Planning for a Sustainable Future: The Case of the North American Great
Plains
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Implications of Global Environmental Change
Forces Influencing Sustainability
Role of Government Compensation and Adaptation
The sustainability implications of global environmental change cover many dimensions and sectors. This chapter focuses on the agricultural sector. It is not based on detailed analyses of the Great Plains; rather, it draws on general material that is related to sustainability in the Great Plains. Implications of environmental change are shown to extend beyond production impacts and are intimately related to economics and public policy.
Definitions of sustainability are often controversial. In terms of agriculture, sustainability has many meanings (Smit and Smithers, 1993; 1994). But most definitions are fundamentally similar. Consider two representative definitions of sustainable agriculture:
Agri-food systems that are economically viable, meet society's need for safe and nutritious foods, while conserving . . . natural resources and the quality of the environment for future generations. - Science Council of Canada (1992)
Agricultural system that can indefinitely meet demands for food and fibre at socially acceptable economic and environmental costs. - Crosson (1992)
These definitions suggest that sustainability implies (1) meeting human needs for food and fiber, (2) conserving environment or natural resources, and (3) maintaining economic viability.
The terms future generations and indefinitely indicate the long time-frame over which these attributes apply.
Forces Influencing Sustainability
Many forces influence the structure of agricultural systems and the degree to which they are sustainable. Figure 1 highlights three important categories of external force: biophysical environment, government policies and programs, and macroeconomic conditions. Individual farm operators make their decisions on what to produce and how to produce it in light of these external forces.
Figure 1. Forces influencing sustainability in agriculture
Each of these macroscale forces can change over the long term. Each of them also varies from year to year, and does so in a largely unpredictable fashion. At the time farmers make their strategic decisions, they do not know with certainty the climatic conditions, prices and costs, government programs, and so forth that will affect farm production and economic returns. The economic returns from farm production are dependent on physical yields and on prices and government payments such as price supports, drought relief, and so on. It is these economic effects, especially when cumulated over time, that are the most likely to cause change in agricultural systems. Of course, there are numerous feedbacks, such as those between environmental conditions, economic outcomes, and government programs. For example, widespread losses due to drought often prompt changes in government programs, which in turn influence the economics of farming. The implications of global environmental changes therefore need to be considered relative to economic and policy conditions.
One important environmental force is climate, which can change over the long term and whose variation (with or without climatic change) has major implications for farming and sustainability. Agriculture's sensitivity to climate is influenced both by the nature of climatic variation and by the nature of farming (see Figure 2).
Climate usually refers to relatively long-term average conditions or "norms." Climatic variability refers to deviations in conditions from year to year (Figure 2). This variability can be characterized in several ways, including probability distributions, frequency or magnitude of extreme events, or the return period of extreme events (Smit, 1993). Extremes therefore represent isolated features of climatic variability (Figure 2). Climatic change usually refers to shifts in climatic norms, and may also involve changes in the magnitude or frequency of extremes, or other aspects of variability.
Figure 2. Climate, variability, extremes and coping range
Farmers are influenced by all of these variations (Smit et al., 1995). The variations that we hear most about, and that directly impinge on sustainability, are those "causing" losses, damages, and disasters. Yet the cause is as much the nature of farming as it is the climatic event. Farming, like other activities, has evolved to operate within a limited range of conditions, sometimes called a "coping range" (Figure 2). This represents the range of conditions within which the activity can function reasonably, and beyond which it is vulnerable. Disasters are "caused" by the juxtaposition of a vulnerable activity and particular climatic conditions.
Numerous studies have explored the implications of global climatic change for agriculture. One of the most comprehensive recent analyses is the MINK study, which relates to the Great Plains region. This study considered climatic change and variability as well as changes in other conditions and possible adjustments in farming practices (Easterling et al., 1993; Rosenberg et al., 1993). It illustrated the potential for agricultural production systems in the Great Plains to adapt to a changed climatic regime. The MINK study did not focus on either the likelihood of adjustments in farming practices or the role of government programs in stimulating or dampening such adjustments.
Role of Government Compensation and Adaptation
The degree to which agricultural systems adjust to reduce vulnerability to climatic variations (and hence to climatic change) is influenced by government programs. Economic returns to farmers, especially in years of climatic extremes, are moderated by various forms of government compensation, subsidy, and assistance. These include payments resulting from established programs such as crop insurance, as well as ad hoc payments such as disaster relief.
These programs originated with the best of intentions, to provide some economic and social security (sustainability?) to people in the rural economy. The programs involve large amounts of money and have significant effects on farming practices and the economics of farming. Canadian federal government payments to farmers for losses directly related to climate (drought and flood assistance, crop insurance subsidy, emergency compensation, and so forth) are estimated in excess of Can$250 million per year during recent decades (Smit, 1994). Indirect payments and provincial contributions are not included in this total. At a societal scale, these programs represent an adaptive response to risks associated with climatic variability. At the farm level, however, they now tend to serve as a disincentive to adaptation and sustainability.
To illustrate, consider the 1987ñ88 drought in the Great Plains. In Canada, two programs (WGSA and SCGP) provided direct income support (Can$2.2 billion) to farmers. An evaluation by the Economic Council of Canada (1988) concluded:
Without this assistance, half of the farmers in the [Canadian] Prairie region would have been in some financial difficulty. . . . this ad hoc policy formulation, while understandable in political terms, reduces farmers' incentives to make long-term management decisions and to assume their consequences.
The situation is similar in the United States and elsewhere. Government policies and programs have been devised to absorb or mitigate the impacts of climate stresses, including programs for crop insurance, disaster grants and low-interest loans to farmers, and government-sponsored drought research. The cost of drought relief for the 1988 drought in the United States was about US$4.0 billion (Riebsame, 1991).
Although payments on the scale of the 1987-88 drought are not annual events, subsidies related to variable environmental conditions are large and ongoing. The 1992-93 drought, for example, was in many ways comparable to the 1987-88 event, and it involved large payouts in Canada. It is often said that farmers are better adapted to subsidy programs than to the biophysical environment. The current structure of support programs effectively discourages farming adjustments to climatic variability. It tends to perpetuate a system of agriculture that essentially guarantees future crop losses, hardship to farm families and communities, depletion of soil resources, and continued draining of public funds.
This situation is hardly sustainable. We need to assess programs that were intended to serve important social goals, in light of their other implications. Ironically, many attributes of the "farm problem" that originally prompted government programs are now persistent and perhaps perpetuated by those programs: market instability, low returns on capital, falling farm incomes, environmental degradation or depletion, and farm failure (Goodman, 1991).
Regardless of how government subsidy programs are evaluated, they are likely to change significantly in the near future. International agreements under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the recently concluded Uruguay Round promote the dismantling of subsidy and compensation programs.
This trend to deregulation is reinforced by the growing fiscal conservatism in the United States and Canada and is evident in the (1995) Canadian budget cuts to the Western Grain Transportation and other programs. With contraction of government supports, farmers will have to bear a greater share of the risks associated with variations in climatic and other conditions. They will likely have to extend their "coping range." They will have to recognize more explicitly the reality of climatic variability and factor it into their production decisions.
The literature on agroecosystem health (see, for example, Rapport, 1989; and Waltner-Toews, 1994) points to instability in output and dependence on external subsidy as important generic indicators of system pathology as nonsustainability. In Great Plains agriculture, there is instability in output and dependence on subsidy. Others point to heavy reliance on, and threatened depletion of, water resources as evidence of nonsustainability in the current system.
It would seem that the questionable sustainability of the current system relates to expectations regarding the capacity of the resource base to produce - expectations that cannot be met every year. Why is much of the Great Plains region called "next-year country"? Sustainability likely requires a shift in mind set, so that decisions on product choice, inputs, and resource use are not based on expectations of a "good" year, or even a "normal" year, but on the reality of the variability - and hence probability - of environmental conditions. This probably implies, for some regions, a reduction in intensity and production levels (at least from levels attainable in "good" years). This has happened before. I am a child of a family forced from a prairie farm by a combination of droughts and economic conditions in the 1930s. We now have the option of managing an orderly adjustment to a more sustainable system or allowing the changes to occur via repeated stresses and crises.
Recent experience in New Zealand, where farm income attributable to subsidies dropped from 35% (1983) to 2% (1990), is instructive if not conclusive. Although this major policy shift has had significant ramifications, the rural economy has not collapsed. After a few years of adjustment, farm operations are now better adapted to climatic variations and extremes. Among the common adaptations are abandonment of risky crops, reductions in stock numbers and inputs, diversification, and growth of private insurance where risks warrant. There has also been a growth in demand for climate information, particularly on the frequency (and hence the probability) of climate-related hazards.
Climate Change and Implications
What of the implications of global climate change? First, it will be marked not by some sudden change in conditions every year, but by changes in the frequency and magnitude of climatic variations. The changes will be (are?) essentially imperceptible within periods of less than numerous decades, because they are contained within the ongoing interannual variability of climatic regimes (Figure 2). So, planning for sustainability with respect to variability in conditions will also enhance prospects for sustainability with respect to climatic change.
Second, the effects of climatic change are difficult, if not impossible, to usefully assess independently of other forces and independently of an improved understanding of adaptation, especially the conditions that tend to promote or constrain adaptation. The MINK study illustrated that depending on the assumptions made about other conditions and adaptation, climate change may or may not represent a problem - given current production systems. What does this mean if current production systems are judged to be nonsustainable?
Two main recommendations can be made for scientists and policy makers.
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We need to better assess risks associated with variable and uncertain environmental conditions. This likely would involve documentation of climatic variation (temporal and spatial) so that probabilities of climatic conditions can be better estimated. This is different from mapping "normal" conditions, and it should focus on those climatic variables that are pertinent (for example, moisture during critical time periods) rather than readily available (such as mean annual temperature).
This assessment of risks should include consideration of variation in other relevant external forces, including economic and policy conditions. What sorts of variation have been experienced in these areas in the past, what was the response in agricultural resource use, and what type of variation will likely occur in the future?
- We need to develop and promote enterprises and management practices that are adaptive and sustainable in this kind of variable and uncertain environment. Evaluations of existing and potential production systems according to their ability to sustain production and economic returns would help address this need. So too would the consideration of policy vehicles (i.e., alternatives to the set of policies likely to be withdrawn) that might promote more sustainability.
It may be noteworthy that I have not placed high emphasis on climate change prediction or seasonal climate forecasting. These activities are valuable and will continue to be addressed. They represent a way of reducing uncertainties and managing risk. But much of the sustainability problem in the existing system derives from a widespread view of climate: that it is predictable and that we should plan for certain (rather than uncertain) conditions (usually the norm or ìgoodî climatic conditions). Sustainability will be enhanced more if resource use decisions recognize the variability and uncertainty that is inherent in climate.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the following organizations and agencies for their support: Canadian Climate Program; Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; Agroecosystem Health Project of the Eco-Research Program of the Tri-Council of Canada; and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin Project of Environment Canada.
References
Crosson, P. 1992. Sustainable agriculture. Resources 106:14-17.
Easterling, W.; P. Crosson; N. Rosenberg; M. McKenney; L. Katz; and K. Lemon. 1993. Agricultural impacts of and responses to climate change in the Missouri-Iowa-Nebraska-Kansas region. Climatic Change 21:23-62.
Economic Council of Canada. 1988. Handling the Risks: A Report on the Prairie Grain Economy. Economic Council of Canada, Ottawa.
Goodman, D. 1991. Some recent tendencies in the industrial re-organization of the Agri-Food system. In W. Friedland, L. Busch, F. Buttel, and A. Rudy, eds. Toward a New Political Economy of Agriculture; pp. 37-64. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
Rapport, D. 1989. What constitutes ecosystem health? Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 33:120-32.
Riebsame, W. E.; S. A. Changnon, Jr.; and T. R. Karl. 1991. Drought and Natural Resources Management in the United States: Impacts and Implications of the 1987-89 Drought; p. 56. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
Rosenberg, N.; P. Crosson; K. Frederick; W. Easterling; M. McKenney; M. Bowes; R. Sedjo; J. Darmstadler; L. Katz; and K. Lemon. 1993. The MINK Methodology: Background and baseline. Climatic Change 24:7-22.
Science Council of Canada. 1992. Sustainable Agriculture: The Research Challenge. Science Council of Canada, Ottawa.
Smit, B., ed. 1993. Adaptation to Climatic Variability and Change: Report of the Task Force on Climate Adaptation. Canadian Climate Program, University of Guelph, Ontario.
Smit, B. 1994. Climate compensation and agriculture. In J. McCulloch and D. Etkin, eds. Improving Responses to Atmospheric Extremes: The Role of Insurance and Compensation; pp. 29-37. The Climate Institute, Toronto.
Smit, B.; D. McNabb; and J. Smithers. 1995. Farming Adaptation to Climate Variation. Report for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin Project. Guelph, Ontario.
Smit, B.; and J. Smithers. 1993. Sustainable agriculture: Interpretations analyses and prospects. Canadian Journal of Regional Science 16:499-524.
Smit, B.; and J. Smithers. 1994. Sustainable agriculture and agroecosystem health. In O. Nielsen, ed. Agroecosystem Health; pp. 31-38. University of Guelph, Ontario.
Waltner-Toews, D. 1994. Ecosystem health: A framework for implementing sustainability in agriculture. In O. Nielsen, ed. Agroecosystem Health; pp. 8-23. University of Guelph, Ontario.
About the Author
Dr. Barry Smit is a professor of geography at the University of Guelph in Ontario. He is the chair of the Socio-Economic Impacts Committee of the Canadian Climate Program and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to UNEP on the World Climate Impacts and Response Strategies Program. Dr. Smit is the author of more than 60 scientific articles on topics including sustainable agriculture, global environmental change, cumulative effects, and adaptation to climatic variations and uncertainty.