The Food-Climate-Atrazine Connection Explained

By Tom Philpott. This post originally appeared at grist.org.

In the ongoing debate about whether sustainable agriculture can "feed the world," it's important not to lose sight of what industrial agriculture is doing to ecosystems--both in specific areas and on a grand scale.

Producing and distributing lots and lots of calories, leveraged by fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers and poisons, may solve certain short-term problems; but the practice also creates long-term ones that won't be easily solved.

In June, a study emerged showing that so-called inert ingredients in Roundup, Monsanto's widely used flagship herbicide, can kill human cells even at low levels--"particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells," reports Scientific American. This is an herbicide that's used on virtually all of our nation's corn and soy fields, covering tens of millions of acres of cropland. (It's also widely used by landscapers and on home lawns.)

Then there was the recent atrazine imbroglio. For years, the EPA has been assuring the public that the highly toxic herbicide, still widely used in the Corn Belt, wasn't showing up in drinking water in worrisome levels. Turns out that was a lie, as some excellent muckraking by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund revealed. Atrazine exposure has been strongly associated with reproductive health maladies, including a rise in hermaphroditism among frog populations.

Note that corn and soy production, as practiced today, is completely reliant on these two broad-spectrum herbicides.

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Now comes news about the hazards of another input critical to the project of industrial agricultire: synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. When farmers apply nitrogen to farm fields, a certain amount enters the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. And according to a study conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published in Science, human-generated nitrous oxide is now the No. 1 contributor to ozone-layer depletion.

The study is the first ever to look closely at nitrous oxide's role as an ozone destroyer. The results are alarming. From a summary of the study on the NOAA website:

For the first time, this study has evaluated nitrous oxide emissions from human activities in terms of their potential impact on Earth's ozone layer. As chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been phased out by international agreement, ebb in the atmosphere, nitrous oxide will remain a significant ozone-destroyer, the study found. Today, nitrous oxide emissions from human activities are more than twice as high as the next leading ozone-depleting gas.

The withering away of the ozone layer, which was slowed but not stopped by the 1987 Montreal Protocol phasing out CFCs, is no trivial matter. As the NOAA summary puts it:

The ozone layer serves to shield plants, animals and people from excessive ultraviolet light from the sun. Thinning of the ozone layer allows more ultraviolet light to reach the Earth's surface where it can damage crops and aquatic life and harm human health.Moreover, the Montreal Protocol does not regulate nitrous oxide.

Of course, agriculture-induced nitrous oxide isn't just eating the ozone layer. It's also a greenhouse gas with 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

Thus the implications of agriculture's reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer are literally earth-shaking: The way we're feeding ourselves is contributing dramatically to two processes--climate change and ozone depletion--that could literally make the planet uninhabitable by humans.

Worse still, we my be seriously underestimating industrial agriculture's nitrous oxide emissions. When considering agriculture's contribution of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere, scientists have assumed that about 1 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers ends up in the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. The EPA operates under that assumption, as did the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the real number may be considerably higher. A 2008 study [PDF] by the Nobel-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen found that as much as 5 percent of nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers turns into nitrous oxide--which would make agriculture a much larger contributor to climate change (and ozone depletion) than is currently assumed.

On top of all of that, nitrogen runoff from agriculture is also strongly implicated in the creation of coastal dead zones--large algae blooms that suck oxygen out of the sea and snuff out marine life.

What all of this points to is the need to bring ecological considerations into agriculture. And in fact, there's already a budding field known as agroecology. Agrocecology is now at best a fringe field in academia; as public funding for university research dries up, giant agribusiness firms like Monsanto increasingly finance--and control--the research agenda. They have little interest in ecology and vested interests in pushing their own proprietary products.

 

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Comments

[shelivere]

Let's ban atrazine together! Join Global Citizens Against Atrazine on Facebook.

[axlou812]

Monsanto is one of the most Evil companies in the World! As consumers we have to make the neccessary changes to the way we agriculture is done by buying food and products that come from sustainable practices. That means doing your homework and knowing where your food and products come from. Since Capitalism drives the majority of the worlds economies, our buying choices will drive sustainable practices.

[Chris Fraas]

I agree with Scott Wynn. Someone got offended when I said it before, but industrial farming contributes some like 30% of the green house gases currently working to devastate our planet.
Also, I hope this enlightens people as to the ferocity of chemical companies not caring about the harm they do, only being concerned with the money they make.

[tweedledeedumb]

The two and three hundred year old oaks in my neighborhood are all dying...something is killing them...who's trying to figure that out...no one...EPA is only there to give business a reason not to be sued.

[ScottWynn]

organic vegan diet is the solution to climate change.

[cahosu]

it is one of many solutions...

and we are omnivores not herbivores...

but then again, my meat comes from small farms or in the wild...

Industrial farming, specifically, feedlot raised animals, largely contribute to that 30% of green house gases that affect our planet...
If you feed animals what they are not supposed to eat and subsequently drug them, they will obviously have more 'gas'.... it is the methods we are using. We obviously need to use methods that are a lot less harmful to the climate.

There is a lot more to this issue but I am just briefly explaining something that is not often said....
Because too often, the message ends up being about meat when meat is not the enemy...

And the solution is not to cut our nose off to spite our face...

just sayin'!

[WitsendNJ]

Maybe the HuffPo Investigative Fund could do a better job than I in determining the precise chemical reaction that is creating an atmosphere poisonous to plants. The vegetation on the East Coast is horribly damaged and it has to be something in the atmosphere, because plants in ponds that don't ever have drought have the same symptoms of decline as do saplings and shrubs in nurseries grown in enriched soil.

I suspect ozone from gasoline emissions and even more likely, acetaldehyde from ethanol, both of which are known to be toxic to plants.

We are going to have downed powerlines and wildfires. Trees are the foundation of our ecosystem - without them, it will collapse and we will have mass extinctions of all species dependent upon their shade, nuts, fruits and branches.

I post all the scientific research I can find at witsendnj dot blogspot dot com and welcome any more information.

[CaptainFailmore]

This year has been a very bad year when it comes to mildew and other molds, probably because it's been unusually cool and damp.

Late blight, another fungus, is what devastated this year's tomato crop. Thankfully not here, as the tomatoes in Indiana have been thriving, but the same can't be said for our squash and cucumbers. (Pumpkins are expected to be scarce this year. Looks like I might be carving a turban squash for Halloween, if I can find one.) Some wildflower varieties like Black-Eyed Susan have mildewed badly as well.

More likely than not, the same stuff that's been going around a bit here is worse out east where it's been even wetter this year.

[WitsendNJ]

No NOOOO,

That is not the point! Sure, there are diseases, fungi, insects, and drought. But none of those very specific factors can explain the widespread and sudden demise of EVERY species of vegetation!

We are spewing vast quantities of toxic gasses into the atmosphere, which is quite simply and literally poisoning our trees and other fauna.

We've got to STOP it or die, it's quite simple. Don't argue with Mother Nature!

witsendnj dot blogspot dot com

[WitsendNJ]

Perhaps the HuffPo Investigative Fund can do a better job than I in figuring the precise chemical reaction in the atmosphere that is killing vegetation up and down the East Coast. Trees are dead and dying everywhere, as are saplings and shrubs in nurseries and even pond plants.

It cannot be drought, or pests, or disease, or old age decline because every type of plant of every age is damaged. Therefore it must be emissions in the atmosphere. Recently ethanol addition to gasoline was mandated by the EPA in order to reduce cancer from gasoline emissions that create ozone. Ethanol produces acetaldehyde which, along with ozone, is toxic to plants.

Somebody needs to figure this out before we lose every tree that produces shade, a CO2 sink, nuts, fruit and wood, not to mention makes it impossible to raise crops for food.

Pictures and links to scientific research at witsendnj dot blogspot dot com.

Information welcome!

[nielsdartfam]

Who would’ve thought Sweden would get involved??? https://www.mindreign.com/en/mindshare/Environment/Sweden-to-the-Rescue-3f/sl36962306bp505cpp10pn1.html

[Kaviraj]

Science? Don't make me laugh! They look at 2 isolated fragments to extrapolate global trends. The globe is the whole and CO2 and methane are but 2 small fragments of that whole. It is like looking at two rusty spots on your car and saying the entire car is rotten. That is not science but pure speculation, which is much of what is presented as such.
Global climate change yes, but warming? Nope.
The globe is a gyroscope that wobbles and now the wobble makes some places warmer and others colder. That is a fact. Here in Brazil for instance there is now rain in the winter, which is abnormal. It has a monsoon climate with rain in the summer.
North Canada is getting warmer but the south is colder, because everything has moved north through the wobble. That is the reason the tundras and the pole ice melt. But there will not be rising sealevels because the tundras sink down 10 metres or more and can accomodate all the water from the Greenland ice.
Science needs to stop their bookkeepers excercise and start studying the whole. Gorebots are stupid and ignorant - like Gore himself. His film is banned in the UK schools on the grounds it is inaccurate.

[classicalgeek]

Composting used tea is an excellent way to add nitrogen to the soil. Tea contains 4% nitrogen.

[CaptainFailmore]

A number of plants usually thought of as weeds can be grown and continually plowed under to enrich soil as well. Clover (and its other leguminous relatives) are hardy nitrogen fixers with flowers that provide an important source of forage for insects and birds. (The native insect population is in steep decline in practically all parts of the world, which doesn't bode well at all for us humans. The last I heard, the decline in bees has gotten so bad in the United Kingdom that farmers are being urged to leave out sugar water for them. Unbelievable.) While difficult to control, thistles and amaranth dredge water and nutrients up from the subsoil while adding their own organic material after being plowed down. Sunflowers can do this too, and are a viable oilseed crop.

[CaptainFailmore]

The biggest problem with modern agriculture, contrary to the popular opinion of many Greens out there, isn't mechanization in general but the failure to recognize that in order to survive on its own, a space used for food production must function as an ecosystem. Conventionally grown fields are not functional ecosystems, and fail to perform (or even die out) without the regular application of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other foreign substances which are making our soils and waterways sick. (Apparently our air, too.) Many so-called organic growing methods, whether they're practiced in the field, the garden, or even the greenhouse, use native pollinators, decomposers, and companion plants to facilitate the growing process and improve the soil over the long term. (Instead of gradually degrading it over time, accelerating natural selection to produce hardier weeds and more aggressive plant diseases and pests, and exterminating beneficial wildlife.)

As the result of a great deal of dedicated research, those methods are now quickly catching up to and even (in some cases such as drought-resistance) surpassing contemporary growing methods that are starting to show their age. Not only that, but by turning food production space into a habitat for beneficial wildlife, we help to maintain essential parts of the natural ecosystem, without which surviving would be very difficult even with contemporary agriculture technology.

[SworldPeas]

So basically I live in a round up fog... All my neighbors use it, the vintners next door uses it, every road and highway gets a healthy dose of it on both shoulders and down the meridian. They spray it in and around parks and schools and public buildings and sidewalks and parking lots, it's everywhere.

I live on a dirt road. The neighbors spray along along their fence line. Sometimes they mix it up too strong and the plants turn black and die and the soil is blackened I actually thought they were burning it.

[Kaviraj]

Population is not the problem and those estimates are simply lies. The population is declining. The root of the problem is not the amount of people, but what the people do to the planet. Ozone destruction is real, but the article bypasses the prodction of ozone, which has been reduced to 15% of its former amount.
Eucalypt in Australia releases oil through the leaves and this reacts with air to become O3 - Ozone. Since 85 % of the eucalypt forests have been cut, the production is insufficient. The writer of the article seems ignorant about those facts. Once the Aussies go back to planting Eucalypt, the destrcution matters a lot less and people do have to eat.
That said, Organic farming is not fossil fuel dependent and animal manure is the best fertiliser because it gives the fungi attacking crops for which we need fossil fuel fingicides something to do that comes naturally - decomposition. All this talk about which gas does what to the atmosphere is fragmentation and as far from scientific as possible. Science is in need of studying whole systems but ill-equipped to do so. Hence it ceases to be science and becomes a form of bookkeeping - enumerate and classify.
So long as that is the case, we shall never tackle climate change, which is a systemic problem.

[ezeflyer]

"Population is not the problem and those estimates are simply lies. The population is declining. The root of the problem is not the amount of people, but what the people do to the planet."

Why can't you say both are the problem? Is it against your religion?

[Kaviraj]

Nothing to do with religion, but simple UN statistics.
Also, it is a question of how we divide the available food. Now we see 16kg is given to livestock to produce 1 kg of meat - antisocial and wasteful. Just like biodiesel, which drives up prices for staple foods in the 3rd world. There is enough food on the planet to feed 16 billion. Overproduction is dumped in the sea to keep the prices artificially high. But why et these facts bother you if you think you can play the stupid religion card?

[Thermodynamics]

This article resonates in so many ways.

Really close to the bay, I just walked past a lawn sprayed with pesticides­/herbicide­s by one of those services that leaves little caution flags on the lawn.

I personally am not fond of soy agriculture. Like many people, I can't digest the stuff. Most of it is used to produce feedlot meat and soy oil, both of which have environmental issues and are not good things to consume in quantity.

And then there is corn, which goes to feedlots, or worse, to ethanol plants -- environmental damage resulting from subsidized auto fuel.

[JXJASON]

Interesting article about nitrous oxide having 300 times the heat trapping power of carbon dioxide.

This shows just how little everyone knows about what is true or untrue about global warming and climate change.

I have tomatoes, cucumbers, green squash, butternut squash, green onions, yellow onions, garlic and 63 different types of flowers in my small garden. I do not use any weed killers, bug killers or fertilizers.

I make compost and have lots of earthworms. I appreciate this article. Thank you.

I forgot to tell you that I have very little grass and I pull weeds by hand.

[Mauiboy]

Mother Earth thanks you!

[MadHeart]

Why don't we get down to the root of WHY we are having to produce so much food and so cheaply, leaving much of it to agribusiness whose only concern is profit? The earth's population is now around 6.4 Billion and estimated to be 9 Billion by 2050 based on current trends. Until we get a grip on real population control, the future is going to be very bleak for large segments of humanity. When lack of education, a surfeit of wealth, or simple irrationality lead people to reproduce more than their replacements, at the least, I can imagine strictures in many countries not unlike China's one child policy. It's a dilemma whose solution will not come easily.

[joebaggadonuts]

The present is already very bleak for large segments of humanity. It's just that because the developed world only partly addresses the problems confronting the rest of humanity that the developed world finds itself so challenged with this set of issues today.

Obama's vision of an anti-tribal approach to solutions is a mere first step in finding a way forward. We ARE all in this together.

I believe that the One Child policy was only practiced against those who were not well connected or not of substantial power and means.

As you say, solution will not come easily.