Sustainable farm practices needed

AMES, Iowa — Less than 1 percent of Americans are full-time farmers and the average age of those individuals is around 57, said Richard Heinberg, a leading expert in sustainability education.

“We don’t even know who’s going to be growing our food in 20 years,” Heinberg said.

Heinberg, the senior fellow in residence at the Post Carbon Institute, has written eight books about sustainability and gave a lecture last week at Iowa State University Memorial Union. His lecture, titled “The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post Carbon Food System,” focused on the future of agriculture. Heinberg said the United States will need to move to a more ecological food system in order to provide for its growing population.

Fossil fuels are at the root of the problem, he said. It takes about 350 gallons of oil to feed the average American for a year. He also said it takes seven calories of energy from fossil fuels to produce just one calorie of food.

“We’re actually spending seven times more energy on food than we get back,” Heinberg said. “Altogether, the food system uses great amounts of energy.”

Heinberg said it is almost certain the United States will face oil supply problems soon. Oil production in America peaked around 1970, and oil discoveries peaked around 1930. He said even though there have been several oil discoveries in the past several weeks, they won’t be largely significant in the long run.

“The world’s easy, cheap oil is gone,” he said. “What’s left is going to be difficult to find and difficult to extract.”

The solution to the problem, Heinberg said, is a switch from industrialized agriculture to ecological agriculture.

Heinberg said the focus of the 20th century was urbanization, but with gas prices on the rise he expects to see a “reruralization” of America over the next 100 years.

“Look out Iowa,” Heinberg said, “you may have lots of folks wanting to take up residence here.”

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