Rethinking Land in the Anthropocene: from Separation to Integration

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3.3 Diversify farming systems Agriculture is a crucial factor in the land-use trilemma. Using the examples of industrial farming in the EU and subsistence farming in sub-Saharan Africa, this section develops three multiple-benefit strategies which aim at a diversification of the farming systems and can be used to overcome the trilemma: the greening of EU agriculture, a sustainable increase in agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa, and resilience, environmental protection and climate-change mitigation in global agricultural trade.

3.3.1 Current farming systems are approaching their limits Agriculture has many different manifestations worldwide depending on agro-ecological, economic and cultural conditions. They range from industrial farming focusing on a small number of crops, to subsistence-oriented, traditional forms of land use and to a wide variety of agricultural forms typical of the respective region. This section discusses two examples of agricultural land use from the perspective of the trilemma of land use (Chapter 2): (1) industrial agriculture in the EU and (2) subsistence agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. These two farming systems are priorities in German and EU’s agricultural and development policies. In the following, the WBGU takes a systemic look at these two farming systems, which consist of interacting factors or system elements: > land-use intensity and its sub-aspects such as management practices, use of inputs, timing and spatial aspects, > land cover, e.g. arable land, grassland, wetland, forest or scrub, > the different stakeholders, including agricultural training, extension services, trade, agricultural organizations and interest groups, > farming conditions, e.g. farmers’ motivation, livestock, income and its origin, e.g. production of quality products with a regional reference, direct marketing, rural tourism, contractual nature conservation, biomass cultivation or decentralized energy supply (Knickel et al., 2004). This systemic perspective forms the basis for develop-

ing recommendations for a transition of land use towards sustainability, in which agriculture plays a key role. Such a transition of land use involves a multifunctional design and diversification of farming systems, which are also reflected in the landscape.

3.3.1.1 Industrial agriculture: the example of the EU Industrial farming in the EU in its current form is a major contributor to environmental problems and GHG emissions, due, among other things, to narrow crop rotations and an excessive use of fertilizers (mineral fertilizers and liquid manure). This further reinforces trends caused by the ongoing structural change in the EU agricultural sector. The main impacts of industrial farming on the land-use trilemma are outlined below. Contamination of the groundwater by overfertilization Industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on applications of mineral fertilizer, which have increased approximately tenfold over the past 60 years worldwide (Mateo-Sagasta et al., 2018). If this trend continues, about 250 million tonnes of fertilizer nitrogen could be needed every year by 2050 (Tilman et al., 2011), twice the amount currently used in a year (Mateo-Sagasta et al., 2018). The applied mineral fertilizer accumulates in soils, water and biomass, leading to soil degradation among other problems (Mateo-Sagasta et al., 2018). The future availability of phosphorus, one of the non-substitutable nutrients in mineral fertilizers, is also limited, so, for this reason too, industrial agriculture will come up against limits in the near future (Vaccari, 2009; Blackwell et al., 2019). Furthermore, mineral fertilizers are not the only source of nitrogen and phosphorus: in areas with industrial livestock farming too much nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as antibiotics from animal excreta, also enter freshwater ecosystems and groundwater (Mallin and Cahoon, 2003; MacDonald et al., 2011; UBA, 2018b, 2019d). In Germany, nitrate pollution exceeds the EU limits (UBA, 2020). The excessive accumulation of nutrients overwhelms the land’s capacity to absorb it, so that human and animal health and the condition of water bodies are impaired by eutrophication (Galloway and Cowling, 2002). People are at increased risk of developing asthma, allergies, cancer or other chronic diseases due to environmental effects caused by excess nutrients (Peoples et al., 2004; Euiso et al., 2005; Ward et al., 2018). Fish species that can adapt to low-oxygen conditions become dominant and disrupt the ecological balance in aquatic systems (Soares et al., 2006). Plant and animal species adapted to nutrient-poor living conditions are displaced (UBA, 2019e). Due to the use of

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