Resilience+Thinking+in+Agriculture

Jordan Mundell March 19th, 2015 Annotation #6 Applying Resilience Thinking to US Agriculture Gigi Berardi, Rebekah Green, Bryant Hammond

In the modern days of sustainability and ecological studies, there has been a push towards resilience thinking. That being, a look at all the natural cycles we live in with an emphasis on their dynamic nature. Nothing exists in a steady state, or a perfect state, and must always adapt to changes around it. Evolution comes to mind when thinking about resilience: if a species cannot adapt properly to changes in the environment, it will go extinct. This article looks to apply this idea of resilience towards the agriculture system, since the authors claim that we have degraded the resilience of this system over the last century by putting a heavy focus on commercialization, and industrialization of the agriculture system.

The article takes a minor detour to show a real day example of resilience, or more precisely, how resilience had been lost: New Orleans. When New Orleans was first founded, it was the epitome of world economics, it provided an easy place to export and import goods to and from the interior of the United States. However, the area that it was in was susceptible to storms and annual flooding. As a result, resilient measures were put forth, both natural and artificial. When 19th and 20th century industrialization hit, everything seemed to change, but with the economy taking priority. Marshes were drained, landscapes were changed, etc. The famous levies were constructed as a band-aid remedy that seemed to work, until catastrophe would hit.

“Prior to European settlement, the entire area was at or above sea level; by 2005, 49 percent was below sea level in housing that did not have traditional architectural features that would have reduced flood impacts.”

The article takes this idea to the current agriculture system, one that is built on stability, rather than that of resilience or sustainability. They mention that this is dangerous because Katrina,

“well illustrates the trade-offs between stability and resilience. Engineering solutions to what was a normal and regular feature of the landscape — seasonal flooding — had the effect of stabilizing flood regimes. However, resilience decreased as a result.”

Since the United States is the world economic superpower that it is, the “agriculture sector continues to emphasize industrial form of production…This emphasis on efficiency and stability degrades resilience.” They claim that our current system would not be able to adapt to a severe change, such as something as drastic as Hurricane Katrina, whether it be a natural disaster, or a change in global economic or political policies.

The only problem that I see that the article does not necessarily address is how can we make the change in the agriculture system? It is one that has been set in stone pretty much since the wave of industrialization that World War II unleashed. They mention that countries have done it already, like New Zealand. However, those examples countries don’t exactly have the same GPD or economic influence that the United States does. While it may seem pessimistic on my part, I don’t think any realistic changes will be made until some catastrophe-scale influence forces the change.