Sustainable Agriculture - and Energy

What it will look like; what government can do

For ECSC Land Use and

Transportation Subcommittee –

June 10, 2008David Reed

www.wafsa.com352-222-0651

Converging Problems

• Escalating fuel costs

• Escalating biofuels production

• Climate crises

• Resource Degradation- Richard Heinberg, Dec. 2007

Converging Opportunities• Protracted war and global instability – energy implicated

• Global warming - panic

• Fuel prices drives consumer action

• Crises in the food industry

• Public awareness of interconnection between energy, food, transportation, climate

• Growing demand for local, sustainable food

• Solutions WANTED NOW= receptive audience

• Election year in USA

2008 Farm Bill

• Specialty Crop Research -- $30M• Organic certification - $22M over 5 yrs• Organic Agriculture Research and Extension - $78M over 4 yrs• Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program - $5M• Beginning farmers and ranchers - $75M over 4 yrs• Farmers market promotion - $33M over 5 yrs• State-inspected meat can now be shipped for interstate

commerce (helps local meat processing facilities)• RMA Community Outreach Program – 70% reduction

Land Use / Transportation: Priorities

• Coordinate Land Use and Transportation to reduce energy use in agriculture, commerce, education, and other sectors.

• Coordinate across agencies, across communities, and between public/private sectors.

• Use planning to avoid urban sprawl, raise urban densities, find best use of land in every location.

• Better implement existing comp plans and other policies to reduce energy use.

• Raise awareness of links between energy, transportation and land use.

Assumptions

Enormous changes to come in global foods systems. We need to: • Redesign, re-structure, and reform local food

systems• Rebuild the cultural basis of food production• De-centralize, un-concentrate. Move to

integrated, dispersed, stable systems.

Assumptions (cont)

Minimize energy costs – fuel, chemicals, tillage, cultivation, transport, etc.

• Minimize transportation distances and costs• Build food production in and around urban

areas• Move food to people efficiently, rather than

people to food inefficiently

Assumptions (cont)

Minimize inputs: fertilizer, chemicals, water, and energy inputs -- labor??

• Anticipate peak oil, peak phosphorous, peak water, etc.

• Cumulative impact assessments

Assumptions (cont)

• Maximize use of organic inputs – composts, manures, recyclables

• Increase nutritive values of foods (and energy efficiency in the process)

• Increase vegetable, reduce animal component in diets.

• Re-build an agricultural society to be sustainable

Basic Goals for agriculture

• Build a regional food system

• Build a regional food community

• Build a regional food marketplace

Sustainable Agriculture• environmental health• human health• economic profitability • social and economic equity

Consumer Preferences• Local, Small

• Quality - safety, flavor and freshness, appearance, nutrition

• Organic, or ‘natural’

• Documented

• Profitable

• Environmental Quality

• Farmland and habitat preservation

• Convenient

Food System Basic Components

 

Production >> Marketing >> Transport

 

Resources

• Land, Water, Labor, Energy

• Infrastructure

• Social and Cultural Assets

• Information

• Organization

• *Demand *

Participants

• Producers, processors, warehousers • distributors, brokers, marketers • Farmers Markets, cooperatives, CSA’s • restaurants, wineries, breweries • institutions, corporations, NPO’s, agencies • Etc.

Participants – Gainesville FL

County and City Planning Offices Special programs and initiatives, such as:

Energy Conservation Strategies CommissionUF Office of Sustainability UF Center for Organics, IFAS

Alachua County Agricultural Extension IFAS Small Farms Program, and IFAS Food and Resource Economics Dept AC Dept of Environmental Protection (EPD)AC Natural Resources Conservation (NRCS)USDA Resource Conservation and Development (see www.Floridafarmlink.org)Gainesville Chamber of Commerce Sustainable Alachua CountyFlorida Organic Growers (FOG), based in GainesvilleHigh Schools, Churches, and other institutions that have local food connections Hundreds of local growers, many of whom are expert or innovative in different methodsIncreased local sourcing by existing retailers, such as Publix Greenwise products New cooperatives, restaurants, farmers markets, and other initiatives focused on local foods

What will it look like?

Foodshed

-NOT

25 mi

What will it look like?

100 mi

Gainesville – 25 and 50Mile radius

GeneralLand Use:AgricultureAnd Institutional

Data Source:FGDL

Gainesville – 25 Mile radius

GeneralLand Use:AgricultureAnd Institutional

Data Source:FGDL

Distribution system

• Direct sales, minimal brokerage• Minimal hauling distances• Maximize backhauling• Aggregated pickup points• Aggregated dropoff points• Minimal processing, packaging, storage….• Use maps, GIS and communications to plan and adjust

routes. • Avoid overlap and redundancy in transport• Avoid multiple haulers servicing the same areas

Specific Actions –map and analyze the region

Maps:• Map the industry – growers, retailers, farmers markets,

distributors, warehouses, supplies and services, restaurants, wineries, breweries, processors, slaughterhouses, value-added……………

• See Marketmaker websites for more info about how to do this – www.marketmaker.uiuc.edu.

• Map the resources – water, soils, roads, etc.• Distribute maps to the food system – growers, consumers,

agencies - online, interactive.

Specific Actions –analyze and set goals

• Analyze the industry and resources

• Clarify objectives, and set quantitative goals for regional food system– Example: Oakland CA - 40% of vegetables to come from within

50 mile radius by 2015.

– Hypothetical, Gainesville:

• 25% of food to come from within 75 miles by 2015

• 50% of all food to come from within 300 miles by 2015

Specific Actions -

• Provide coordination, education, information

• Maintain a central web portal that will be a: • gateway to ALL food system resources and issues for a given

region

• Knowledge base

• Links to maps, analysis, market tools, distribution system

Specific Actions –Land use issues

• Preserve Farmland and ‘open space’

• Model best areas for food production, and other food system components

• Encourage best use of resources, via permitting, planning, allocation

• Help connect farm labor with available farm land (see Floridafarmlink)

• Focus on raising profitability of agriculture

Specific Actions –regulatory issues

• Reform regulatory system to apply to sustainable production

• Encourage fair market practices (ie. Avoid monopolies, external controls)

• Encourage proper application of subsidies, grants

Specific Actions –regulatory issues

Protect local interests• Turtles in Lake Orange

• Raw milk, grassfed beef, farmers market fees, value-added products

• Help farmers meet insurance and food safety requirements for sales to institutions, wholesalers.

• Mediate the collision between ‘conventional’ and ‘alternative’ agriculture

Specific Actions –Institutional

Institutions can play a major role in re-building local food systems

• Farming and gardening at schools, prisons, mental health facilities

• Local sourcing by institutional food services• Buying clubs at churches, agencies, corporations, and

other collection points• Distribution points – dropoff, storage, value-added• Food banks – well-established, existing networks connect

growers and retailers to institutions

Specific Actions –

• Influence market structure• Assist small growers to meet marketing

requirements – insurance, safety certification• Participate in a regional online marketplace• Coordinate food systems between regions

– Look to emergency response system for government role in interregional coordination

• Promote distant markets where advisable