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Joshua Zeunert
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
Introduction
The ongoing global expansion of industrial agriculture and agribusiness continues to rapidly transform
global food systems from localised to globalised, small to expansive in scale, low to high tech, and from
natural and organic to industrial and synthetic (Berry, 1977; Bowler, 1992; Roberts, 2008; Weis, 2010;
Stierand, 2012: 67–68). In 1960, agriculture’s ‘green revolution’ was in the early stages of rapid deploy-
ment; at this time, the world’s population stood at three billion with 34% urbanised. This inappropriately
named approach to agriculture (due to its use of the term ‘green’ as discussed throughout this chapter) has
led to large increases in food production. These are achieved through use of synthetic fertilisers, chemical
pesticides, large irrigation systems, plant breeding, increased mechanisation, and utilisation of efficiency-
oriented technologies. Consequently, less than half a century later in 2008, the global population exceeded
seven billion, with over 50% living in urban areas. Feeding four billion extra people in this timeframe is an
extraordinary agricultural feat, but some observers have questioned whether this system of agriculture can
be sustained (Lowe, 2005: 60; LA and GLA, 2010: 9; Cribb, 2010).
Serious questions of sustainability and resilience are notwithstanding the push for continued deploy-
ment and intensification of industrial agriculture to supply ongoing population (and economic) growth
projections (FAO, 2011a: vii, ix; Chapters 19 and 25). Neoliberalism is a central force behind continual
growth (Harvey, 2005; Rosin et al., 2012; Wolf, 2014; Springer et al., 2016), with agribusiness a key compo-
nent of this market-led approach. Yet finite resource-dependent systems – industrial agriculture being the
focus in this chapter – are ultimately temporary when viewed across longer time-scales (Heinberg, 2005;
Kunstler, 2006; Erisman et al., 2008; Pimentel, 2009; Heingerg and Lerch, 2010; Zeunert, 2011; Moreau et
al., 2012). Accordingly, food systems must shift from consumptive, energy intensive, ecologically destructive,
and unsustainable to restorative, wherein widespread implementation of regenerative practices rebuilds lost
biocapacity, increases resilience, and establishes equilibrium between natural and cultural systems.
This chapter examines the concepts of sustainability, resilience, and regenerative practice as applied to agri-
cultural landscape and food systems. It is consequently structured in three sections that define and discuss
these topic areas. A brief ‘flyover’ identifying key literature is necessary due to the sheer amount of discourse
within these broad topics. Accordingly, reference throughout is made to key chapters in this volume and
other relevant sources. Primary focus is given to developed countries and prominence placed on terrestrial
food production (see Chapter 11 for Seascapes). This chapter addresses medium and long-term challenges
16
Challenges in agricultural
sustainability and resilience
Towards regenerative practice
Joshua Zeunert
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through a holistic, systems-thinking approach oriented at collective and common interests for natural and
cultural wellbeing rather than isolated, individual, or corporate interests (Chapter 24; Bowler, 1992; Linn,
1999; Freyfogle, 2007; Tornaghi, 2012; Claeys, 2015; Lowder et al., 2016; Cresswell Riol, 2016; Gaarde, 2017).
Sustainable agricultural landscapes
It is useful to examine the macro characteristics of food systems’ sustainability rather than the minutiae.
Firstly, sustainability must be defined; the most widely used is the Brundtland Commission’s Report ‘Our
Common Future’ (WCED, 1987: 8), being “development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Despite the report’s thinly veiled
economic bias (van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996: 6–7) and it being over three decades since it was coined,
this definition provides a useful intergenerational perspective (albeit generational perceptions of what con-
stitutes a ‘need’ continue to shift). It is also important to consider both prior timescales and possible future
scenarios beyond short-term observations and the current cheap fossil fuel era for a wider view of sustain-
ability (Holmgren, 2002; Heinberg, 2005; Kunstler, 2006; Holmgren, 2009; Heinberg and Lerch, 2010; Weis,
2010; Herbert, 2011; Nikiforuk, 2012; Leggett, 2014; Fücks, 2015; Morgan, 2015).
Decades of discourse have blurred the term sustainability (Cronon, 1995; van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996;
Nordhaus and Shellenberger, 2004; Freyfogle, 2006; Jensen and McBay, 2009), with economic and social
sustainability factors skewing its central meaning from the ability to balance human consumption with
planetary biocapacity. The usefulness of sustainability is increased when combined with the concepts of
resilience and regenerative practices, both examined later in this chapter.
Agricultural, food, and landscape systems concern multiple stakeholders with, at times, conflicting per-
spectives. In order to understand agricultural and food sustainability across molecular to global scales and
timeframes ranging from seconds to centuries (Lichtfouse, 2012), we must cultivate a ‘systems perspective’.
As defined by the author, sustainability is particularly relevant when food systems are seen as:
Our collective and intergenerational ability to feed ourselves and manage landscape, natural and social systems for
food in perpetuity.
‘Feeding ourselves’ can refer to the individual, family, community, state, national, or global scale, depending
on perspective. Ultimately, however, sustainability necessitates global measurement in view of our collective
reliance on Earth’s biocapacity and resilience. The following subsections environmental, economic, and social
examine agricultural and food sustainability factors, adapting the ‘triple bottom line’ themes (Elkington,
2004). While the merits of these categories are debated in the discourse, they nonetheless provide a useful
framework for discussing sustainability challenges of landscape and food.
Environmental sustainability
There are several key concepts and measures – albeit contested – regarding environmental sustainability and
resource management relevant to food and landscape systems:
• Carrying capacity (also known as ecological or biological limits), posits that the maximum population
size that can be sustained is based on the food, habitat, water, and other resources available in the envi-
ronment and Earth (Vogt, 1948; Odum, 1971; Catton, 1980; Brown, 1996; Barrett and Odum, 2000;
Marten, 2001; Lane, 2010; Graymore et al., 2010);
• Overshoot (Ehrlich, 1968; Meadows, 1972; Catton, 1980; Marten, 2001; Meadows et al., 2004;
MacLean, 2008) occurs when a population exceeds the long-term carrying capacity of its environ-
ment, leading to collapse, crash, or die-off (and is known as being ‘Malthusian’);
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
233
• Ecological and food footprints (Rees, 1992; Wackernagel, 1994; Khan and Hanjra, 2009; Khan et al.,
2009; Oppenlander, 2012; Oppenlander, 2013; WWF, 2016; Peters et al., 2016) are based on appropriat-
ing carrying capacity for an individual or population to determine the area of productive land (in acres/
hectares) and water required for resource provision, or the number of ‘Earths’ required to support and
assimilate wastes for all activities (or for specific factors such as food itself). See for example, GFN, www.
footprintnetwork.org/en/. In the year 2000, for example, London was calculated as consuming 293 times
its spatial footprint and 42 times its biocapacity (Mostafavi and Doherty, 2010: 216–217); with the city
accommodating over 1.5 million new inhabitants since then. Weller (2009) documents the escalation of
‘McMansion’ housing in Boomtown, demonstrating that an average household in Perth (Australia) requires
14.5 hectares of productive land, with food needing over three times as much area than any other factor
(Weller, 2009: 440–441). Roggema and Keeffe (2014: 12) calculate that a single McDonalds restaurant
would require a 30 kilometre high urban farm on its roof to accommodate its food footprint.
Seven decades ago (and with a global population of around 2.5 billion),
Vogt (1948) noted that:
We must realise that not only does every area have a limited carrying capacity, but also that this car-
rying capacity is shrinking and the demand growing. Until this understanding becomes an intrinsic
part of our thinking and wields a powerful influence on our formation of national and international
policies we are scarcely likely to see in what direction our destiny lies.
(Vogt, 1948: 80)
Human ingenuity has temporarily and very successfully circumvented carrying capacity through utilising
finite fossil fuel energy sources in agriculture (Lane, 2010), as explained by Odum (1971),
A whole generation of citizens thought that the carrying capacity of the earth was proportional to
the amount of land under cultivation and that higher efficiencies in using the energy of the sun had
arrived. This is a sad hoax, for industrial man no longer eats potatoes made from solar energy, now he
eats potatoes partly made of oil.
(Odum, 1971: 115)
Fukuoka (1978: 94), a farmer himself, reinforces Odum’s argument, asserting that industrial agricultural-
ists are profit-oriented “manufacturers” producing “watery chemical concoctions”, mixtures of “nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potash” using “synthetic feed, chemicals, and hormones”. Kunstler (2006) presents a wide
perspective on civilisation’s fossil fuel dependence for sustenance – what he terms a ‘long emergency’ – and
here, specifically highlights the acute predicament presented by industrial food systems:
To put it simply, [we] have been eating oil and natural gas for the past century, at an ever-accelerating
pace. Without the massive ‘inputs’ of cheap gasoline and diesel fuel for machines, irrigation, and truck-
ing, or petroleum-based herbicides and pesticides, or fertilizers made out of natural gas, [we] will be
compelled to radically reorganize the way food is produced, or starve.
(Kunstler, 2006: 239)
Erisman et al. (2008: 637) quantify Kunstler’s confronting assertion by estimating that almost half (48%) of
the people on the Earth (in 2008) were fed as a result of food dependent upon synthetic nitrogen fertiliser
use (made from natural gas – see Figure 16.1). Adding to this predicament, synthetic nitrogen fertiliser
accumulates in soils and results in high acidity; a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UN
FAO) estimate states that around one-third of global arable land is now so acidic that it cannot support
high-yielding crops (cited in Roberts, 2008: 214).
Joshua Zeunert
234
With respect to measures of human labour ‘inputs’, green revolution-based agriculture appears extraor-
dinarily productive, for example, only 1% or less of the population in the UK and USA are engaged in
agriculture (World Bank, n.d.a). Yet in terms of energy input (fossil fuel ‘calories’) for energy returned
(nutritional calories), industrial agriculture is staggeringly inefficient (Weis, 2010). In some countries (pri-
marily those incorporating green revolution agricultural methods), Pimentel (2009: 19) notes that the use
of fossil energy has increased more than a hundredfold as compared to the early 1950s, also noting that
the developed world consumes 70% of the world’s fossil energy. Such energy use is both inequitable and
intergenerationally unsustainable.
Heinberg (2005) provides a tacitly simple indicator of food system sustainability:
Food is energy. And it takes energy to get food. These two facts, taken together, have always established
the biological limits to the human population and always will.
(Heinberg, 2005: 1)
The Ehrlich’s controversial book The Population Bomb (1968) (influenced by Vogt’s (1948) Road to Survival
(Desrochers and Hoffbauer, 2009)) posited human population overshoot. Marten clearly articulates this concept:
Sometimes a population grows so rapidly that it overshoots carrying capacity before negative feedback
can stop the increase. If a population overshoots, it usually depletes its food so severely that negative
feedback in the form of more deaths and fewer births quickly reduces it below carrying capacity.
(Marten, 2001: 24)
The green revolution’s success has resulted in widespread dismissal of overshoot and carrying capacity concepts
from ‘Cornucopian’ perspectives, although much counter debate results from ‘Malthusian’ viewpoints (see
Figure 16.1 Modern fertiliser plants use the Haber–Bosch process to create synthetic nitrogen for exten-
sive global use in agriculture (see Chapter 10). Thus, seeking to expand industrial agriculture,
for example, into regions in Africa (see Chapter 21), requires significant investment in infra-
structure, machinery, knowledge, and their associated costs (see, for example, Chapter 19).
Traditional fertiliser utilises either human (Chapter 23), animal, or compostable wastes, or
their combination.
Source: Joshua Zeunert
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
235
for example a special issue on the topic in The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (2009) 1(3)). Cor-
nucopian critics of overpopulation believe that Malthusian notions misunderstand “the inherent capacity
of market economies to tap into creative human brains and to continually deliver innovative solutions to
pressing problems” (Desrochers, 2009: n.p.). Yet cornucopian solutions still usually require industrial and
technological processes that rely on finite energy sources. Apt, perhaps is Lovelock’s assertion that “If there
were a billion people living on the planet, we could do whatever we please. But there are nearly seven bil-
lion. At this scale, life as we know it today is not sustainable” (Lovelock in Goodell, 2010: 91). When using
a broader timescale that accounts for limited and diminishing remaining supplies of oil, natural gas, and
phosphorus (that form the basis of industrial agriculture), a limited timeframe exists for food systems (and
indeed market economies) to transition to sustainable resource based modes of operation (Lane, 2010).
Yet continuing population growth (Gerland et al., 2014; UN, 2015) and increasing consumption patterns
heighten the likelihood of widespread future food crises (Brown, 1996).
Dismissal of overshoot for the human population is usually based on short-term and econocentric
perspectives, anthropocentrism, self and/or corporate interests, persistent dualisms (such as the separation
of nature and culture), and even human arrogance. As noted by Klein (2014: 21), unlike economic systems,
nature’s laws are not malleable. Die-off and overshoot are notoriously difficult to predict (Ehrlich and
Ehrlich, 2009), yet this does not obviate their likelihood and therefore the need to plan and act for their
avoidance.
The sustainability of food systems would result when the resources invested in agriculture and food
(their ecological footprint or embodied energy) are balanced with the amount of biocapacity that is being
naturally or intentionally replenished and regenerated. This ‘net balance’ needs to be inclusive of all associ-
ated processes in agricultural and food system inputs and outputs, for example: not drawing more freshwater
from the Earth than what is naturally replenished; returning more carbon and nutrients into the soil than
taken out; maintaining or increasing (top) soil cover/depth and health; not drawing more nutrients and fer-
tilisers than are being replenished; and not discarding more wastes than can be assimilated through healthy
terrestrial, aquatic, and seascape ecologies. Net balance is far from achieved in current food and agricultural
systems, which create substantial impacts and demonstrate various unsustainable outcomes. Conventional
agriculture and food systems are:
• The largest global consumer of freshwater resources at 70% (Pimentel et al., 2004: 909; FAO, 2011a: 26);
• Responsible for over 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and crop production and
conversion of forests to farmland (FAO, 2016: vi);
• Occupying nearly 40% of the world’s ice-free land surface in the last several decades (Ramankutty
et al., 2008, World Bank, n.d.b);
• Using and releasing enormous amounts of pollutants and chemicals into terrestrial, aquatic and atmos-
pheric environments and being the leading source of pollution in many countries (Carson, 1962;
WWF, n.d.);
• Sending regular food items enormous distances to reach consumers (‘food miles’, see for example Gar-
nett, 2003; Halweil, 2004; Gaballa and Abraham, 2008; Pimentel, 2009; Bomford, 2010; Jansma et al.,
2012; Denny, 2012);
• Wasting 20–50% of food in developed countries and one-third globally throughout the production
and supply chain (FAO, 2011b: v); and
• Failing to capture and return food and compostable wastes in production cycles, for example, in Aus-
tralia food waste makes up around 40% of the domestic waste stream (Boland, 2010: 2), with ‘waste
miles’ also problematic (also see Chapter 23).
Vast journeys are undertaken by industrial foodstuffs trafficked through global freight logistics and accord-
ingly many producers and retailers use durable, horticulturally bred fruit and vegetable varieties (often at
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the expense of flavour, see Blazey and Varkulevicius, 2006: 7; Steel, 2008). Increased interest in food sys-
tem sustainability has been assisted by illuminating studies describing and quantifying ‘food miles’ that can
readily demonstrate global foodstuffs containing more embodied fossil fuel calories than nutrient calories
(Garnett, 2003; Halweil, 2004; Heinberg, 2005; Gaballa and Abraham, 2008; Roberts, 2008; Pimentel, 2009;
Bomford, 2010; Ladner, 2011; Jansma et al., 2012; Denny, 2012). Gaballa and Abraham (2008) calculated
that the ‘food miles’ of Australia’s 29 most common food items cover a total distance of 70,803 kilometres,
which is equivalent to travelling nearly twice around the circumference of the Earth (40,072 kilometres),
or travelling three times around Australia’s coastline. Such bizarre and yet commonplace scenarios exploit
cheap energy sources, inexpensive labour markets, and trade agreements, meaning that global food can rou-
tinely be sold more cheaply than local food. Food miles are further enabled through post-harvest preserva-
tion and produce treatments (such as irradiation, picking unripe produce and later gassing with ethylene;
optimising packaging) and a complex array of refrigerated and frozen food transportation logistics in trucks,
trains, boats, containers, ships and planes. Supermarkets and produce retailers have been noted for a lack of
seasonality – a ‘permanent global summer time’ (PGST) (see Blythman, 2004) – whereby global shipping
supersedes local availability and facilitates year-round supply. All of these techniques depend on (cheap) fossil
fuels for economic and logistical viability.
Economic sustainability
The dominant global economic systems since the late 1970s embrace free-market, capitalist, and neo-
liberal models whose key characteristics include extensive economic liberalisation; free trade; priva-
tisation; open markets; deregulation; a reduction in government and public sector spending; activities
and intervention. These enhance the role of the private and corporate sector in the economy (Bowler,
1992; Harvey, 2005; McMichael, 2009; Rosin et al., 2012; Wolf, 2014; Holt-Giménez, 2015; Springer
et al., 2016). Such economic models are underpinned by natural resources and ecological systems in
order to generate financial returns, gross domestic product (GDP) and necessary perpetual growth –
yet these environmental factors are subjugated or altogether disregarded ‘externalities’ based on the
fallacy of natural resources’ infinite supply (Saul, 2005; Weis, 2010; Heinberg, 2011; Bauwens cited in
Zeunert, 2017: 230). This is demonstrated in State of the Environment reporting (see for example Seager
et al., 1995; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2001) and The State of Food and Agriculture (see for
example FAO, 2016), which have for decades documented diminishing biocapacity, renewable and
non-renewable resources.
There have been numerous unsuccessful efforts to improve capitalist and neoliberal economic systems’
sustainability outcomes through treaties, arrangements, policies, reworking and balancing parameters (see
for example Hawken et al., 2000; Elkington, 2004; Daly and Farley, 2011). Economic factors, however, con-
tinue to dominate and subjugate social and environmental concerns. Accordingly, our economic system and
our environment are in fundamental opposition, which is well articulated by Klein (2014):
Our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs
to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands
to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not
the laws of nature.
(Klein, 2014: 21)
The resulting perpetual and ever-increasing output and efficiency ‘treadmill’ substantially challenges exist-
ing and future agricultural systems operating within global neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005; Rosin et al., 2012;
Wolf, 2014; Springer et al., 2016) and is articulated by Abbey (1994):
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
237
We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-indus-
trial empire – a crackpot machine – that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot
manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate.
(Abbey in Cooley, 1994: 21)
To offset agriculture’s perpetual growth challenge some countries provide economic subsidisation (Bland-
ford et al., 2015: 418–419) (for example Indonesia, Finland, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Iceland – at
the time of writing) and these can help to support the viability of smaller land holdings and more diverse
operations. In contrast, countries with minimal or lower subsidies (New Zealand, Australia, Chile, South
Africa) typically require larger, industrial scales of operation and precise technologies to facilitate financial
survival (for example image sensing and drone technology). Lack of subsidisation can create heightened
pressure for agriculturalists – combined with the intrinsic exclusion of environmental factors – resulting in
routine exploitation of the environment to maintain economic output and undermining long-term sus-
tainability (FAO, 2016: 98). Yet the FAO also notes that, for example, input subsidies can create inefficient
use of agrochemicals and actually increase the emissions from production (FAO, 2016: xvi). The predica-
ment of agriculture and food systems’ increasing assimilation into neoliberal economic structures is even
retrospectively lamented by a key sponsor:
We need the World Bank, we need the IMF, we need all the big foundations, we need all the govern-
ments to admit that for 30 years we all blew it, including me, when I was president. We blew it. We
were wrong to believe that food is like some other product in international trade. And we all have to
go back to a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture. We should go back to
a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency.
(Clinton, 2008, cited in Cebon, 2010: 30)
As noted by Newell, however, transition to sustainable economic and social systems is substantially chal-
lenged by:
conflicts, trade-offs and compromises that are implied by a fundamental restructuring of the economy
and the relations of power which will determine which pathway is chosen. The ‘incumbent’ regime
of existing actors and interests that benefit from on-going reliance on a fossil fuel economy and that
have played such a decisive role in the development of capitalism over the last century and beyond will
not give up their position easily. Nor in likelihood will states that depend indirectly on the revenues
generated by these actors and that have, so far, shown little appetite for initiating structural change.
(Newell, 2015: 71)
Social sustainability
Sustainability aspirations for food systems require more than sound natural resource management and eco-
nomic systems. Are agricultural and food systems able to be socially sustainable? This important question
is primarily examined in Parts 5–7 of this book (see for example Chapters 31 and 32) with only a brief
overview provided here.
Agribusiness is a more befitting term than agriculture to describe how food is grown, processed, trans-
ported, and consumed in developed (and increasingly, developing) countries (see Chapters 20 and 21). The
‘culture’ of agriculture has been placed under corporatised pressure; commodified, processed, marketed,
and traded for maximum profit for shareholders (Norberg-Hodge et al., 2001; Chapter 31). Roberts (2008)
presents a significant range of social and economic challenges in The End of Food, outlining, for example,
Joshua Zeunert
238
the ‘grotesque symmetry’ of the overnourished one billion individuals versus one billion undernourished
(Roberts, 2008: 84; statistics confirmed by the UN FAO (FAO, 2011a: ix)). Thus while an adequate volume
of food is produced under the current food system, it is not justly or fairly distributed and consumed, nor
necessarily of optimum quality and nutritional value. Accordingly, Pimentel (2009: 1–2) uses World Health
Organisation data stating that 60% of the world population is malnourished, that is, not having the right
balance of nutrients.
Failure to equitably distribute food has been and continues to be an ongoing issue, despite continued
population growth potentially heightening this quandary. Most agricultural (and indeed much wider) lit-
erature assumes ongoing population growth as a predetermined outcome (see for example Godfray et al.,
2010; Gerland et al., 2014, UN, 2015; Chapter 19). That is, this discourse presumes that current government
policies and attitudes remain pro-population growth and that no mechanisms are introduced to disincen-
tivise or discourage it. Ongoing population growth effectively protracts ‘business as usual’; continued and
increased consumption, new markets in emerging economies, expansion of western dietary patterns, and
thus growth in industrial agriculture. Assuming and indeed ensuring manifestation of these scenarios are
hallmarks of neoliberalism and its insatiable appetite for deregulated growth (Harvey, 2005; McMichael,
2009; Rosin et al., 2012; Wolf, 2014; Holt-Giménez, 2015; Springer et al., 2016). Yet as noted by Lowe
(2005: 108), the future is something we are creating, not somewhere we are going. Similarly, O’Hear (1999)
deconstructs the notion of ‘progress’ as being desirable, optimal or inevitable. Our daily choices and deci-
sions collectively determine the course of future outcomes and their sustainability; whether to endorse and
contribute to these potential outcomes, or whether to lobby and make sure that personal practices do not
contribute to their continuation.
Accordingly, it is important to recognise that consumption patterns and agriculture are intercon-
nected; supply and demand are symbiotic. Individuals and communities can yield collective influence
in shaping food systems to either support or challenge powerful global agribusiness and governance
structures (see Chapter 33). Citizens’ purchasing habits underpin food system producers, their practices
and ethics (see Chapter 24), whether a local producer or global agribusiness corporation. Subsequent
collective demand determines the viability of food and agricultural operations and their associated
landscape practices.
Steel (2008) presents a wide spectrum of social sustainability challenges in Hungry City, such as obesity
stemming from sedentary Western lifestyles, over-consumption, and increased processed food (with recent
obesity spikes evident in non-Western regions such as the Pacific Islands and Middle East). There are a
multitude of consumption trends and social drivers creating a spectrum of health issues and sustainability
impacts (Kearney, 2010).
Dietary consumption significantly determines sustainability, animal welfare, ecological footprints and
accordingly shapes and degrades vast landscape and seascape areas (Maas, 1999; Pimentel and Pimentel,
2003; FAO, 2006; Jeavons, 2006; Jarosz, 2009; Goodland, 2010; Oppenlander, 2012; Oppenlander, 2013).
Maas (1999: 61–63, 94–115) and MVRDV (2010) visually communicate the additional spatial area of pro-
ductive land required for meat eating societies compared with vegetarian. Animal products such as beef,
seafood, and dairy, for example, require immense productive areas and embody resources and practices such
as freshwater consumption, grain crops (fed to animals – 40% of total cereals (Locke et al., 2013)) and ocean
dredging (to feed farmed fish and for fertiliser). Substantial adoption of plant-based diets would greatly
reduce agriculture’s spatial and ecological footprint and deliver significant sustainability benefits (Pimentel
and Pimentel, 2003; FAO, 2006; Oppenlander, 2012; Oppenlander, 2013; Peters et al., 2016; FAO, 2016),
while freeing land areas and resources for other uses and concerns such as conservation (see Chapter 17;
Wilson, 2016; Gordon et al., 2017).
Pimentel and Pimentel (2003: 661S) state that the volume of grain fed to US livestock is sufficient
to feed about 840 million people who follow a plant-based diet (the US population was 290 million in
2003). Jeavons (2006: 248–249) documents the spatial areas required by dietary choices (in fossil fuel and
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
239
post-fossil fuel eras), stating that a high animal product diet requires 31,000–63,000 square feet per person
(2,880–5,853 square metres) versus 7,000 square feet (650 square metres) for a vegan under a ‘biointensive’
production method (both account for fossil fuels availability); this demonstrates spatial variations by factors
of four to over eight. Another measure to articulate animal products’ intensive spatial impacts is New Zea-
land’s (the world’s largest dairy exporter) average accommodation of 2.85 cows per hectare (LIC, 2016: 7);
one hectare can accommodate 15 vegan diets under Jeavons’ production methods (2006; 248–249). Peters’
comparison of ten US diet types found that “carrying capacity was generally higher for scenarios with less
meat and highest for the lacto-vegetarian diet” (Peters et al., 2016: 1).
In recent decades, increased availability of dietary environmental data, as well as scrutiny and exposure
of food system practices – animal welfare in documentaries for example – help to explain increases in veg-
etarianism, veganism, and local and short-chain diets. These trends, however, are largely situated in devel-
oped countries. Accordingly, they are greatly overshadowed by increased uptake of meat and dairy-heavy
western diets (and thus expansion of these agricultural systems – see Chapters 9 and 25) in highly populated
developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil (Pimentel and Pimentel, 2003; Pingali, 2007; Jarosz,
2009; MVRDV, 2009; MVRDV, 2010; Popkin et al., 2012; Chapter 20).
Resilient agricultural landscapes
The concept of resilience is applied in this section to agricultural resources and practices, associated infra-
structures and pertinently, to the social systems that provide the operational basis and functioning of food
systems. In this context, the author defines this as:
The ability and capacity for agricultural landscape and food systems, through their synergistic social, governance,
economic structures and processes, to withstand challenges, survive, adapt, and quickly recover from disturbance,
chronic stresses, and acute shocks.
Numerous chapters in this book relate to food systems’ resilience, most pertinently Food Sovereignty
(Chapter 31), Food Justice and Politics (Chapter 32), Alternative Agriculture (Chapter 10), Food Security
(Chapters 20 and 25), Peri-Urban Agriculture (Chapters 14 and 15), Water and Irrigation (Chapter 19),
Nutrients and Waste (Chapter 23), and Climate Change (Chapter 18; Fedoroff et al., 2010: 833). As outlined
in Table 16.1, resilience relates to and can be framed by short-term and medium- to long-term challenges,
disturbances, stresses, and shocks.
Oft-cited projections and models of continued population (for example UN, 2015) and economic
growth posit substantially increasing food outputs, such as a 50% increase by 2030 and 100% by 2050 (see
Chapters 19 and 25; Conway, 1998; Weis, 2010; FAO, 2016). These proponents suggest that food system
growth and resilience can be achieved through continued technological pursuits, advancements and inten-
sification, citing that increased yields and ‘efficiencies’ will continue an upward trend (see for example
Simon, 1996; DeGregori, 2002; Desrochers, 2009; Godfray et al., 2010; Fedoroff et al., 2010; Chapters 18,
19, 23 and 25). Such perspectives usually use recent historical data (several decades up to the past half-
century) and do not interrogate the longevity and quality of landscapes and the economic costs of required
resources to underpin their models for increased yields, efficiency, and technological advancements. The last
five to seven decades of remarkably increased food production is no guarantee of continued production or
growth (Brown, 1996; Norberg-Hodge et al., 2001; Lowe, 2005: 60; LA and GLA, 2010: 9; Cribb, 2010). In
2009, for example, Pimentel (2009: 1) calculated that per capita availability of world cereal grains had been
declining for 24 years.
It is difficult to conceive how a global food system and population so fundamentally reliant on plentiful
cheap oil and natural gas (Erisman et al., 2008; Weis, 2010; Herbert, 2011) will obtain the necessary substi-
tute energy sources to facilitate unhindered upward growth. It seems likely, therefore, that at some point in
Table 16.1 Key short-term and medium- to long-term factors that relate to the resilience of food systems.
Short-Term Resilience Challenges References
Natural disasters: extreme weather events and their
increased volatility under climate change (drought/
heat waves/inundation/storms/extreme heat/
earthquakes)
Burton et al., 2013; Leal Filho, 2015; FAO, 2016;
Chapter 18
Shocks and geopolitical conflicts: relating to finite
natural resources required in food systems (fresh
water, natural gas (e.g. as synthetic nitrogen),
phosphorus and fertilisers, oil (petrol, diesel))
Wright, 2009; FAO, 2016
Economic downturns and recession: social disturbance,
shocks, and potential collapse (which can also be an
ongoing occurrence)
Kunstler, 2006; Berlin, 2016
Trade and diplomatic arrangements: affecting the flow
of resources, commodities and food
Harvey, 2005; Cebon, 2010; Howard, 2016
Medium- to Long Term Resilience Challenges References
Climate change impacts: such as climatic variation
and shifting of weather patterns in relation
to landholdings, soils, fixed settlements and
infrastructures that are built around stable and
predictable climate patterns for yields, efficiency,
and returns on investment
Flannery, 2005, Lovelock, 2006; Holmgren, 2009; FAO,
2011a; Nabhan, 2013; Burton et al., 2013; Leal Filho,
2015; FAO, 2016; Chapter 18
Availability, affordability, and longevity of finite
natural resources and fossil fuels required in food
systems: fresh water reserves, topsoil, natural gas,
phosphorus, fertilizers, pesticides, crude oil, diesel
and petrol
Barrett and Odum, 2000; Holmgren, 2002; Meadows
et al., 2004; Heinberg, 2005; Campbell, 2005;
Goodstein, 2005; Kunstler, 2006; Heinberg, 2007;
Erisman et al., 2008; Hopkins, 2008; Holmgren, 2009;
Pimentel, 2009; Jarosz, 2009; Cribb, 2010; Weis,
2010; Deffeyes, 2010; Heinberg and Lerch, 2010;
Herbert, 2011; FAO, 2011a; Nikiforuk, 2012; Leggett,
2014; FAO, 2016
Availability and exhaustion of arable land suited to
agricultural production: exhaustion of soil nutrients;
loss of topsoil; erosion; soil health and soil pollution
(and resultant issues of soil salinity, acidification,
nutrient depletion, compaction, inability to support
edible and/or high yielding crops)
Jackson, 1980; FAO, in Roberts, 2008: 214; Niles, 2008;
Cribb, 2010; Jackson, 2010; Lichtfouse, 2012; FAO,
2016
Ongoing population growth and overpopulation Catton, 1980; Brown, 1996; Meadows et al., 2004;
Pimentel, 2009; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 2009; Lovelock in
Goodell, 2010: 91; Cribb, 2010; Gerland et al., 2014,
UN, 2015
Food sovereignty, control of food systems and parasitic
corporate modes: across all stages of food systems
(profitability; bioengineering; market domination;
seed patents; terminator genes; lawsuits and
litigation; creeping acquisitions; concentrated power
structures; monopolisation)
Steel, 2008; Roberts, 2008; Jarosz, 2009; Cribb, 2010;
Cebon, 2010; Ladner, 2011; ABC, 2011; Rosin et al.,
2012; Wolf, 2014; Claeys, 2015; McMichael, 2015;
Howard, 2016; Cresswell Riol, 2016; Gaarde, 2017
Overconsumption and dietary choice: such as
increasing meat and dairy consumption
Maas, 1999; Pimentel and Pimentel, 2003; FAO, 2006;
Jeavons, 2006; Pingali, 2007; Jarosz, 2009; MVRDV,
2009; Goodland, 2010; Cribb, 2010; MVRDV,
2010; Popkin et al., 2012; Oppenlander, 2012;
Oppenlander, 2013; Peters et al., 2016; FAO, 2016
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
241
Medium- to Long Term Resilience Challenges References
Diversion of food (grains) for meat production Pimentel and Pimentel, 2003; Pimentel, 2009; Locke
et al., 2013
Diversion of food (grains) for biofuels/gas/petrol/
ethanol production
Pimentel, 2009; Kullander, 2010
Urban sprawl, real estate development and land
speculation: consuming urban and peri-urban
agricultural land and subsequent economically
unviable agricultural land
Stewart and Duane, 2009; Chapters 14 & 15
Significant distances: presented between agricultural
production areas and urban consumption,
heightened through fossil fuel price rises and
subsequent increased food prices
Gaballa and Abraham, 2008
Decreased population proportions: engaged and
skilled in food production, loss of intergenerational
knowledge and skill transfer (average age of farmers,
lack of youth in developed agriculture, dwindling
labour bases)
Berry, 1977; Allen, 2010; Allen and Wilson, 2012
Loss of cultural traditions: practices, varieties,
homogenisation of food landscapes, food crops and
loss of agrobiodiversity
FAO, 1999; Norberg-Hodge, 2001; Steel, 2008
Lack of visibility of food production: in daily life by
urban inhabitants and resultant disconnection from
perceived importance
Gobster, 2007; Zeunert, 2011
Perceptions, prevalent binary dualisms: town/country;
urban/rural; culture/nature and production/
consumption, reinforcing marginalisation rather
than the integration of food production
Chapter 12
Resistance to visual character: of urban and peri-urban
agriculture in many nations seeking to express
‘modernity’ and wealth
Zeunert, 2011; Gyertyán, 2014; Morgan, 2015;
Chapters 12 & 30
Lack of land protection: facilitation mechanisms
and planning zoning for peri-urban and urban
agriculture
LA and GLA, 2010; Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 & 26
the foreseeable future there will be a return to agriculture systems less reliant on fossil fuel inputs (Kunstler,
2006; Odum and Odum, 2008; Chapter 10).
Many developed cities only possess three or four days of food stocks, revealing production and dis-
tribution vulnerability and small margins for interruptions and errors. A London Assembly and Greater
London Authority report described this as “sleepwalking into a major problem” (LA and GLA, 2010: 9).
Continual food supplies are enabled by transportation and logistics networks linking producers, proces-
sors, distributors, and retailers. Accordingly, a resilient food supply is not only vulnerable to finite natural
resource dependence (as examined in the Sustainability section) but also to agreeable global relations and the
resilience of multiple co-dependent infrastructural, economic, trade, and diplomacy networks. Increasingly
volatile climatic conditions, which are widely forecast to increase into the 21st century, present substantial
additional challenges across this production and supply chain (FAO, 2016).
The importance of biological diversity in providing increased ecological resilience is well documented and
understood (see for example, the UN International Convention of Biological Diversity). For agricultural
systems, however, the concept of agricultural biodiversity (agrobiodiversity) is poorly or little understood
Joshua Zeunert
242
outside of some ‘alternative’ approaches (Chapters 10 and 24). Industrial agriculture’s reductive and con-
trolling system obviates diversity (Carson, 1962; Jackson, 1980; Norberg-Hodge et al., 2001; Steel, 2008).
The resultant homogenisation amalgamates cultures, practices, landscapes, crop varieties, and foodstuffs
(Norberg-Hodge et al., 2001; Steel, 2008; Roy and Ong, 2011; Speak and Kumar, 2016; Chapters 21 and
31). This is well articulated by a FAO report:
Since the 1900s, some 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers worldwide have left
their multiple local varieties and landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties [. . .] T
oday,
75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species.
(FAO, 1999)
Signatory nations to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (signed by 150 government
leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit) possess a legal obligation to preserve agrobiodiversity. ‘Natural’ and
diversified farming methods can encourage agrobiodiversity and biodiversity, such as through intercropping,
polycultures, companion planting, and use of natural predators, while also providing multiple ecosystem ser-
vices, reduced environmental externalities and need for off-farm inputs (Sandhu et al., 2010; Kremen and
Miles, 2012; Chapters 10 and 17). It is also crucial to ensure that seed collection, seed use, and seed swaps
maintain independence from corporate control and patents (Chapter 31). Such traditional farming practices,
however, make up an increasingly small proportion of industrial agriculture (Chapters 9 and 10). Subsequently,
many nations are failing to address agrobiodiversity issues, and certainly beyond storing seeds in seed banks.
These factors indicate a broader need to tackle sociocultural, power and economic structures within the
global, industrial food system to increase sustainability, resilience, and diversity (Howard, 2016; Chapter 31).
Humankind has become substantially urbanised since the enclosure of common land, industrialisation,
and, in particular, during the rapid economic development of emergent economies (such as China and
India) (Zeunert, 2017: 8–37). This rural-urban shift is evident in the aforementioned (less than) 1% of the
population engaged in agriculture in countries early to urbanise such as the USA and UK. While agricul-
tural production creates flow-on employment through processing, value-adding, consumption, and so forth,
proportions engaged in the production of food in developed economies are minor. In contrast, lower GDP
per-capita countries such as Guinea in Africa are in fact more resilient in respect to the ratio of food produc-
ers to food consumers, with 75% of their workforce engaged in agriculture (World Bank, n.d. a). This ratio is
declining globally (Satterthwaite et al., 2010), demonstrating intergenerational vulnerability in the loss of pre-
industrial agricultural knowledge and skills (see Chapter 21). Accordingly, large percentages of populations in
highly urbanised countries possess minimal to no access to land for food production and/or lack necessary
skills, with consumers wholly reliant on the resilience of their food systems. There are a small number of
communities attempting to prepare for post carbon, climate change era agriculture, and future food scenarios
(Odum and Odum, 2008; Holmgren, 2009; Heinberg and Lerch, 2010; Berlin, 2016), largely without gov-
ernment support or funding (such as Transition Towns and Networks (Hopkins, 2008; Audet, 2016)).
Regenerative agricultural landscapes
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake
to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
(Bierce, 1911)
Despite decades of theory and discourse, sustainability practice has failed to deliver viable and resilient
long-term food systems. Can regenerative agriculture provide a blueprint for enduring food systems that, as
defined by the author:
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
243
Work with, rather than against, natural processes to promote ecosystem vitality, rebuild biocapacity and achieve
ongoing food system outputs exceeding their environmental food footprint?
Regenerative practices differ from sustainability pursuits (which essentially seeks net balance, continuance,
zero harm, or simply to increase efficiency) in that they actively strive to give back, renew, restore, and
achieve net benefit; to do more good than harm. Sustainability can arguably be anthropocentrically focussed,
whereas a regenerative philosophy is more ecocentric, viewing humankind as guests or stewards rather than
masters, or, as is evident in Bierce’s quote above, part of the cycle of life (also see Chapter 24). Regenerative
agriculture may be defined as aiming to grow as much food using as few resources as possible in a way that
revitalises soil and sequesters carbon (Toensmeier and Herren, 2016). Through biologically attuned produc-
tion methods, it aims to achieve increasingly complex ecological structures over time, so that yields increase
while external inputs decrease (Falk, 2013).
Regenerative practices can be traced over thousands of years of agriculture, land design, and practice, yet
are relatively rare within the current global food system (and indeed the history of agriculture) (Jackson,
1980). Nevertheless, certain practitioners have historically sought ‘beyond sustainability’ outcomes with-
out necessarily identifying as ‘regenerative’ (with 20th century proponents including George Washington
Carver, Albert Howard, William Albrecht, Evelyn Balfour, J.I. and Robert Rodale, Masanobu Fukuoka,
John Hamaker, Bhaskar Save, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, Sepp Holzer, Takao Furuno, and John
Jeavons). Permaculture (Mollison and Holmgren, 1978; see Chapters 10 and 24) is one such holistic expres-
sion, providing a theoretical and ethical framework for ‘permanent agriculture’ and living. Co-originator
Holmgren (2002) recognises the need to be regenerative in a capacity beyond sustainability, and Mollison’s
(1988) substantial text is one of many outlining its practical application. Other aspects of regenerative
agriculture incorporate restorative agriculture/farming (Shepard, 2013), natural farming (Fukuoka, 1978),
agroecology (Tull et al., 1987; Méndez et al., 2015; Chapters 17 and 24), forest gardening (Hart, 1996),
water harvesting (Yeomans, 1965), perennial agriculture (Jackson, 1980; Shepard, 2013; Toensmeier and
Herren, 2016), grazing landscape and animal management (Salatin, 2011), and some organic and biody-
namic practices (Chapter 10). Consistent with these practices, regenerative agriculture encourages, devel-
ops, and utilises rather than suppresses biodiversity, returning multiple ecosystem services and agricultural
benefits (Kremen and Miles, 2012).
Terminology’s constant flux, reinvention, and reuse has seen various incarnations of regenerative agricul-
ture, indicating its enduring principles and that it is, in essence, not a new construct. Early texts explicitly
utilising the term regenerative include Madden’s (1984) book (also using ‘organic’ and ‘sustainable’) and
several of the Rodale Institute’s (USA) mid 1980s texts (see for example Francis and Harwood, 1985; Tull
et al., 1987). The term has recently resurfaced following a period of adaptation, demonstrated by the 2015
Organic Consumers Association’s ‘Regeneration International’ and their online annotated bibliography
(http://regenerationinternational.org/annotated-bibliography/). This resurgence is in part due to the abil-
ity to sequester greenhouse gas emissions through building soil carbon and carbon farming (Niles, 2008;
White, 2013; Ohlson, 2014; White, 2014; Eisenstein, 2015; Toensmeier and Herren, 2016).
The notion of being regenerative in built environment and landscape design has been attributed to
landscape architect John Lyle’s Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development (1994) and developed through
a number of subsequent works (such as Van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996; McDonough and Braungart, 2002;
Capra, 2002; Reed, 2007; Benson and Roe, 2007; France, 2008; Papanek, 2009; McDonough and Braungart,
2013). Capra expresses design’s need to be regenerative through “bridg[ing] the wide gap between human
design and the ecologically sustainable systems of nature” (2002: 233). McDonough and Braungart have
achieved success through articulating regenerative principles in relation to design of the built environment,
industrial processes and products through their books Cradle to Cradle (2002), which advocated design
and construction of the built environment to emulate the abundance found in ‘nature’, and The Upcycle:
Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance (2013), where they advocate for circulating energy flows that
Joshua Zeunert
244
maintain or increase. Truly regenerative design can be difficult to achieve given the built environment’s
commercial constraints within the current market-led model.
Landscape architecture arguably offers greater potential for regenerative processes than architecture and
construction due to its direct engagement with living systems, however, it comprises a small proportion of
built environment activity and focus (Bélanger in Zeunert, 2017: 123). The Sustainable SITES landscape
rating tool (launched in 2009) demonstrates an awareness of regenerative landscape processes within the
landscape discipline, however, quantification to date has proven challenging (Zeunert, 2017: 274–291).
Landscape’s regenerative capacity is evident in an historic and ongoing legacy of design projects (Zeunert,
2017). As in regenerative agriculture, the study of whether or not net energy and regenerative benefits
have been achieved is yet to be adequately quantified in quantitative science. The Landscape Architecture
Foundation’s ‘Performance Series’ (since 2010; see https://landscapeperformance.org/) contributes to this
process (Zeunert, 2017: 288), however, is not specifically focused on regenerative aspects. A range of new
urban agriculture discourse and practice is exploring regenerative systems through planning, landscape
architecture, architecture, urban design, and other disciplines (see Chapters 12, 26 and 27).
Both regenerative agriculture and design require further quantifiable research in order to determine
their measurable outcomes. Nevertheless, “there is overwhelming evidence both that the methods work
and they may offer the means to address a number of prevailing environmental challenges” (Rhodes, 2012:
345). Soil is a more quantifiable element of regenerative agriculture (relevant to soil building, health, car-
bon, and minerals – see for example Jeavons, 2006; Jackson, 2010; Rhodes, 2012). Regenerative outcomes
may be achieved through minimising soil disturbance and tillage (conservation and zero tillage), compost-
ing and mulching, perennial agriculture, crop rotation, companion planting, utilising cover crops and green
manures. The foundation of soil for life embodies this regenerative systems perspective:
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and
resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for
it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.
(Berry, 1977: 86)
The notion of being regenerative as framed in this section provides an antidote to unsustainable industrial
food systems and the rapacious agribusiness model (see Chapters 9 and 31). For regenerative design and
agriculture to substantially expand beyond fringe and marginal activities, however, limiting modes of
perception and quantification require alignment with the notion of (re)building more natural capital
than what is extracted and ultimately, increasing biocapacity. While there is abundant ongoing discourse
related to personal well-being and social concerns (such as whether organic food is more nutritious than
conventional farming), maintaining a purely anthropocentric focus ultimately fails to encompass the
holistic systems perspective required to achieve enduring, resilient, and regenerative food and landscape
systems.
Conclusion
To say the world is running out of time then, [is] to say the world is running out of usable energy.
In the words of Sir Arthur Eddington, ‘Entropy is time’s arrow’.
(Rifkin and Howard, 1980: 48)
Dwindling finite fossil fuel energy reserves have led to increasingly desperate attempts for their extraction
from dangerous and low quality sources (such as deep water and arctic oil drilling, tar sands, and fracking).
Challenges in agricultural sustainability
245
Our heavy reliance on these resources – particularly natural gas, crude oil, and phosphorus – for daily food
intake indicates that our industrial food systems are indeed running out of time and energy (Brown, 1996;
Holmgren, 2002; Heinberg, 2005; Kunstler, 2006; Erisman et al., 2008; Hopkins, 2008; Roberts, 2008; Steel,
2008; Holmgren, 2009; Pimentel, 2009; Jarosz, 2009; Cribb, 2010; Weis, 2010; Deffeyes, 2010; Heinberg and
Lerch, 2010; Herbert, 2011; FAO, 2011a; Rosin et al., 2012; Nikiforuk, 2012; FAO, 2016). Much agricul-
ture globally is heavily and increasingly dependent upon diminishing and finite energy sources, and is thus
fundamentally unsustainable. Industrial agriculture devours copious volumes of freshwater (Brown, 1996)
and discards polluted wastewater, mines and degrades agricultural soil and land (Jackson, 1980; Fedoroff
et al., 2010: 833), while unethically distributing output calories for consumption, and exhibiting high
leakage from food wastage (Roberts, 2008: 84; FAO, 2011a: ix; FAO, 2011b). Cornucopian and neolib-
eral advocates for perpetual economic and population growth and scientific advancement continue to
push business-as-usual practices through increasing industrialisation and intensification of global food
production and further infiltration of agribusiness into ‘undeveloped’ regions (Fedoroff et al., 2010: 833;
Chapter 21). Such processes will likely be assisted through ongoing molecular techniques, plant breeding
(Tester and Langridge, 2010), technologies (such as drones), and robotics that may help to stall population
die-off in the short-term, however, ultimately these approaches (with the exception of plant breeding)
have demonstrated that they deplete planetary carrying capacity, heighten climate change, and undermine
intergenerational sustainability. The western agricultural and agribusiness model is far from sustainable – a
key focus discussed throughout chapter – so how can its continued advancement possibly present a viable
long-term solution?
To avoid population collapse it is essential to rapidly and extensively deploy various key measures
in agricultural systems to increase resilience and regeneration. These include: incentivising population
de-growth; departing from perpetual growth economic systems (Klein, 2014; Newell, 2015), or at least
decoupling food systems for maximum self-sufficiency (Clinton, in Cebon, 2010); switching to plant-
based diets (FAO, 2016; Peters et al., 2016); increasing food sovereignty (McMichael, 2015; Chapter 31),
food security (Morgan, 2015; Chapters 20 and 25), food justice (Chapter 32), and access to common land
(Chapters 28 and 30); adapting practices and crops to unstable climatic conditions (Chapters 18 and 19);
increasing implementation of perennial agriculture and extensive means of topsoil preservation; increas-
ing the instances of alternative and ethical agricultures (Chapters 10 and 24); carbon farming; ceasing
food waste; increasing cultural flexibility in perceiving foodstuffs and food sources; improving water and
nutrient cycling (Chapters 19 and 23); expanding short-chain food networks through producing, eat-
ing and shopping locally; and actively implementing regenerative agriculture. These primary measures
would make substantial inroads in the transition and reconfiguration of ensuring that agricultural, food
and natural systems are increasingly regenerative and this needs to be accompanied by social change and
resilient social systems.
The innate regenerative capacity of natural systems, plants and soil, when executed through systems-
based environmental design processes, and implemented and managed by ethical and fair social structures
and stewardship, present significant capacity and hope to provide sustainable food systems and resilient
landscapes. Practices that harness and direct ‘natural’ processes and use regenerative techniques can both
rebuild biocapacity and provide a potentially enduring blueprint for ongoing production methods that do
not undermine the foundation for ongoing habitation of the Earth.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Alys Daroy for her critical review and editing. Grateful appreciation is
given to the two anonymous peer reviewers, as well as to Beau Beza, David Jones, and Tim Waterman for
their review and feedback.
Joshua Zeunert
246
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