RACE TO SAVE THE PLANET SHOW 107

Summary

The episode explores the challenges and innovations in modern farming as it impacts the environment. While modern farming techniques have significantly increased yields, they are also contributing to environmental harm, such as topsoil erosion and pesticide contamination. Through examples from around the world, the show highlights alternative methods like integrated pest management, crop rotation, and organic farming. Farmers are learning to work with nature to maintain yields sustainably, avoiding the pitfalls of intensive chemical use and embracing biodiversity and traditional wisdom.

Highlights

• Modern farming has tripled yields but is leading to soil and water issues 🌾
• Global examples show farmers shifting towards sustainable practices 🌱
• Indonesia's Green Revolution faced setbacks that new methods are addressing 🚜
• Innovative methods include crop rotation, integrated pest management 🐛
• Organic farming is resurging, showing yields can match traditional methods 🌿

Key Takeaways

• Modern farming techniques increase yields but pose environmental challenges 🌾
• Innovative farming methods are being explored globally to work with nature 🌍
• Overreliance on chemicals has led to issues like soil erosion and pest resistance ⚠️
• There's a resurgence of interest in organic farming and traditional methods 🌱
• Biotechnology offers promising solutions but isn't a standalone fix 🧬

Overview

In this episode of 'Race to Save the Planet,' the focus is on modern farming and its environmental impacts. With yields significantly increased through intensive methods, the Earth is starting to show signs of wear, prompting farmers worldwide to explore new, more sustainable practices. This episode takes us on a journey from rice paddies in Indonesia to ranches in Australia, exploring how traditional alternatives are being blended with new techniques to safeguard the planet.

The episode provides a rich tapestry of global farming practices, showing both the pitfalls of chemical-intensive agriculture and the promise of more natural methods. Integrated pest management and crop rotation are featured prominently, illustrating their role in reducing reliance on toxic pesticides while maintaining crop yields. The show highlights how these strategies are essential for long-term sustainability in agriculture.

As we travel across continents, we see diverse solutions being implemented, including the age-old wisdom of organic farming taking root once again. The narrative ties in the role of biotechnology, showcasing its potential while reminding viewers of the necessity for a holistic approach. The key message resonates with the pressing need for a shift towards environmentally friendly farming methods that balance productivity with ecological health.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:02: Introduction to Modern Farming Challenges The chapter titled 'Introduction to Modern Farming Challenges' seems to begin with some music but no actual content of the lecture or discussion has been presented in the transcript provided. Therefore, no further summary of the content can be generated based on the given information.
• 00:03 - 00:05: Intensive Farming and Environmental Impact The chapter discusses the concept of modern intensive farming and its significant impact on the environment. It begins by acknowledging how such farming methods have successfully met global food demands but highlights the subsequent strain on ecological systems, evidenced by deteriorating soil health and biodiversity loss. The narrative transitions to exploring sustainable farming practices. These are presented as viable alternatives that can combat insects without the use of harmful chemicals and preserve soil fertility. The chapter concludes by showcasing global farming initiatives that align with natural processes, illustrating how these efforts strive to protect the planet while still feeding its population.
• 00:06 - 00:09: Pesticide Use and Health Concerns This chapter discusses the topic of pesticide use and its associated health concerns. It highlights the funding for environmental preservation and protection efforts, such as those by the Annenberg CPB project and public television viewers, as well as corporate funding from companies like Ocean Spray. These contributions aim to safeguard natural resources that humanity depends on and cannot recreate. Additional support comes from foundations committed to these causes, reflecting a collective commitment to environmental conservation and addressing health issues related to pesticides.
• 00:15 - 00:17: Traditional Farming and Crop Rotation The chapter provides an introduction supported by various organizations, setting the stage for a discussion on traditional farming and crop rotation. However, the actual content of the chapter related to the topic is not provided in the transcript.
• 00:19 - 00:21: The Green Revolution and Its Challenges The chapter discusses the impact of farming on the environment, focusing on the Green Revolution. It begins by acknowledging that farming has always been a way humans have influenced nature, rather than a natural process itself. The narrative sets up a context for exploring the advances brought about by the Green Revolution and subsequently delves into the challenges it poses in terms of sustainability and ecological impact.
• 00:23 - 00:24: Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Successes The chapter discusses the shift in farming practices towards Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by learning from nature's diversity. In the past, farmers recognized that mimicking natural ecosystems by growing a variety of crops made their work easier and more sustainable. However, recent trends in farming have deviated from this practice, leading to environmental challenges. The chapter highlights how farmers globally are now seeking innovative ways to address these issues by aligning more closely with natural processes.
• 00:27 - 00:31: Australia's Soil Degradation and Ranching Solutions The chapter begins with an overview of modern intensive farming practices in Australia, highlighting the use of large fields dedicated to single crops. It discusses the reliance on artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides to combat insects and weeds.
• 00:33 - 00:36: Global Soil Erosion and Conservation Efforts The chapter 'Global Soil Erosion and Conservation Efforts' discusses the massive increase in agricultural yields due to modern farming techniques, such as large-scale irrigation. Since 1950, crop yields have nearly tripled, keeping pace with a world population that also doubled in size. Despite significant surpluses in Europe and America, as well as some poorer countries, the text raises the question of whether farmers will be able to meet the demands of another doubling in world population over the next 50 years.
• 00:42 - 00:46: Organic Farming Practices The chapter discusses the environmental challenges posed by traditional farming practices, including soil erosion and diminished effectiveness of agricultural chemicals. It highlights the negative impact of chemical use on the environment and suggests a need to reduce their usage. Furthermore, it introduces farmers who are adopting new environmentally-friendly farming methods.
• 00:52 - 00:54: Biotechnology in Agriculture The chapter focuses on the role of biotechnology in agriculture, emphasizing sustainable practices to enhance soil fertility and pest control without relying on chemicals. It discusses innovative strategies being adopted globally across continents like Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. These simple yet effective solutions are highlighted as essential in the global effort to increase food production while preserving environmental health.
• 00:55 - 00:56: Conclusion: Working with Nature The chapter titled 'Conclusion: Working with Nature' focuses on the agricultural productivity of California's Central Valley, highlighting it as a pivotal region where a quarter of America's fruits and vegetables are cultivated. The narrative underscores the reliance on modern intensive farming techniques, which demand significant labor input. It also touches upon the growing awareness among farm workers of the various hazards associated with this agricultural work.

RACE TO SAVE THE PLANET SHOW 107 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 now on Race to save the planet the miracle of modern farming it feeds the world but the Earth is cracking under the strain it was fertile virgin land that had everything in it that nature could produce there are alternatives new ways to fight insects without poisoning nature or ourselves new ways to preserve and fertilize the soil around the world farmers are discovering how to work with nature how to SA save the Earth Feed the
• 01:00 - 01:30 [Music] World major funding for race to save the planet is provided by the anenberg cpb project and public television viewers corporate funding is provided by oceans spray our continuing aim is to preserve and protect what we cannot [Music] create additional funding is provided by Jesse Smith noise found Foundation
• 01:30 - 02:00 Corporation for Public Broadcasting the John D and Katherine T MacArthur Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York and by the following [Music] [Applause]
• 02:00 - 02:30 [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] this episode of Race To Save the planet is about one of the oldest ways that mankind has manipulated the environment Farming Farming has never really been natural nature like Mak a great
• 02:30 - 03:00 diversity of plants and animals while farming artificially encourages just a few long ago Farmers discovered that the closer They Came To Nature if their fields grew a wide variety of crops for example the easier their job recently though farming has been changing moving away from nature and running into environmental disaster now to solve their problems Farmers all over the world are coming up with new ideas on working with nature
• 03:00 - 03:30 [Music] [Music] [Applause] modern intensive farming huge fields of single crops artificial fertilizers chemicals to fight insects and weeds
• 03:30 - 04:00 large scale irrigation crops anytime any place modern farming has produced a bonanza nearly tripling yields since 1950 and staying well ahead of a world population that doubled at the same time the Surplus is greatest in Europe and America and some poorer countries have surpluses too but in 50 years world population will double again can Farmers keep on working these wonders
• 04:00 - 04:30 that could be tough the environment is showing signs of wear top soil is eroding away agricultural chemicals are beginning to lose their magic in many places adding more pesticides for example no longer kills more insects at the same time those chemicals are contaminating the environment we should be reducing not increasing their use but there are some farmers who are working in New environmentally
• 04:30 - 05:00 beneficial ways keeping their land fertile without the use of chemicals for example the new ideas make sense all over the world in Africa in Asia Europe and America preserving the soil and helping in the age-old battle against pests these new strategies some of them amazingly simple will play an increasing part in the struggle to feed the world without destroying the
• 05:00 - 05:30 [Music] environment California's Central Valley fully one quar of America's fruit and vegetables is grown here using modern intensive methods these crops take a lot of labor while this pruning crew needs the work like Farm Workers around the world they are also becoming aware of the hazards
• 05:30 - 06:00 this is a typical example an aled orchard is to receive a winter spray with an Organo phosphate a highly toxic pesticide which needs careful handling the aim is to kill insects during their dormant phase one of several Springs the orchard may get in a year the problem is that the sprays affect more than just insects [Applause]
• 06:00 - 06:30 Luis Hernandez lives in the Central Valley Town of McFarland he used to be a pesticide sprayer until his six-year-old son haime developed cancer 5 months ago it was discovered haime had a rare cancer of the lymph system he had emergency surgery and now comes to the hospital twice a month for [Music] chemotherapy feeling better the problem with Cancers like this is that their
• 06:30 - 07:00 exact cause is still a mystery Medical Science can only treat them and hope for the best ha's pediatrician is nashad Al I think his chances are are pretty good although the prognosis is guarded in these cases but he's doing fairly well for his condition for haim's father the horrible suspicion is that somehow his work with agricultural chemicals caused his son's cancer
• 07:00 - 07:30 for me to see him like this is very hard my hope is that he will be cured that is my hope so I have to keep going for my son haime is not alone in his Misfortune Marta selinus lives in another McFarland neighborhood in this corner house the White House this is Teresa buella a little girl our first cancer diagnosis she was about a year and a half when she
• 07:30 - 08:00 was diagnosed with cancer and she died and right behind her house is the yellow house where Juanito Rodriguez lived and he died of cancer and then right in the corner is the braavos Mario Bravo he died of cancer and then house next to them we have a little girl that has a birth defects the next house the green house has skin rashes and where this trailer house is that's Randy Rosales he's one
• 08:00 - 08:30 of the young teenagers that was diagnosed with cancer he is in remission the yellow house and the blue house have skin rashes in the last 12 years at least 13 McFarland children have developed cancer three times the expected number while most of the fathers work in the fields where chemicals including suspected carcinogens are used that's only a circumstantial link because cancers have many causes
• 08:30 - 09:00 year after year the fields of the Central Valley like so many around the world are saturated with toxic chemicals after their brief useful life on crops many chemicals take on a second life they become unwanted persistent contaminants this well was closed when dbcp a carcinogenic pesticide baned in the 70s showed up there are 2,000 contaminated Wells like this in the
• 09:00 - 09:30 valley tests commonly reveal nitrates probably from fertilizers in the wells here too it was once thought that agricultural chemicals would break down in the soil but now it's clear many don't McFarland found pesticides 1,400 ft deep they've had to install this expensive plant to remove nitrates but processing for pesticides cost too much right now half their wealth are
• 09:30 - 10:00 closed whether the others are truly safe is a question McFarland residents have to live [Music] with and people like Luis Hernandez also have to live with another possibility every year in California about a thousand workers get medical treatment for exposure to farm chemicals are they poisoning their families too if what made my son sick isn't in the water it's something that I could have brought home since I work with
• 10:00 - 10:30 besti size CU it's not normal for so many kids to get sick like this I see last walk okay here's his time to have a nice life hope you make it guy a he will this red tailed hawk was near death a few days ago a case of pesticide poisoning go now it's going back home but not exactly to the wild because Hawks like
• 10:30 - 11:00 to spend the winter in the central Valley's almond Orchards which are filled with the small birds and rodents they pre on but there are some forms of life here which The Growers cannot tolerate insect eggs which in the spring will become active pests hence the winter spring the Organo phosphate used is a nerve poison and everything in the orchard gets a dose undesirable insects and desirable
• 11:00 - 11:30 Wildlife Hawks are especially vulnerable they've been dying or ending up in emergency Wildlife centers like this one in the hands of biologists like Donna Bert there's no lesions or anything inside its mouth um no evidence of collision injury in the head no you know bruises or anything like that covering the bird's eyes reduces stress during
• 11:30 - 12:00 its examination Donna has now seen dozens of hwks with pesticide poisoning and within a few minutes she's fairly certain that this is yet another 96° that's uh about 10° low so she's got a slow heart rate slow breathing no broken bones or damage of any sort she's a pretty fat bird bir she's been eating a lot
• 12:00 - 12:30 recently um this is beginning to look a lot more like a pesticide confirmation she's right will need a blood test but the bird may die if they wait for the results so the antidote is given immediately I'm going to give the bird some atropine atropine is a specific antidote for Organo phosphate poisoning and it should immediately raise the heart rate it actually removes the
• 12:30 - 13:00 poison chemically removes the poison from the bird system the blood test confirmed the diagnosis and a week later the hawk was doing better but for every Hawk that receives this life-saving treatment there are hundreds more out in the Orchards living with smaller doses of poison in their systems that's according to state wildlife researchers who have been trapping in testing birds that appear healthy
• 13:00 - 13:30 the blood test taken by the department of fishing game on the Hawks around the Almond Orchards showed that between 50 and 100% of those Hawks had the effects of the poisoning um and we don't know what effects that may have on their long-term survival or on their reproductive success like McFarland agricultural communities around the world are left with the same uncertainty there's no doubt that
• 13:30 - 14:00 workers and Wildlife alike are being exposed to toxic chemicals modern agriculture presents a disturbing contradiction Luis Hernandez agriculture has to continue because it is from that that we all leave but at the same time if what is being used in agriculture is harming People's Health I definitely think there is a serious conflict there is modern food safe the government estimates 6,000 Americans a year get
• 14:00 - 14:30 cancer from pesticide residues others say that's much too low there's no doubt that consumers are worried well I don't want to poison myself or my kids or my family or anything I would like to buy things that are free from pesticides well I feel that we don't know the long-term effects chemicals that are being used we're really at the mercy of The Growers and the farmers of how honest they are and what how they grow their food and is it really safe
• 14:30 - 15:00 agriculture used to be different it used to fit more easily into the natural [Music] world and that's plainly Illustrated at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts where historians have reconstructed a typical farm from the early 1800s although it looks like a movie set it's a real working farm designed to show visitors how farmers in in the past used Ingenuity to accomplish what
• 15:00 - 15:30 chemicals and big machines do today how stronger do they get well that's a good question for a farmer in the 1830s what's important is how much plowing they can do Andrew Baker is an expert on the techniques used in the past to maintain soil fertility and control pests manure so we've never really tested them for Ping they depend on one important idea the key feature is diversification that a typical Farm in the 1830s is very
• 15:30 - 16:00 Diversified it has uh a variety of livestock it grows a variety of crops this year on one plot they grew hay grasses for cattle feed while on the next plot they grew corn now harvested in the spring potatoes will be planted here then oats and then hay grasses again this rotation system has many benefits insects and weeds which thrive in one crop die out in a different crop
• 16:00 - 16:30 that's natural pest control and some plants in the rotation put nitrogen into the soil that's natural fertilizer big big big big big some rotation crops also feed farm animals they eat grasses and root crops not consumed by humans in turn they produce manure rich in essential plant nutrients
• 16:30 - 17:00 so 100 years ago the farmer kept going and made money with natural methods if he was careful in his management of land and his manures he would be able to keep the soil in good enough tilt to continue on providing that level of uh sustenance that he needed that level of production both for himself and for Market but this effective system invented in Europe in the 18th century didn't last long in the 19th century
• 17:00 - 17:30 human population doubled to about 2 billion 50 years later it had doubled again to feed everyone Farmers had to get more food from every acre of land that meant abandoning the old systems and stimulating production artificially with chemical fertilizers and synthetic [Music] pesticides at first it was a stunning success but there were problems
• 17:30 - 18:00 looming this crop is rice it feeds half the world and here in Indonesia it's provided one of the world's best known examples of how modern intensive farming can fail Indonesia was self-sufficient in rice for many centuries but by 1960 the population explosion had forced it to become the world's number one rice in quarter
• 18:00 - 18:30 the government decided they had to increase production of their staple food at all costs so a series of steps was begun which was to sweep away traditional techniques the first step was designed to produce multiple crops of rice in a year that meant irrigation dams were built to allow year- round flooding of many new areas to additionally a farmer would alternate different dry and rainy season
• 18:30 - 19:00 crops which disrupted pests just like the Sturbridge style rotation now that protection was gone although the traditional rice varieties grown still had some natural resistance to pests but a development at the international rice Research Institute in the Philippines was to change that here scientists had bred a new rice variety which would grow year round and it was strong enough to carry an extra
• 19:00 - 19:30 heavy yield of grain so it could take advantage of artificial fertilizers ir8 was the result and it looked like a major breakthrough Chief plant breeder gev Kush have we found out that it was giving about three times the yield of the traditional varieties we we immediately thought that we have something which was the answer to the food problems of the of the world but ir8 had problems and not only needed expensive fertilizer but also pesticides
• 19:30 - 20:00 it was more vulnerable to Insects than traditional varieties still the scientists thought the tradeoff was worth it we knew that ir8 was susceptible but we were really excited about that at that time about the Y so we we really pushed it on to the farmers field ir8 was adopted throughout Asia and yields nearly doubled there were similar developments with wheat and this combination of high yield crops with irrigation fertilizers
• 20:00 - 20:30 and pesticides came to be known as the Green Revolution it was a dramatic success within a few years many countries Indonesia included were producing surpluses our populous world could feed itself with ease but within a few years that Victory had turned sour as the rice fields turned brown in Indonesia huge areas of dead rice plants had to be cut and
• 20:30 - 21:00 burned the crops had been devastated by insect infestation on a scale unprecedented in the country's farming history the disaster had happened because the fields had lost the stability which traditional methods provided first by eliminating rotation and planting rice all year Farmers had provided an ideal breeding ground for insects particularly the brown plant
• 21:00 - 21:30 Hopper with year- round Food Supplies Hopper numbers exploded and not only were there more Hoppers around but the new rice varieties were less able to resist their attack the result Hopper burn as it's called fields of desiccated rice plants sucked dry by armies of hoppers [Music]
• 21:30 - 22:00 the new techniques themselves had created the problem I in Oka an Indonesian government plant pest expert recalls the mounting sense of alarm at the time in 74 75 76 we had the greatest Bron P hoer disasters hundreds of hundreds of thousands of hectars of rice fields were Hopper burned so no single green Yi could be harvested during that
• 22:00 - 22:30 time the understandable response of farmers had been to step up sprain but when they did so things only seemed to get worse quite soon it was clear to the scientists what was going on in nature everything has its enemy spiders for example like to eat plant Hoppers but spraying kills both Hoppers and spiders Peter Kenmore of the UN food and
• 22:30 - 23:00 agricultural organization was working in Indonesia at the time and recognized the problem the natural biological control in those rice fields was destroyed and the pests were allowed to reproduce without restriction and this is called Resurgence you spray and the pest populations flare back soon farmers were spraying constantly the spray was carried out not based on numbers of brown PL Hopper they
• 23:00 - 23:30 just spray according to calendar schedule for for example once a week at least no if there is still Brown around they appli more frequent spraying two three times a week sometimes it's twice a day in the morning and the afternoon too much the crisis reached such proportions that in 1986 president suaro himself prohibited the use of 57 pesticides on rice only nine were permitted and they had to
• 23:30 - 24:00 be used in a new more naturally based system called integrated Pest Management or IPM the Green Revolution had to be salvaged an army of government teachers began introducing IPM to millions of farmers across the country the message don't depend on chemicals to destroy the hopper use natural methods instead and the first step go back to
• 24:00 - 24:30 crop rotation to disrupt the hopper reproduction Indonesia once again started growing crops other than rice for onethird of the year a television spot from the Philippines shows the next step protect good insects [Music] [Applause]
• 24:30 - 25:00 [Music] the idea of IPM is to work with nature and that means Farmers have to get to know their fields they have to recognize beneficial insects keep track of Hoppers and only limited amounts of specialized
• 25:00 - 25:30 chemicals IPM is not easy only 5% of Indonesia's Farmers have been trained to use it so far but their pesticide use has dropped by 75% and their yields are going back up these methods are more than just a new formula for growing rice they're finding application in many different types of Agriculture around the world and they combine modern knowledge with traditional wisdom where
• 25:30 - 26:00 the resources of the land like beneficial insects are recognized and encouraged Peter Kenmore sees two benefits One Financial the other less obvious insecticides can represent anywhere from 5 to 20% of the cash costs of rice production depending on where you are in Asia and using IPM cuts that down by at least 50% and often by 90% we thought that was the most important
• 26:00 - 26:30 thing when we first started training Farmers about seven years ago we were wrong what we found out was that farmers were much more motivated and much more excited about new knowledge about understanding what was happening in their rice fields about understanding natural control of pests so that they had a peaceful feeling about that Rice Field they weren't afraid there is perhaps no land more devastated than this by lack of understanding it was once the Lush Prime rang land of Northeast
• 26:30 - 27:00 [Music] Australia Brian Roberts a leading Soil Conservation expert is painfully aware of his country's dubious distinction we do hold the world record in terms of the amount of land that has been damaged by such a small population over such a short time we have damaged something like 11 acres per person as opposed to the American figure which is
• 27:00 - 27:30 about 3.5 acres in the search for higher yields and higher profits the world's Farmers have been taking more and more from the land and putting less and less back nowhere is that better Illustrated than here many ranches are so vast several hundred, Acres each that helicopters are used at Roundup Time Charlie Hayward raises thousands of cattle a year for Australian and
• 27:30 - 28:00 American markets when he bought this Ranch 10 years ago he thought much the same way as the first settlers did about this Rich seemingly inexhaustible [Music] land the basis of the early settlers was cheap land the most important thing was to occupy it and then of course there was no management it was fertile virgin land that had everything in it that n could [Music]
• 28:00 - 28:30 produce there's an old saying here if it moves shoot it if it doesn't chop it down that's certainly what the European settlers did 100 years ago in these parts they tore down the trees to plant imported grasses for cattle grasses that grow faster than the native varieties the problem is there are droughts in these parts too every few years large patches of grass native or introduced
• 28:30 - 29:00 burn out and whether the range can recover or not critically depends on how much stress the cattle then put on it in recent years ranchers in the area have seen that with each new drought less and less land comes back most ranchers attributed their grass problem to bad luck with the
• 29:00 - 29:30 weather but Charlie Hayward suspected their management was at fault so for a Rancher he made an eccentric move already established he took a correspondence course in soil conservation and then invited the instructor Brian Roberts to see the situation firsthand now are these bear patches moving back do you find that these tfts of good grass are in fact weakening and moving back is is this humus disappearing what do you reckon it well
• 29:30 - 30:00 it is in some places the bad news for Charlie was that the biggest problem on the ranch was simply too many cattle and that was made worse by the introduced grasses which can't recover as easily from drought the process was simple the grass was eaten so fast that it couldn't recede itself when the rains came there was nothing to hold the precious top soil in place a single inch of soil soil takes 500 years to form the ranchers were
• 30:00 - 30:30 dumping their land into the ocean at an impossible rate now Brian Roberts is offering advice on what to do next so we've got to do something to prevent firstly prevent the water getting in at at a velocity it's even washing your fences away that's right yeah look at this about a third of the Region's grassland has been badly damaged the best advice Brian Roberts has to offer is that the ranchers should
• 30:30 - 31:00 cut back their herds in the past most people have tried to maximize their animal numbers but it's quite clear that if they reduce their numbers by about 1/3 they get better fed animals higher carving percentages and do much better in the droughts the Australian ranchers in their search for high yields came up against environmental limits just like the limits which Indonesian rice Farmers encountered yet how simple it can be to avoid
• 31:00 - 31:30 disaster here it's a matter of reducing the animals and rotating them onto different sections of range and Brian Roberts is suggesting another [Music] step he's encouraging receding in the most damaged areas but this time with the original native grasses they work better here in the same way a rice Patty works better with its natural beneficial insects now for Charlie Hayward this is the way
• 31:30 - 32:00 the land must be treated it's not going to be any pleasure for me to see this devastating thing happening and not doing a thing about it and if we don't all get together and sort of attack the thing both departmentally governmentally taxation wise and Technology wise if we don't do something about it we are committ a
• 32:00 - 32:30 sin it's a mighty hard r that our poor hand is p in the 1930s it was America that was committing the sin 40 million Acres of the Great Plains turned to Desert the Dust Bowl as in Australia drought combined with abusive farming practices were to blame during the first world war Farmers had expanded production onto steeper slopes and skipped rotation crops leaving Fields
• 32:30 - 33:00 open and vulnerable to the devil of soil erosion as the government films put [Music] it I've been getting away with it for centuries who's going to stop me we will what you've stolen we're putting back with soil building crops terracing strip cropping Contour farming no no and we're already ready need a
• 33:00 - 33:30 help that was a close shape thanks treat the land better farmers were urged stop water erosion by plowing along the slope and not up and down plan and strips so no large areas of soil lie exposed to the wind go back to crop rotation plant crops that help soil fertility and within a decade the land was back in condition but good stewardship didn't last in
• 33:30 - 34:00 recent decades as world food demand has grown many farmers have dropped soil conservation practices the result erosion is once again common on American [Music] Farms but why aren't Farmers worried about losing their top soil the answer is simple they can make up for loss fertility by adding more artificial fertilizer at least for the short term all over the world farmers are doing the
• 34:00 - 34:30 same but nobody knows how long you can continue from the world watch Institute in Washington Lester Brown we're now losing about 24 billion tons of top soil each year in excess of the rate of new soil formation the world's Farmers must therefore now try to feed nearly 90 million more people each year but with 24 billion fewer tons of top soil than they had the year before one does not have to have a degree in Agronomy to know that we that these two Trends population and the loss of top soil
• 34:30 - 35:00 cannot both continue indefinitely we are now approaching a time of [Music] Reckoning this is the Sahel region of Africa just below the Sahara Desert here Lester Brown's time of Reckoning is Right Now population is going up and soil fertility is going down in the last 20 years food production per person has dropped by 1/5 the land is
• 35:00 - 35:30 [Music] overstressed in traditional farming here a field was prepared by burning vegetation after that it was planted for a few years and then left to recover for at least 10 years but now farmers are using the same land year after year fertilizers would help but they cost money and they need water to make them work both are
• 35:30 - 36:00 scarce at the same time trees are disappearing both from increasing numbers of animals and increasing demand for fuel as pressures on trees increase many people turn to animal dung and leftovers from crops to burn in their cooking stoves resources that would better be used to fertilize the soil the result is the sahel's OWN Dust Bowl the soil is losing its fertility
• 36:00 - 36:30 and it's blowing away just like in America in the 30s or Indonesia more recently the land has been pushed too far and like Australia the process has been aggravated by drought but that doesn't mean that the situation here is hopeless this is one of the most effective things to do in a valley in ner the international Aid
• 36:30 - 37:00 agency care helped set up a program to plant Avenues of trees over 400 m of them the trees hold in moisture and protect the crops and soil from the wind sorghum and Millet are the Staples crops adapted to dry conditions their yields are now up about 20% Windbreak trees were also adopted after American is dust bow although many have since been
• 37:00 - 37:30 removed the green revolution's new crops need fertilizer which needs water to work so it bypassed Africa's Dryland Farmers but less dramatic projects like this can still make a big difference we benefited a lot from the trees that we planted on our farms and our lives improved a lot crop heels are much better now than in the days of the terrible dust storm the Windbreak trees provide another
• 37:30 - 38:00 benefit firewood as long as they're not overh harvested they'll relieve pressure on trees throughout the valley the environment here may get a chance to recover all over the neighboring country of Burkina Faso there's another simple but effective project underway it's also aimed at conservation of resources but this time of precious
• 38:00 - 38:30 rainwater low Rock dams are being arranged to catch the water but in this flat landscape that requires a sensitive surveying device to detect the subtle gradients this level uses a tube of water running between two measuring posts to align the dams when the brief rainy season comes the low dams will catch the water before it can run
• 38:30 - 39:00 off then it can soak into the soon to be planted Fields the surveying level introduced by Oxfam was picked up by a regional conservation group dedicated to helping the sahel's farmers who are mostly very poor it's led by Bernard Udo you cannot teach people things in a day but by bit they are learning the proof is already there people are really
• 39:00 - 39:30 catching on one of the group's largest projects started with the manufacturer of wire mesh then mesh containers were filled with rocks to construct this huge Dam once again rainwater collects here and soaks into the ground enough even to replenish local Wells the wells last through the dry season so
• 39:30 - 40:00 that means vegetable gardens can now be grown all [Music] year here the group offers training on how to conserve another resource they're making compost from animal manure and crop residues it provides fertilizer and preserves soil Condition it's easy to assume that these simple measures planting trees conserving soil oil and water being taken in the sahill are only
• 40:00 - 40:30 needed by the poor farmers of the world but America's lost soil Australia's devastated rangeland and Indonesia's rice disaster show that no farmer can afford to ignore how the earth [Music] works at the same time many poor countries have very high birth rates if they're going to feed themselves they recognize that that must change Bernard Udo
• 40:30 - 41:00 we are fighting on two fronts first we are trying to regulate the birth rate if there are many children the little food we produce is not enough the second front we are trying to produce our traditional crops and we are trying to produce these well if the Harvest is good and there are few mouths to feed everyone will be well-nourished
• 41:00 - 41:30 there will come a day when we will eat well eat without hunger over half the food produced in developing countries is grown by smallscale farmers in their search for higher yields they run up against environmental limits as resoundingly as the large scale farmers of America or Australia limits which no farmer can afford to
• 41:30 - 42:00 [Music] ignore the plains of North Dakota some of the world's richest Farmland Fred kersman Farms 3,000 acres here but he Farms it in a way that acknowledges that the Earth has limits that natural processes must be understood that the res sources of the land should not be squandered he's called an organic farmer
• 42:00 - 42:30 what we're trying to do is to uh to take a piece of ground and develop sustainable systems that will continue to sustain that soil in Perpetual uh cultivation Fred went organic 14 years ago soon after he took the farm over from his father it's an Old Farm family and they were both uneasy about the symptoms displayed on their modern chemical-based farm but they're not hard the Aggregates of
• 42:30 - 43:00 the soil were no longer as crumbly uh the soil was finer become more compacted uh which meant it was absorbing less moisture uh so we were needing more moisture to produce the same same level of crops uh we were no longer getting the response that we've been getting from conventional fertilizers we had to add more fertilizer to get the same yield levels uh weeds were becoming more of a problem rather than less despite the herbicides and so those were all indicators that uh that something was wrong with that system this is still a modern mechanized
• 43:00 - 43:30 Farm but its key feature is diversity it's gone back to the old idea that crop rotation helps maintain the soil and control insects and weeds they used to grow just wheat and barley here now this year this Fields growing Ry last year it was wheat before that it was Clover a soil building crop and before that sunflowers in all they grow eight different crops in three separate
• 43:30 - 44:00 [Music] rotations cows are important on the farm when Fred's father could get his fertilizer out of a bag he stopped using calor on the land it actually became a waste problem now once again the cows provide organic fertilizer because it's bulky it makes the soil more spongy helping retain moisture and it doesn't wash out of the soil quickly which is how chemical fertilizer
• 44:00 - 44:30 ends up polluting groundwater Fred also grows what's called Green manure hidden in this buckweed field is a second crop Clover a special plant that absorbs nitrogen an essential plant nutrient out of the air so once the buckwheat's harvested he just cuts and leaves the Clover and he's fertilized the field it's a modern variation on a trick well known to Farmers of the last
• 44:30 - 45:00 century overall Fred can keep his soil in top condition this field uh has had Sweet Clover on it which has been cut with this tool and and all of the residue has been left on the surface and we have now spread composted livestock manure with those two inputs we are able to raise four crops from this field without any kind of fertilizers added to it organic farms are are cheaper to run than chemical ones because chemicals are
• 45:00 - 45:30 expensive so why don't all Farmers go organic because of the risk expert knowledge is needed Fred spent several years figuring out the crop rotations that work on his land Farmers also won't switch because government subsidies encourage maximum acreage of just a few crops Fred kersman explains around here that means a lot of farmers will have most of their acreage base into uh wheat and barley uh 90% of their acres in many instances
• 45:30 - 46:00 that means they don't have any Acres left to put into a crop rotation and without a crop rotation the system won't work and in order to get into a crop rotation they got to give up part of their crop base which means part of their government payment so they take a an economic kick in the teeth right to start with the most surprising thing is that organic methods produce as much food over time as chemical that's because organic yields a steady output year to year whereas chemical is more erratic high in a good year than low when bad weather comes or
• 46:00 - 46:30 insect strike increase Patrick Madden on the left is visiting an organic Orange Grove in California these are valencias we're picking in here now all types of farmers are now recognizing that organic really works there's even a new US agriculture Department program on low input methods mad is its director many people view low input AG ulture as low output Agriculture and that is they feel that if we reduce our
• 46:30 - 47:00 dependence or our use of various agricultural chemicals that that our yields are going to drop and people are going to be starving left and right and so forth and uh I I see so many examples uh that prove that that's that need not be the case I've seen Farms that are that have yields at or above uh the county average uh without dependence upon these substances it can be done it can be done and increasingly consumers want it
• 47:00 - 47:30 done produce guaranteed free from chemicals brings premium prices in the supermarket a fact not lost on Growers yeah what was hello this is Dean Walsh from Pure Pac I'm an organic grower Packer and shipper in oxar California Dean Walsh is the president of Pac a company that only grows organic vegetables his Salesforce proves every day that farming that's good for the environment is also great for business
• 47:30 - 48:00 although a mere 2% of us Farm output is now organic that's going up fast you know as far since they got their Organic certification here a year ago business has never been better 10 remain naked what I do have 30 remain sleeved 76 R all right by Walsh is not primarily an environmentalist see what's going on he just wants to wait to beat the competition everybody's slicing dicing
• 48:00 - 48:30 chopping overwrapping uh just marketing their product in a different way and uh we saw there was a market Niche for organic and so we went after that market as with the kersman switching this large Thousand Acre operation over to organic was not easy it's difficult to get good advice from official sources or hardly surprising from chemical suppliers the methods of the past were
• 48:30 - 49:00 one guide to keep down weeds for instance one alternative to chemical herbicides combines machine and hand cultivation so an organic farmer may have higher labor costs but save on chemicals like Fred kersman Dean Walsh has added a modern twist this transplanting machine plants partially grown seed Lings instead of seeds these are lettuce weeds can't
• 49:00 - 49:30 compete as easily with the young plants so now there's less need to [Music] hoe insect control is another challenge especially during the transition from using [Music] insecticides in these artichoke fields for example aphids have infested the crop because there aren't yet enough Predator insects around yeah I think we got to spray it's uh we got a pretty good buildup in here you think that'll get it back into
• 49:30 - 50:00 a balance oh yeah I think so yeah sprays are used on Organic Farms but not sprays of toxic chemicals this one's better known as soap it dries out and kills the soft-bodied aphids but it won't harm the aphids Predators hard shell [Applause] ladybugs ladybugs are being reintroduced into the fields and the likelihood is that when they're established they'll
• 50:00 - 50:30 keep aphids under control without the need for any sprays at [Music] all in the end the crop was down by 20% but it was a year when conventional Farms did badly too now it's likely the worst is over in establishing this field overall for Pure pack natural methods have cost a little more though Dean
• 50:30 - 51:00 Walsh believes that will change the more we learn to do it better the less it'll cost hopefully I believe that we have already decreased our cost on organic in the last two years and we're just one company LED along with an industry working towards that goal modern organic farmers are showing that yields can be good costs can be controlled while the environment Soil and Water can be protected over the long
• 51:00 - 51:30 term but can Farmers Feed the World over the long term right now food supply is growing more slowly than world population basic agricultural resources Like Water for irrigation can't keep up everywhere Farmland is steadily being built over the farmers of the world are already pushing their land too hard losing top soil destroying fer [Music] yet to meet future demand each acre must
• 51:30 - 52:00 produce more than it does today and simply intensifying environmentally damaging techniques won't work from the world watch Institute Buster Brown what we're now beginning to see is that the major technologies that have contributed to the enormous growth in world food output over the last generation chemical fertilizers irrigation hybrid corn High buing dwarf Wheats and Rises have now pretty much run their course in at least some
• 52:00 - 52:30 important parts of the world as a result we're seeing a slow down in growth for future growth some now look not to the field but to the laboratory at Washington University in St Louis Roger beachy is working on putting qualities like disease or drought resistance directly into the genetic makeup of plants it would give permanent protection to a crop generation after generation biotechnology as it's called offers enormous promise especially for poor
• 52:30 - 53:00 countries biotechnology has the potential to increase yields dramatically in many countries without uh continued increase in cost of pesticides and and expensive chemicals that are normally used in farming in the west tomatoes so far have been genetically altered using laboratory techniques to resist mosaic virus after being infected with the virus the resistant plants on the left are
• 53:00 - 53:30 completely healthy these tomatoes that you see here are now 10 days after inoculation and those plants that don't don't carry the new Gene are really quite sick they have yellow leaves and they're crumpled and they're quite distorted whereas those plants that carry the new Gene the introduced Gene have resisted the infection and show no signs of the disease symptoms what that means for the farmer is that there'll be a higher yield such a disease can cause losses of between 20 and 30 40% under certain conditions virus resistant tomatoes are
• 53:30 - 54:00 now in field tests most research so far has been done on the big money-making crops of Western countries less work has been done on major food crops of poorer countries where it could have great impact although Roger beichi is trying to add virus resistance to Rice it's tempting to see biotechnology as some miraculous solution to future world food problems but pachy cautions
• 54:00 - 54:30 against it there's going to have to be an integrated an integrated management of this whole situation we're going to need to control our population we're going to need to to produce more food plant biotechnology is only going to be be one very small part it can be a very important part to the answer but it's not going to be the sole uh Champion to uh eliminate poverty and uh and hunger it's going to take very many approaches biotechnology on the farm is controversial some worry that it's
• 54:30 - 55:00 meddling with nature as we've never done before others say it's working with nature only in a new way if there's anything that modern farming has shown it's that working with nature is the only way [Music] forward every time we do otherwise in Australia America Africa and Asia we caught disaster farmers everywhere will be unable to feed the world unless they reach that
• 55:00 - 55:30 [Music] understanding today farmers are entering a time of great uncertainty as we're showing in another episode the greenhouse effect is likely to severely disrupt the world's weather patterns that'll be a new source of stress on Farmland everywhere making the challenge to feed the world even harder to meet so it's going to be all the more important for farmers to be working with nature rather than against it please
• 55:30 - 56:00 join me next time for race to save the planet [Applause] [Music] oh
• 56:00 - 56:30 [Music] [Music]
• 56:30 - 57:00 major funding for race to save the planet is provided by the annenburg cpb project and public television viewers corporate funding is provided by oceans spray our continuing aim is to preserve and protect what we cannot create additional funding is is provided by Jesse Smith noise Foundation Corporation for Public
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• 58:00 - 58:30 the problem of waste there are better ways to deal with it recycling it's big in Japan Industrial Waste Denmark copes well best of all don't even produce waste watch waste not want not next time on race to save the planet for