Spending our water and soils for food security

Excerpt

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil. —Thomas Jefferson

For the most part, food security is dependent on our soil and water resources. Recent food security studies in economics, geology, and anthropology (Diamond 2005; Montgomery 2007; Rosen et al. 2008) have concluded that soil and water resources will reach critical levels and, before long, fail to feed us. Among the causes of the crisis is the expected dramatic rise over the next few decades in world population and the stress it will put on resources (FAO 2008; Janzen et al. 2011). The crisis is predicted to cause anything from increased starvation to societal collapse. Our challenge is to secure food supplies through the proper use of soil and water. And, in this endeavor, energy plays no small role.

Over time, in many developing countries, food security cannot be maintained (FAO 2008); yet, in developed countries, where food stores peaked in the middle 1980s, it is more than satisfied. As in other times of plenty (Mazoyer and Roudart 2006), to eliminate excessive overhead, stores were reduced and production curtailed. In recent…