water and modern farming
systems depend on high chemical inputs, groundwater and surface waters have fallen
victim to chemical and pesticide runoff. In Ireland, numerous EPA reports have
highlighted this factor and the European Union has responded with the Nitrates
Directive (91/676/EEC) and more recently the Water Framework Directive, on protection
of waters against pollution by nitrates and other pressures associated with intensive
agriculture.
Other instances that reinforce these scientific findings can also be cited. On
the coastal zone of Mediterranean countries, a study by the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) in 1996, found that agriculture was the leading source of phosphorus
compounds and sediment in estuaries and coastal zone waters. In the US, agricultural
pollution was such a problem it led the US-EPA to declare that: "Agriculture
is the leading source of impairment in the Nation's rivers and lakes". They
also concluded that: "more than 75% of the states reported that agricultural
activities posed a significant threat to groundwater quality". And in an
analysis of wetlands, the US-EPA (1994) reported that: "Agriculture is the
most important land use causing wetland degradation".
In conclusion therefore, it is clear that the current agricultural model of intensive
production is unsustainable due to its adverse effects on the environment and
eventually, human health. There is a clear need to continue the shift away from
the old policies of "subsidised destruction" and filter in agricultural
policies that produce quality food while at the same time provide "environmental
gain" by maintaining and improving biodiversity.
A slow and tentative start has already been made through the introduction of the
Rural Environmental Protection Schemes (REPS) and the recently introduced EU Single
Payment that decouples farm subsidies from agricultural production. These measures,
combined with the transposition into law of the National Biodiversity Plan and
the Habitats Directive, should help in the extensification of agriculture, thus
ensuring farming practices do not adversely effect our natural heritage and biodiversity.
Consumer dissatisfaction, reflected in the revival of local farmers markets, the
growth of the Slow Food movement and the rejection of genetically modified foods,
is another clear indicator of a shift away from the products of intensive agriculture
and that quality food produced under good environmental and animal welfare conditions
are now the preferred choice of many consumers.
For the moment though, there is much convincing, negotiating, cajoling and arguing
to do in the political arena, before agriculture becomes sustainable. The Green
Party has a vital role to play in ensuring the momentum is maintained, but it
must be done in conjunction with the major stakeholders, in this instance, the
farmers. Then I feel green issues will form a major component of activities "down
on the farm".
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