What is the future of agriculture?

This week I came upon two very different articles online regarding where our food comes from. They both focus on how technology has impacted the way we farm, but come to different conclusions about the benefits of current farming technology. I think they raise some interesting questions about what role technology should play in food production in the future.

The first article, on NPR.com, discusses an art project conducted by photographer David Liittschwager, wherein he photographed all the species that pass through a cubic foot of area in different locations around the world. The result is a unique way of visualizing an area's biodiversity. Locations such as a public park in South Africa and a tree in Costa Rica contained more than a hundred different species of plants, insects, and animals. He also examined a typical Iowa cornfield - part of a huge system of industrial monoculture that provides much of our country's food supply. How many species did he find there? Eight. Including the corn. Over two nights and three days of observation, he didn't even find a single bee.

This total lack of biodiversity strongly contrasts the previous state of the Iowa prairie landscape, where a century ago hundreds of species coexisted in a complex system. Liittschwager's work raises questions about the benefit of our industrial agricultural system. What are we losing when we eliminate almost all species in a natural ecosystem? To what extent does the health of the soil and the crops depend on the complex network of interrelationships that we have destroyed without fully understanding? Industrial agriculture on this scale requires energy input in the form of fertilizer produced by burning fossil fuels. How long can we sustain these practices before we run out of materials or permanently alter our atmosphere and climate?

Another perspective on technology and farming comes from wired.com, where you can find photographs by Freya Najade of another technology-dependent method of food production: self-contained robotic farms. These facilities can produce food, without soil or sunlight, separate from any natural ecosystem. They are touted as possible models for production of food on the moon or in space, and similar systems have been developed to grow food in urban spaces previously considered unusable for food production. These systems, like the industrial corn farm mentioned earlier, feature a stark lack of biodiversity, but instead of destroying an existing ecosystem to create these farms, unfarmable areas have instead been transformed into a place where food is produced. Using computer-controlled systems, food can be grown locally, closer to consumers, and with less effort by humans, increasing efficiency. However, we don't fully understand the consequences of using these systems, which exist completely outside the natural environment or season, and which require the input of energy in the form of electricity and heat to function.

So, where do we go from here? What will be the role of technology in the future of food production? We have already used technology to enormously increase the efficiency of food production, with mixed results. The US spends, per capita, the least on food and the most on health care compared to almost any other industrialized nation. Industrial agriculture is changing our climate and eliminating biodiversity in our environment. Currently, the way we produce food is efficient but destroys our health and local ecosystems. Some proponents of systems such as biodynamic agriculture say that going back to a method of farming where we avoid monoculture and grow a diversity of plants on smaller farms that also include uncultivated natural spaces is the way forward. Could we also use more advanced technology to grow food outside of natural systems, farming previously unfarmable areas with the help of computers and other advanced technology. Can technology allow us to farm more efficiently, with fewer people, and closer to the consumers of food? I suspect that both of these approaches will be tested in the no-so-distant future, as we try to address the complicated problems with our current systems of food production. It may be that the best solution is a synthesis of old wisdom about how to care for plants and the soil and new knowledge of how to manipulate energy, information, and plant biology.

(Image: hydroponic farm 035, a Creative Commons 2.0 licensed image from missdrummajorette's photostream)

The Future of Bananas

This is what bananas looked like before humans got involved in their reproduction.

Some of you may know that 50 years ago, although people in the USA were eating bananas, they were a different kind than the ones you're familiar with. That's because at the time, the Gros Michel was the type of banana gown for eating, and almost all bananas for sale were this type, grown on clonal trees. A post over at BoingBoing explains what happened to these bananas, and what will likely happen to the bananas we're enjoying now. (This post was inspired by another at Damn Interesting, also about the sex life of bananas. Go check it out.)

Because we don't like to eat bananas with seeds, humans have selectively bread bananas without them. (The picture above is of a wild banana that has not been subjected to selective breeding by humans.) Unfortunately for the bananas, this makes it difficult to reproduce. Humans make more banana trees by growing a new tree from a cutting of an existing one. This creates a population of banana trees that are all genetically identical - the entire code of their DNA is the same. If these banana trees were human, they would all be identical twins.

In the same way that two humans may not be affected by a disease in the same way, diseases also affect banana trees differently. This variation is due to small differences between individuals. By creating a clonal population of banana trees, we have eliminated this variation. If a disease kills one of these trees, it will kill all of them. This is what happened to the Gros Michel, and it's why you can't find this type of banana anymore. It was wiped out by a fungus known as Panama Disease in the 1950's.

The banana you know today, the Cavendish banana, replaced the Gros Michael after that period. However, the Cavendish today has the same problem the Gros Michael had 50 years ago - they are all clonal plants. A disease called Black sigatoka is laying siege to the Cavendish, and it may not be long before the entire population is wiped out by this disease.

Don't worry too much about future bananas, though. There are many, many varieties of bananas grown around the world, and banana growers have already developed a banana, the Goldfinger, that is resistant to Black sigatoka. These bananas are also a clonal population, so it doesn't mean that they won't be in danger of being wiped out by another disease. The banana-disease arms race will likely continue on into the future, but until then maybe you (or your children) will come to recognize the Goldfinger as your friendly neighborhood banana.

(Image: Inside a wild-type banana, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 image by Warut Roonguthai)