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Question 1
Question 2
Question 3 |
The group identified three key issues facing the North American Great
Plains.
- Biological productivity, which is critical to the economic success of
agriculture on the Great Plains.
- Maintenance of biodiversity, which is threatened by a diminishing gene pool
and a lack of knowledge of biodiversity issues as they apply to agriculture on
the Great Plains.
- Land use practices, which need to be balanced to accommodate the needs of
all inhabitants, now and in future generations.
Question 1: What are the principal
stressors related to biological resources and biodiversity affecting the North
American Great Plains? Economic, policy, environmental, and social/cultural
stressors should be considered. These stressors should be considered on various
scales ranging from local to global.
Stressors identified were classified into four groups:
Sociocultural
- Farming practices. Many traditional methods enhance sustainability, but
others are inappropriate in view of the need to maintain biodiversity and
enhance the productivity of the soil.
- Wetland drainage. Continued removal of wetlands from the prairie ecosystem
has direct impacts on productivity by altering soil moisture patterns.
- Mining aquifers. Cultural and social water-use practices threaten the
prairie aquifer and hence the productivity of the land.
Policy
- Trade policy. Inappropriate policies that affect intranational and
international trade can create imbalances in supply and demand and threaten the
economic stability of farmers.
- Subsidies. Artificial price support and other subsidies can be
disincentives to maintaining diversity.
- Crop insurance. If inappropriately used, crop insurance can discourage good
farming and land use practices.
- Farm funding. Funding policies have a direct impact on the cash flow of
farmers and their ability to maintain and expand their operations.
Economic
- Perceptions of value. Biological resources are often perceived to have
lesser value than other economic resources and are therefore undervalued in
economic analyses.
- Agrochemical usage. Agrochemicals can be used to increase yields, and hence
profits, while reducing the future ability of the soil to support productivity.
- Mining aquifers and wetland drainage. Water is often viewed as an economic
good that can be bought and sold, rather than as a common resource.
Environmental
- Climate. Climate extremes are relatively rare and usually unpredictable,
and they can have a significant economic impact on farmers. Climate change could
affect diversity and lead to changes in crop calendars, which could affect
farming practices.
- Stratospheric ozone depletion. UVB radiation affects plant chemistry and
physiology.
- Pollution. Air and water pollution affect productivity. Salinization can
remove land from production for extended periods of time.
- Soil erosion. Erosion by the elements can be exacerbated by some land use
practices.
Question 2: What
are examples of successes (e.g., best practices, tools)? How do you know they
work? Where are the gaps?
Successes identified by the group were in the area of:
- Education and outreach. Extension programs are becoming more common and are
popular.
- Dialogue. Effective stakeholder dialogue on issues has started.
Stakeholders are becoming more involved in planning programs, not just
implementing them.
- Sustainable practices. Land use practices such as zero-till farming, crop
rotation, and fallowing are becoming more common and are sustainable. The use of
holding ponds and terracing enhance soil productivity. Minimum maintenance
practices help to conserve water and soil.
- Science and technology. New production technologies not only contribute to
productivity but enhance land stability. Genetic engineering has potential for
enhancing the gene pool.
- Government initiatives. Initiatives planned and developed by stakeholders
can address their concerns most effectively. Developing trade policy is an area
where governments can contribute to economic sustainability: GATT and the
elimination of subsidies are examples of successes.
Proposed indicators for measuring success:
- For biological productivity - The availability of products and the economic
health of the agricultural industry.
- For maintenance of biodiversity - The variety of products available and
inventories of birds and other wildlife that depend on the health and diversity
of habitats.
- For sustainable land use practices - Soil retention is the most important
indicator.
Closing the gaps in sustainability - The focus for the future:
- For education - Putting units on biodiversity and the value of biological
resources into kindergarten to grade 12 curricula; reaching out to inform
citizens about the success and importance of government initiatives;
transferring knowledge into operational activities; and popularizing information
using societal institutions.
- For governments - Taking proactive action that will address the need to
change attitudes and cultures so that citizens of the Great Plains will be
better able to cope with long-term change and the increasingly global
perspective to life. Measures proposed included using policy to discourage
high-risk cropping and overproduction by re-examining disaster and other relief
payments and the taxation system; harmonizing rules and regulations across the
various levels of governments; protecting aquatic and transboundary ecosystems;
and fostering gene-pool diversity through self-rewarding systems, including
taxation.
- For science and technology - Encouraging research and development and the
acquisition of knowledge. Areas of concentration suggested were expanding (and
filling in critical gaps in) biological inventories; recalibrating aquatic
resource models so that they are more appropriate for the Great Plains;
improving our knowledge of surface and subsurface water interactions; developing
optimal procedures and standards for agrochemical use; and expanding technology
development and knowledge transfer programs.
Question 3: Identify specific actions
or programs that would lead to a more sustainable future for the region. Be
specific by addressing the following questions: What can be done? How can it be
done? Who will implement it? What can WE do?
The focus group identified a number of key activities, focusing on the three
key issues described above. They suggested that many of these activities could
be slotted into the Sustainable Prairies Initiative, a Canadian-led integrated
regional initiative that includes activities on, among other things, sustainable
agriculture, economic diversification, social issues, and wetlands and habitat
conservation.
Actions proposed:
Knowledge initiatives related to soil nutrients.
- Development work on fertilizers that do not wash out of the soil and that
increase nutrient availability.
- Research on the impacts of agrochemicals on soil productivity.
- Soil ecology research. Priority areas are:
- Soil fungi and their relationship to crops.
- Nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
- Replenishment of organic carbon by, for example, educating farmers to
incorporate plant stubble into the soil and developing improved technology to
achieve this.
- Biological toxic waste disposal systems, such as the use of worms and
bacteria.
- New analytical techniques for measuring soil parameters.
Information dissemination initiatives.
- Increasing access to knowledge through the use of electronic systems.
- Targeted information delivery through educational institutions.
- Developing improved information exchange techniques among agencies engaged
in science, policy, and operations activities.
- Developing an improved communications interface between scientists, policy
makers, and farmers that would facilitate dissemination of information about the
relevance of research.
Performance measures.
- Development of indicators of success and sustainability, such as soil loss
measurement systems.
- Measuring wetlands extent using satellite technology.
- Using digital image-processing to measure crop cover and productivity, with
an emphasis on improving the detail of these measurements down to the level of a
single farm, if possible.
- Resolving the major differences in views that exist among agencies on what
sustainability is and how to measure it. The focus group recognized that there
is some advantage to ambiguity since it promotes development of a more varied
range of indicators.
- Indicators of water quality and availability, such as an aquifer
vulnerability index.
- Indicators linking soil and water quality to human health.
- Enhanced species inventories and population counts.
Education initiatives.
- Incorporating traditional education (through the community and the family,
for example) into formal education systems.
- Lifelong continuous learning initiatives.
- Educating citizens on the need for lifestyle changes to facilitate
adaptation to changing demographics and technology.
- Encouraging the use of social institutions (such as the lodge, the town
hall meeting, and discussions at the gas station) as informal education
mechanisms.
- Educating citizens on the relevance of biodiversity.
- Teaching people how to take advantage of the natural resilience of nature.
Policy initiatives.
- Developing, as a matter of priority, policies that address the rapidly
increasing worldwide demand for food that will accompany the rapid population
increases of the coming years, while at the same time discouraging production at
unsustainable levels.
- Targeting subsidies and incentives at discretely measurable parameters such
as soil loss, rather than at production.
- Establishing trust funds to offset market costs, rather than paying direct
subsidies.
- Incorporating valuations for environmental and social capital, as well as
for human-made capital, into policy development.
- Developing proactive policies that anticipate and prevent, rather than
react and cure.
- When restorative measures are needed, designing them to address concerns
about government interference and its effects on producers' profit levels.
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