So how we use arable land for long-term food supply clear while we get new raw materials for the production of biofuels and new bio-based products?
- The challenges are many. I think it is important to show that there are very good opportunities for different and sustainable production in the future. It is needed as a counter-image to all alarms about insect death, deforestation and eutrophication, says Christel Cederberg, assistant professor of physical resource theory, and one of the lecturers at the lunch seminar.
Christel Cederberg believes that one of our most important sustainability assignments is to use our soils so that they remain long-term fertile for future generations. In a global perspective, the harvests are unnecessarily low on large areas of agricultural land due to poor management methods, erosion and falling soil contents.
- It's really a waste of resources. The arable land must be handed over to future generations without deteriorating quality. Here, a much greater general awareness is needed. On the consumption side, it is about reducing food waste and reducing the excessive intake of animal protein, which we have in the western world today, she says.
On the production side, it is about developing sustainable production systems from a broad perspective. Emissions of greenhouse gases must be reduced at the same time as it is necessary to improve nutrient cycles, and for example develop cultivation systems using as little pesticides, chemical pesticides as possible.
Earlier this year, the journal Biological Conservation published a report with the first global research review showing that the world is heading for a mass extermination of not only bees but of all insects. So how do we cope with the challenge of food production given the climate and biodiversity?
- The increasing use of chemicals in agriculture globally is one of the major future issues for achieving sustainable food production, says Christel Cederberg.
In the longer term, she believes that people will look back on the period from the second half of the 20th century onwards and ask - "how could you allow the spread of so many toxic substances in such large volumes in the world's agriculture?"
- Exactly when the insights are spreading on a wide front in the world I dare not speculate, but I have some reflections. When the world's most widely used herbicide, glyphosate, Roundup, was launched in the 1970s, it was considered almost harmless. In fact, there were experts who said it was so harmless to drink it.
When genetically modified crops were introduced on a broad front in North and South America in the early 2000s, it was claimed that an environmentally friendly cultivation concept had been developed when growing glyphosate-tolerant soybeans.
- There was no need to spray other herbicides - glyphosate was a pesticide with such good properties. But today it sounds different. Suspicions about the link between cancer and repeated glyphosate management have put the issue under strong scrutiny, and within the EU there is talk of a ban on use, says Christel Cederberg
She has also reflected on the increase in the number of research studies that show how the large use of insecticides and chemical pesticides in agriculture beats the diversity of insects, the necessary pollinators. As insects become fewer, food production and natural ecosystems are threatened because they play an essential role in many ecosystem processes.
- So it is extremely important that we find methods and cultivation systems that reduce the dependence on pesticides.
Sweden can contribute to becoming a pioneering country in Europe in terms of agriculture and forestry by being at the forefront and developing new technologies and cultivation systems.
- Innovation, both with technical and biological methods, is very important. If we take agriculture then you can probably say that Sweden is a leading country in Europe in terms of antibiotic use in animal husbandry. It is very low compared to the major animal producing countries. Another example of innovation is the development of a combination machine in Sweden that both wounds and cleans by precision chopping, which can replace spraying with chemical herbicides, says Christel Cederberg.
If there is demand, there will be methods. The machine has been developed in organic farming as a method for handling weeds without chemicals. Today, the machine system is also used by conventional farmers who do not want to spray as much.
- I think Sweden's contribution is to invest in developing technologies that reduce the use of chemicals. In the long run, this is the only way to go in food production.
At the lunch seminar on April 11, researchers from Chalmers and the University of Aarhus will participate in Denmark. What perspectives will you offer together?
- In the Interreg project Green Valleys, which is a collaborative project between Sweden and Denmark, we will develop and investigate grass-based biorefineries and this is really a new thinking in agriculture. And then I think of the whole system level because perennial grasslands that do not need pesticides, and which are good for soil fertility, produce the biomass which in biorefinery is converted into high-quality protein and bioenergy.
Green Valleys is also about high-yield systems, but where disadvantages such as nitrogen leakage and insecticides and chemical pesticides are minimized.
- If we can grow more grassland instead of annual crops, such as cereals and soy, then there is good opportunity to incorporate more carbon into the soil's humus, that is, we get a carbon sink over time, as the soil's coal supply, humus content, increases over time. . In addition, soil fertility increases as agricultural land containing more carbon is also more water-holding and has better structure.
It's a win-win situation, of course, she concludes.
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