Q . Isn’t there much potential for the Soviet Union to expand irrigation? A. No. The Soviet Union has a lot of land in regions warm enough to grow food, but it doesn’t have water. Much of the southern part of the Soviet Union is semi-arid, and without irrigation, you just can’t farm it. Q . Whatever happened to the optimistic school of thought that some years ago looked to rising population density as a source of inevitable human ingenuity for solving food and other economic problems? I always regarded that school of thought as on the fringe. Why did it gain such prominence in the early ’80s? A. Well, because life would be a lot simpler, if they were righ t. We wouldn’t have to worry about rampant population growth, or famine, or climate change. The anti-Malthus optimists gained some credibility in the late 70s and the early ’80s when world food production was moving ahead of demand. Surpluses were building up during the late 70s and early ’80s, depressing agricultural prices, and creating real problems for “ a world awash in grain.” People didn’t realize that those surpluses were the result of the unsustainable use of land and water. We should start the analysis of this problem by going back to the late ’60s and early 70s, when grain prices soared. The Soviets purchased wheat in 1972, and prices doubled in 73 and stayed up for the next several years. During that period, a lot of new land was plowed up in the Great Plains that had never been planted before. Huge investments in irrigation allowed farmers to consume water by pumping it up from underground at rates that exceeded natural replacement. In a number of countries, resources were being consumed at unsustainable rates to produce food. Q . So U.S. agriculture, like the broader economy, was being managed in an unsustainable way? A. U.S. experience illustrates my point. This country is now in the process of retiring 40 million acres of highly erodible cropland—11 percent of our total cropland. And we’re also in the process of cutting back on irrigation, because we’re irrigating on a scale that’s not sustainable. We’re pulling down our underground water tables to irrigate about a quarter of our irrigated land. If one takes away the grain produced on that 11 percent of cropland that is being retired, along with the grain produced by the unsustainable use of water, that comes to over 50 million tons or about one-sixth of average annual U.S. grain output of roughly 300 million tons a year. If one subtracts that 50 million tons from world output during the late 70s and the '80s, there are no surpluses, none whatsoever. Q . Is this happening elsewhere in the world? A. If we had the data to make the same calculation for the rest of the world, we would see a level of sustainable world food production far below current world demand. Much of the food output elsewhere in the world also is unsustainable, because it is based on the unsustainable use of land and water. This is why ecologists have worried for decades about how things were going for global agriculture. If you take a superficial look at the economic ind icators—say trends in grain output and carryover stocks—in the late 70s and early ’80s, world agriculture looked great. But if you look beneath the surface at basic environmental indicators — water table levels and soil losses, for example—then you begin to sense the unsustainable nature of a sizeable fraction of world food output today. Most analysts making supply and demand projections don’t look at the rates of topsoil loss around the world. If you do, then you begin to get a very different picture: In the '80s, agricultural retrenchment is going on in country after country, most prominently in the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. Q . That sounds like the optimistic forecasts we get from U.S. economic analysts, who look only at the aggregate indicators and neglect the unsustainable nature of growth based on persistent trade and budget deficits and the soaring debt that they generate. A . I see a parallel there between the overall U.S. economic outlook as depicted by the indicators of growth, emp loyment, and consump tion . Those numbers look very good. But if you look at the underlying behav io r- low saving rates and the fiscal and trade deficits—the picture is not so sanguine. People naturally prefer to look at the first set and the more optimistic scenario. That is what they voted on last November. Likewise, in world agriculture, people want to hear that things are going well. They don’t want to worry about the world’s fragile supply-demand equation for food any more than about rising national debt, or the growing trade deficit. Those things are such a nuisance. To solve those problems, people have to begin thinking about making some sacrifices, maybe. So the easiest thing is for politicians and the electorate to sweep them under the carpet and just hope that the surface trends continue to improve for a few more years. Q Since the United States has * become the “breadbasket to tne world,” our policy has become pivotal to the welfare of millions of people around the world. What we do as a marginal supplier affects world prices significantly. A . Just imagine. Right now, many of the world’s major cities depend on U.S. grain —Leningrad, Lagos, Tokyo, Caracas, to cite a few. North America exports about 120 million tons of grain per year now. Of that, something over 20 million tons comes from Canada, the rest from the United States. Europe, which as recently as 1980 was still a net importer o f grain, has in the last few years become a significant net exporter, exporting this year about 22 million tons. Australia is the other net exporter, exporting maybe 15 million tons in a typical year. So, you can see what happens to U.S. grain output and exports has a profound effect on the rest of the world. If that grain supply is ever cut off because of a drought-induced crop failure without any reserves all hell could break loose. I can’t imagine the economic and political instability that would result, because we have no precedent by which to assess the effects of a drastic collapse of the food supply. Q . What about the Third World? A . That’s the problem. In developing countries, people typically buy their wheat, rice, or corn as grain in the marketplace and then take it home, where they grind it into flour and make bread. So, if the world price of wheat doubles, the cost of their food doubles. For the vast majority who are spending 70 percent or more of their income on food and just trying to keep body and soul together, there’s just no way that they can adjust to such price increases. The consequences of a long-term rise in food prices, particularly when incomes are falling, means grave trouble ahead for many governments. If grain prices double in the United States, it doesn’t create serious problems for most Americans. A one-pound loaf of bread that sells for a dollar has about a nickel’s worth of wheat in it. So, if the price of wheat doubles, the loaf of bread goes from $1 to $1.05. We can handle that. For meat, though, where many pounds of grain are used to produce a pound of meat, the multiplier is much greater. Q . Let’s return to the global problems. What should we try to do now? A . First, because of our enormous scientific capability, and all the evidence we have on what’s happening around the world, the United States has a special obligation to provide leadership. More countries simply do not have the amount of information that we have on what’s happening to the climate. Second, we are a leading source of the problem: The United States, for example, generates more carbon emissions than any other country in the world; we contribute far more of the carbon dioxide than any other, both in total and in per capita terms. And yet, this country has the technologies and the capital resources to reduce that dramatically. Look at the problem of automobile emissions. We doubled fuel efficiency after President Ford signed the Automob ile Fuel E ffic iency Standards legislation. Between 1976 and 1986, fuel efficiency of new cars climbed from just over 13 miles per gallon to 26 miles per gallon. The sensible thing, then, would be to extend that legislation to the end of the century, again doubling fuel e ff iciency. That would not only help with the prob lem of g loba l c l im a te change, it would help improve air quality in our cities, and reduce acid rain. It wouldn’t require any new technology. There are already several models on the road getting 50 miles per gallon, and French, Japanese, and Swedish producers have prototype models that get upwards of 100 miles per gallon. Q . Yet, the Reagan Administration supported easing the standards to achieve higher efficiency? A. Exactly. The United States is heading in the opposite direction. It was ironic in the late summer of '88, when the headlines proclaimed heat, drought, and climate change, to learn that GM and Ford were pushing for a relaxation of mileage and fuel efficiency standards so they could sell more big cars and fewer small ones. The administration acquiesced. It’s as if they lived in another world that had nothing to do with reality. Q . Do you see any signs of change in the Bush Administration? A. The administration is clearly far behind public opinion on environmental issues. Most Americans, when asked in polls, would pay a higher tax on gasoline in order to slow down climate change, reduce air pollution, cut acid rain, and improve our energy security. QWhen you talk about a climate- * sensitive energy policy, what practical role is there for solar and windmill power? A. A steady shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is the key to a climate-sensitive energy policy. Q . Why don’t we do it then? A. Our thinking simply has not progressed apace with our changing reality. Some countries have moved much more rapidly. Norway and Brazil now get most of their energy from renewable sources. Norway gets 60 percent of its total energy from renewable sources, and it is an oil-exporting country. Most of its renewable energy comes from hydropower, but some comes from forest products as well. Brazil, a very different economy, gets 59 percent of all its energy from renewable sources— mainly hydropower, firewood, and .alcohol fuels from sugar cane. Something like 40 percent of all the steel smelted in Brazil uses firewood from plantations of fast growing trees in the form of charcoal, and it ’s now the eighth largest steel producer in the world. If these two countries got really serious and worked on efficiency at the same time they’re working on developing more renewable energy resources, they could virtually eliminate fossil fuels. Most of Brazil’s new cars use alcohol fuel, and farm tractors also are being converted to alcohol. Q . Is there any movement toward that end in the United States? A. Not very much. We're producing maybe only half a billion gallons of A fifth of humanity is experiencing a decline in living standards. fuel alcohol a year out of our consumption of 100 billion gallons. Not only the advanced countries must fully exploit the many different sources of renewable energy. In Third World villages today, for example, it probably makes sense just to concentrate investment in local photovoltaic arrays that will generate electricity for pumping water, for lights, for little mills to grind wheat, mill rice, or corn. Within a few years that would help extend the size of the market for photovoltaics to the point where the technology would become very cost competitive with almost any local source of electricity. Q . This implies a quite different pattern of future growth in the Third World from the visions we now hold. Small is beautiful, after all. A. The world of the future is a very different one from the one that we’ve grown up with. What impresses me is that we need a lot of change in a very short period of time. If we don’t turn around these basic trends of environmental deterioration—build up of greenhouse gases, soil erosion, ozone depletion, deforestation — before the end of the century, we may not be able to. Q . Isn’t the problem the lack of any precedents for behavioral changes on the global scale now required? A. The closest thing to it would probably be the World War II mobilization of the early '40s when, in a very short period of time, things changed dramatically. One day Chrysler was making cars and the next day it was making tanks. One day men were working in factories and the next day they were in training camps and on their way to war. Women who had been at home were suddenly in factories. Almost overnight we were rationing gasoline, rubber, and sugar. That was a temporary change and people understood why it was necessary, and so a lot of people changed behavior and made sacrifices. We’re in a very similar situation now. The problem is that not enough people yet understand that the future depends on enormous changes in attitudes, values, and national priorities in the years immediately ahead. The Bush Administration may be the last U.S. administration to have the opportunity even to make changes because if we delay too long, the forces of ecological decline could overwhelm us. Lester Brown Is President of Worldwatch Institute, Project Director of State of the World 1989, and Editor of the environmental magazine World Watch. This interview was conducted by Richard Bartel, Editor of Challenge magazine. Barbara Kreft Is a native of West Germany and a visual artist. She Ilves in Minneapolis and teaches at MCAD. This piece is entitled “The City at the expense of other living matter.” Connie Baker (Gilbert) is a designer and regular contributor to the Clinton St. Quarterly. Reprinted with permission of publisher, M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504 USA, from the March/April 1989 issue of Challenge. Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1989-90 25
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