Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Guest Column: When your boat rocks, you want resilience not efficiency

Back to Leopold Letter Spring 2011

By LAURA JACKSON, Guest Columnist

EDITOR’S NOTE: In our ongoing discussion about resilience, the Leopold Center asked University of Northern Iowa biology professor Laura Jackson for her perspective. She teaches and works in restoration ecology. She is co-author of the 2002 book, The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, which explores how farmers can incorporate greater biological diversity into their production systems. Jackson is a member and past chair of the Leopold Center’s advisory board.

Imagine being on a boat in calm seas, and you are asked to bring a cup of soup to the captain. The task is an ordinary one, and the only question is how fast should you walk without spilling the soup? Now imagine the same cup of soup, except that the boat is being tossed by huge waves. Walking speed is now no longer an issue. Instead you are looking for solid handholds, watching for the next wave to hit, keeping your knees flexed and your senses on high alert.

The first situation is an efficiency problem. The second situation is a resilience problem. Individuals, households, cities, businesses large and small, farmers and even countries regularly provide for some level of resilience against all kinds of shocks. We buy house insurance, health insurance; wear seat belts and put money in savings; get an education to increase our options in life. These measures cost money and time, yet we usually find the investment more than worthwhile. Better safe than sorry.

The resilience idea has taken off recently and is increasingly seen alongside or even replacing established concepts like sustainability. “Resilience” is a good word that adds something new and useful to consider. What is the difference? In the context of agriculture, I think there are two big distinctions between sustainability and resilience.

First, there is the way things fail. Agricultural sustainability is about protecting nonrenewable resources; conserving what we have for future generations, renewing the health of soil and water to protect the future productivity (yield) of cropping systems. In contrast, according to authors Brian Walker and David Salt, resilience thinking involves acknowledging the potential for a system-wide breakdown, a catastrophe. Like Humpty Dumpty, some systems can never be put back together again. In nature, we see countless examples of irreversible changes, such as lakes that go from crystal clear, to perennially clouded with algae. Likewise, human civilizations (and their agricultural systems) can and do fail: the Roman Empire, Easter Island, the Mayans.

Second, there is the idea of the complex adaptive system. The idea of steady-state sustainability involves a relatively simple, closed agricultural system that behaves the same way, whether resources are abundant or scarce. The resilience idea applied to agriculture involves complex systems that adapt and change together, linking social and ecological processes. Soil, water, plants, livestock − the basic ecology of the food chain − are connected to transportation and processing infrastructure, the market economy, and human nutrition.

Resilience theory says that we could cross a threshold after which the agricultural system would transform itself into something completely different − and not necessarily in a good way. The threshold might be a very high price for diesel or phosphorus, rapid climate change, or a combination of factors. We don’t know exactly where that threshold is in agriculture, just as we don’t know when that next wave is going to hit the boat.

We have already experienced a radical shift in Iowa agriculture, a Humpty Dumpty-type moment. From the 1860s through the early 1950s, most Iowa farmers practiced a long crop rotation, with two to three years in small grains and pasture, followed by two to three years in row crops. It was integrated with livestock on the farm, cycled nutrients, managed weeds through rotation and tillage, and in the early years used on-farm energy for traction (oats-powered horses). One could say it was fairly resilient, at least for 90 years, weathering many changes in technology, crop breeding and public policy. However, after World War II the sudden availability of inexpensive nitrogen fertilizer, first-generation broadleaf and grass herbicides, and favorable government policies, precipitated a major transformation to the corn, beans and concentrated livestock systems that we see today. Once the process was underway, there was no going back.

Is the current agricultural food system resilient? According to the research on resilience, efficiency has a dark side. Efficient, streamlined systems have eliminated unprofitable, redundant features. To translate to agriculture, there is no need to grow nitrogen-fixing alfalfa when fertilizer is cheap. Livestock can be raised more efficiently in a specialized operation. Regional differences in climate and infrastructure lead to “comparative advantage” so it simply does not pay to keep any cattle on grass in northern Iowa. However, redundancy can be a life-saver if there is a sudden change in input costs, land prices or climate. As the saying goes, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Resilience might be improved by investing in the know-how, tools and infrastructure to produce different varieties or species of crops and livestock, reduce dependence on inputs or find alternative markets. This is “inefficient” and certainly expensive under the current system. But like insurance, by the time we wish we carried some, it could be too late.

Other insurance policies that could provide some system resilience:

  • Growing perennial plants keeps roots in the ground and limits soil erosion in the event of a severe rain event. Fields of corn and soybeans are vulnerable from October through June.
  • Keeping the groundwater clean and the creeks swimmable; investing in parks and privately-owned natural areas will keep options open for future generations who may need to use the land in different ways. Areas that sacrifice their quality of life could miss out on economic opportunities.
  • A diversity of people with a wide range of skills in a strong local community can help one another out in uncertain times, providing resilience. Who knows, they might let you borrow a piece of equipment.

Tremendous changes are ahead in energy, fertilizer, global commodities markets (both demand and supply) and most of all, climate. And those are just the known threats. Unfortunately, the market and government farm policies are largely discouraging resilience right now. The average farmer probably can’t afford resilience. Likewise, most university and corporate agricultural research continues to pursue efficiency and optimization. With a laser focus on yield trend lines, will agriculture be able to flex its knees when that next wave hits?

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture can best help all Iowa farmers by laying a foundation for resilience in the face of future change. Research and extension on alternative crops, new farming and food systems, and new technologies can help our state protect its precious natural resource – sustainability − and prepare for the unpredictable − resilience.

Back to Leopold Letter Spring 2011