Sustainability

In a realistic scenario, where not everyone gives up eating meat, where some in the developing world eat more like us, and where food waste is not zero, feeding 9+ billion people will require a lot more food. Ideally, this additional production would be from existing cropland, with better input efficiency, and fewer off-farm effects. How are we going to do this, both in currently high-yield agriculture and where significant yield-gaps exist? This is the topic of an important book chapter from Hunt, Kirkegaard, Celestina, and Porker (2019): Transformational agronomy: Restoring the role of agronomy in modern agricultural research.

I have been called a reductionist quite a few times. I never know how to respond. Am I a reductionist? If so, is that a bad thing? Why is there resistance to the approach? So I did some investigation.

Cesar Reyes Corral, PhD student in the Washington State University Department of Entomology, has identified several beneficial insects that may be key to long-term management of X-disease.   X-disease has recently emerged as a major threat to cherry, peach, and nectarine production in the Pacific Northwest, by producing small, bitter fruit. This disease is caused by a bacterium called Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni that is spread by insects called leafhoppers.

What makes food better? Through the Soil to Society grant, we believe that breeding for increased health and nutritive value while improving agronomic and end-use qualities creates better food and a foundation for an accessible food system. Currently, WSU and USDA plant breeders are developing new varieties of barley, wheat, peas, lentils, quinoa and buckwheat with enhanced health and nutritive value through the Soil to Society grant. Each plant breeder is working on one or two of the above crops, with nutrition goals specific to the crop.

You are at the grocery store in the produce section. Pears are in season, so you go over to pick a few out – maybe they will elevate your next charcuterie board. After inspecting a few, you grab pears that appear to be pristine, symmetrical in shape and with smooth, unsullied skin. These are worth your money.

When it comes to climate change resilience in agriculture, the question is generally not why agricultural operations should be prepared, but which preparations will be effective? Through this $1.5 million grant funded by AFRI’s Foundational and Applied Science Program, a national team led by WSU’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources aims to build Extension and USDA Climate Hub professionals’ capacity to answer the “which” within specialty crop systems, and move the bar forward in climate change resilience.

Healthy food cannot be made in an incubator.  It requires healthfulness to be implemented in every step of the production process: from cultivation to consumption. The Soil to Society grant is working to produce more nutritious, whole grain-based food products starting from the ground up. This starts with our Soils and Cropping Systems team, who are experimenting with the roles of environment, soil, and cropping systems management on soil health, farm economics, and the nutritional content of grain and legume crops. Doing so requires research to be done in collaboration, instead of in silos.

One of the clearest examples of CSANR impact is through BIOAg, a competitive grant program designed to promote research, education, and Extension work in biologically intensive, organic, and sustainable agriculture systems. In the last five years alone, BIOAg projects have leveraged over $24 million through federally funded grants, state initiatives, and university projects based on an initial Center investment of $2 million.

Though we are what we eat, there is minimal research available on how different players within the food system interact to influence food availability and human health. Noted barriers to this research and to a broader understanding of agriculture’s role in societal health include a historical separation of the involved scientific disciplines, and an economic incentive to focus on crop yield rather than nutrition. Reducing those barriers not only improves future research, but also the robustness, affordability, and accessibility of our food system.

For the inland Pacific Northwest, climate change predictions including wetter springs and drier, hotter summers leads to production system uncertainties and risks for dryland, small grain farmers. Annual precipitation is projected to increase by about 5-15% by 2050 except during the summer months where precipitation is projected to decrease, resulting in decreased soil moisture during the late summer months.