Earth Day 2021 Series Day 14: Sustainable Land Use: What Can We Learn from Farmers?

April 14, 2021

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by Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) They say that Sustainability is a three-legged stool: Environmental Sustainability, Economic Sustainability and Social Sustainability. If any of these legs is missing, the stool falls over.

Climate Smart Agriculture

The North America Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance is one group that has been thinking deeply about this, not only for the North American continent, but with people from around the world, participating in United Nations’ sponsored events promoting climate smart agriculture and talking about regenerative farming. They have a 20-minute video with farmers in different parts of the US telling about their efforts to farm more sustainably.

The group describes itself as “a farmer-led platform for inspiring, educating, and equipping agricultural partners to innovate effective local adaptations that sustain productivity, enhance climate resilience, and contribute to the local and global goals for sustainable development. NACSAA reflects and embraces all scales of agriculture in Canada, Mexico and the United States, ranging from small landholders to midsize and large-scale producers.”

NACSAA encourages climate smart agriculture (CSA) strategies to enhance the adaptive capacity of North American agriculture to changing climate conditions and works to achieve this goal through three complementary strategies or pillars:

1) Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and livelihoods (i.e. sustainable intensification);

2) Enhancing adaptive capacity and improving resilience; and

3) Delivering ecosystem services, sequestering carbon, and reducing and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

These reflect the three legs of that stool, environmental, economic and social, in their approach to being able to make a living getting the greatest productivity out of their land as sustainably as possible in light of both the climate change challenges that require adaptation and resilience and the benefits farming can provide to mitigate that climate change in ways society is demanding and encouraging.

Advanced Biofuels USA participates in interdisciplinary stakeholder collaborations with NACSAA represented by board member, Todd Campbell of Campbell Consulting/Clean Economy Works and former USDA Senior Advisor for Energy and the Bioeconomy. He brings our renewable fuels perspective to the discussions.

It’s not necessarily easy

Many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals involve sustainably managing and using resources from the land. Certainly, #15 Life on Land and #2 Zero Hunger; but think also of #1 No Poverty, #3 Good Health and Wellbeing and many others, including #7 Affordable and Clean Energy.

Many farmers are using their land to produce affordable, clean energy by putting up windmills. That seems like a good way to meet SDG #7 if you can also farm around them or have them tower over a forest. Some grow crops used, with their residues, for renewable fuel, animal feed and food for humans.

What about solar? Should farmers be using good agriculture land for solar? What if they can also farm that land that has specially built solar panels?

Some say they can get more income from their land by putting up solar. A strong economic leg of the stool. Certainly, everyone in a sustainable supply/value chain needs to make a living. In many places, this has become a controversial topic.

Should we use land to make electricity to meet the increased demand from electric vehicles and all-electric buildings? This is similar to the questioning of using agricultural crops to make fuels and other products to substitute for our use of petroleum and natural gas. Does the environmental leg on that sustainability stool start to feel a bit wobbly?

Should good agricultural land be used principally for food production? Only for food production? What about land used for fun -- like golf courses; or for living -- like homes, businesses and roads? If it is ag land, how much should remain ag land? What about the wastes and residues of those crops? Should they be used in some productive way? Perhaps instead of burning the straw in the field? But what if it costs more to do something productive with the residues than you can earn? That economic leg gets wobbly. How to balance that stool?

Who gets to decide?

Deciding how to use your land is not always easy. And not always your decision alone. Society’s leg of the stool may be strong. There may be zoning rules, conservation reserves, historic preservation easements or there may be neighbors’ complaints, protests or encouragement. Some might want to build houses, shopping centers, roads, pipelines or electricity transmission lines. There may be strong family, cultural or religious influences on land use decisions.

Land use, land use change, indirect land use change and land use policies are not easy. They impact all the legs of a sustainability stool and many of the UN’s SDGs. Part of the challenge is figuring out what is right and what is fair along with what is possible, what is practical and how to answer many other hard questions.

What Can You Do?

-Think of your own land if you have some, even a small yard if not a farm; or even a potted plant. In your circumstances, how can you apply NACSAA’s three pillars: adaptation and resiliency, productivity, and GHG reduction?

-Do you use rain barrels?

-If you have a farm do you power your tractors with renewable fuel?

-Does your potted plant need more sun than you get in your apartment?

-Don’t forget that your society will have something to say about your available choices.

-As you develop your opinions about how someone else’s land should be most appropriately used, consider not only the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but also all three legs of the sustainability stool.

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by Joanne Ivancic who serves as executive director of Advanced Biofuels USA