Agriculture and Climate Change Mitigation: Sara Francis, Jacob Perlmutter, Isabel Warren, Jeniana Willner
What’s up with agriculture?
Agriculture is quite an important component of a dynamic society. It allows for the fulfillment of the basic needs of everyone, everywhere. We need it, so we do it. We have done it for many, many generations, and have come up with many ways to do it. Some of those methods have been constructed on a foundation of love and longing for harmony with nature and help our fellow flora and fauna thrive. Indigenous American people, for example, grow the (sustainable and regenerative) Three Sisters crop, which consists of corn, beans, and squash. The three plants aid each other in their growth, contribute immensely to the health and richness of the soil they are grown in, and attract some very happy pollinators. The food harvested is a thing to be thankful for, a gift from life to a people who help it flourish. The process fosters a fortified ecosystem, including humans, that can withstand and adapt to a climate change-ridden world. A win-win-win-win-win, if you ask us.
Other methods of agriculture aren’t so considerate of nature. Many modern practices aim to grow a lot of food for a lot of people at as low a cost as possible, at the expense of the health of the nature they utilize. Due to their effectiveness in generating economic growth, they have become a standard for modern American agriculture. Using these practices ensures considerable yet unsustainable profit, as well as an environment devastated by climate change.
From a more tangible perspective, agriculture is responsible for 10% of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions. While not the leading contributing sector by any means, that is still a lot of pollution. In addition, an unhealthy crop lessens the health of its surrounding environments, causing a domino effect that leaves ecosystems increasingly vulnerable to climate change.
After decades of incessant emissions, large swaths of people are finally starting to understand that if consumers shift to having healthier perceptions and expectations about food, and farmers are able to produce food in more environmentally efficient ways, our fight against climate change will have a much stronger foundation.
Our project
Here in Tampa Bay, Florida, the implementation of better farming practices and a good public understanding of sustainable and regenerative agriculture is as needed as ever. We wanted to do something to further those initiatives. Here’s what we did (not in order of importance):
Firstly, we wanted to talk with farmers in the area about their work in relation to climate change in order to garner an understanding of the ways in which they think about the threat, and of the ways they work against it (or if they don’t, why). We set out to the Saturday Morning Market in St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg Green Thumb Festival, and the Eckerd College Community Farm to get to meet some local farmers in person and inquire about their agricultural methods and outlook on climate change. After the interviews, we asked the farms that were already implementing climate-friendly farming practices to sign the following pledge:
“I/We ________________, will continue to conduct my/our business and practices the best that I/we can to mitigate the effects of climate change. To the best of my/our ability, we will continue to use a minimal amount of petrochemicals (found in pesticides, plastics, etc) and minimize my/our greenhouse gas emissions. We will continue to employ and develop practices that allow our land to store more carbon and use less fossil fuels (for example cover crops, crop rotations, not till, manure management, etc).”
…and we asked the farms who had not yet implemented such practices to sign this pledge:
“I/We ___________________, pledge to conduct my business in the best way I can to mitigate the effects of climate change. To the best of my/our ability, I/we will begin to change our practices to reduce the use of petrochemicals (found in pesticides, plastics, etc), and minimize our greenhouse gas emissions. I/ We will begin to employ practices that allow our land to store more Carbon and use less fossil fuels (for example cover crops, crop rotations, not till, manure management, etc).”
When conversing with the latter category of farmers, we were careful to frame our questions and general dialogue according to the worldviews of our interviewees. In other words, if a farm was less concerned (or not concerned at all) about climate change, but was very partial to the economic stability of their operation, we would discuss practices that are both efficient and climate-friendly but focus primarily on the aspect of efficiency to keep them engaged. Once we made clear that sustainable and regenerative agriculture bears desirable economic benefits, we asked them to sign the correlating pledge. With farmers who were in an active effort to combat climate change, we used much more heavily climate-related phrasing and got to our central concerns more quickly. Additionally, we designed pamphlets for each scenario that were framed for these varying audiences:
We also contacted some farms that we couldn’t visit in person over the phone and conducted the same kinds of conversations asking them to pledge verbally.
Our goal was to receive 30 pledges. All in all, after talking with around 20 farms, we received 7 pledges and with them a network of relationships. While we didn’t reach our goal, the pledges we did receive were meaningful and inspiring, and we are grateful for all of the farms we talked to and the time they spent with us.
Secondly, we wanted to give consumers the opportunity through a GoFundMe shared on Facebook to donate their resources directly to adopt-a-meter.org, an organization working to restore soil and enable regenerative agriculture all over the world a meter at a time. We wanted to emphasize within this project the importance of the nature of the farm-to-table process being a two-way street, where consumers support farmers and farmers support consumers. We wanted to frame this project as such, and help to strengthen our local community under those conditions. Our goal was to reach 300$ in donations and we reached 400$, raising enough money to restore 80 square meters of soil. The link to the donation site is located below:
Finally, we created a website where farmers and gardeners can find various climate-friendly growing practices and learn more about their local plants and pollinators. The website can be accessed using the QR code below:
References
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2023, April 28). Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. EPA.gov. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=Agriculture%20
United States Department of Agriculture. The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture. nal.USDA.gov. https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters
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