Chapter 13 of our text, Applied Social Psychology, discusses the argument of “freedom in the commons” (Gruman et al., 2016), which is the concept of having a carte blanche attitude towards finite environmental resources – such as water, food, or energy. Gruman et al. expand further on the topic, noting that “when the supply of a resource seems large or nearly limitless, individuals seem to feel free to exploit the resource as much as possible” therefore some people may tend to indulge in the self-absorbed process of the tragedy of the commons, where “each person is locked into a system that compels” them to harvest “without limit” (Gruman et al., 2016). In the last five years, my 23-year-old daughter and I have been discussing the impending lack of natural resources in the future which could devastate the sustainability and availability of food globally and what steps we could take now to ensure that we appropriately planning for our family’s future food needs.
For nearly the last decade, I lived in the Southwest in Arizona. When I first moved to the Sonoran desert, the winter months were cold (between the 20°’s to 30°’s) and misty, with occasional light rain lasting very short periods of time adding to the chance of an Arizona super bloom spring season (Google Images, 2021). In the first few years I was there, in the summer months there were a plethora of monsoons and haboobs as well, which in later seasons seemed to be more sparse. Having grown up and spent much of my life in South Florida, I was used to heavy amounts of rain, thunderstorms, and tropical depressions. So when I moved to the desert, I started keeping a rain journal so that I could track how many days of precipitation there was each year – and while I understand that for some that may be a weird thing to keep track of – I was able to see through my own collection of observed data how climate change was affecting weather patterns in the Southwest and Western United States. In fact, this is one of the reasons that my daughter Julianna and I moved back East to Central Pennsylvania this summer.
In the last year before we left Arizona, we had heard about many homes and landowners in Arizona whose wells had run dry. In fact, The Guardian reported on the water crisis from just one area in Arizona in the article Mega-dairies, disappearing wells, and Arizona’s deepening water crisis, this June stating that extreme water situations where aquifers below wells are running dry are causing landowners to simply abandon their property since “those who can afford to just dig deeper” are draining the already strained aquifers to the extent that they are “leaving homes high and dry as the aquifer is drained” (2021). Another story published recently by AZ Central shows a similar issue continuing to occur in rural areas of Arizona, stating that “chronic overpumping has been depleting groundwater” since “large farms with deep wells have pumped from the aquifers, water levels have dropped and some nearby homeowners have been left with dry wells” (Ian James, The Arizona Republic, 2021). Additionally, the crisis has also affected Californians and the California farming industry which currently ranks first in agricultural cash receipts at 13.7% market share of total U.S.D.A. receipts (Cash Receipts by Commodity State Ranking, 2020).
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that “farmers are backing away from one of their most profitable crops: almonds” and are “grinding up trees” or “bulldozing thousands of acres’ worth of almond orchards that cannot be irrigated,” while “dropping plans to plant more as they confront what farmers say could be a hotter, drier future” (Newman, 2021). State and federal government has continued this year with “looming restrictions on groundwater usage” where the “situation is reshaping the state’s food sector, forcing farmers to reassess which crops they will have the water to produce, and where” (Newman, 2021). Additionally, this is causing supply chain concerns nationally, where food-company executives are challenged and ”tasked with keeping grocery store shelves filled when reservoirs or wells run dry” (Newman, 2021). Since California “grows about 80% of the world’s supply of almonds,” it is a growing concern as farmers “foresee an end of the unconstrained growth in almond supply” (Newman, 2021).
NPR published an article in August, citing that farmers had reported that the “drought has drained reservoirs that supply water to Central Valley farms” to the extent that “state and federal officials have reduced water for agriculture, forcing many farmers to leave fields fallow” (Climate Change In California Is Threatening The World’s Top Almond Producer, 2021). One California farmer estimates that “about a third of California’s orchards are planted in areas with unreliable water supplies” which many “won’t survive the drought” and states that “neighbors have stopped irrigating their orchards, and they’re letting the trees die” (Climate Change In California Is Threatening The World’s Top Almond Producer, 2021).
A recent research article cited that “droughts and pandemics cause disruptions to global food supply chains” where the “21st century has seen the frequent occurrence of both natural and human disasters, including droughts and pandemics,” specifically the recent impacts of COVID-19 (Mishra et al., 2021). The researchers discuss how the impact of droughts and pandemics “can be compounded, leading to severe economic stress and malnutrition” leading to “institutional changes, including a water bank that introduced trading among regions” and California farmers adapting only “through an increased reliance on groundwater” (Mishra et al., 2021). In 2019, researchers from UC Davis set out to find sustainable solutions and strategies for future food production and published an article with their findings. Parker et al. discussed how “extreme heat events will challenge agricultural production and raise the risk of food insecurity” in that “California is the largest agricultural producer in the United States, and climate change and extreme heat may significantly affect the state’s food production” (2020). The researchers cited “warming anomalies” in causing “significant losses in woody perennial cropping systems” where “losses have widespread repercussions for California as the producer of more than two-thirds of US-grown fruits and nuts, including more than 99% of many US-grown high-value perennials” (Parker et al., 2020). The Water Food Energy Nexus is being researched globally, and I found many articles supporting new interventions to deal with food sustainability. Italian researchers in Bari published results of solutions for “the energy–water nexus” where “attention is focused on energy audits of water distribution network” to implement strategies supporting “diversification and rotation of crops, cultivation of drought-resistant crops, and optimization process of the spatial distribution of cropping patterns” (Scardigno, 2020).
The 2020 World Population Data Sheet indicates that the world population is projected to increase from 7.8 billion in 2020 to 9.9 billion by 2050 (Hub, 2020). Compared to 2017, the number of persons aged “60 or above is expected to more than double by 2050 and to more than triple by 2100, rising from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050 and 3.1 billion in 2100” particularly noting that the number of “persons aged 80 or over is projected to triple by 2050”(World Population Projected to Reach 9.8 Billion in 2050, United Nations, 2017). In 2019, an article published in the Frontiers in Environmental Science gave stark warnings that “projections are that the global demand for resources is going to escalate” to “hot, hungry, crowded, and fast evaporating planet” estimating that the “growth in demand for food, water, and energy by 2030 will be 35, 40, and 50 percent, respectively” because of an “increasing population, urbanization, and an additional three billion middle-class people by 2030” (Simpson & Jewitt, 2019).
In conclusion, the World Food Energy Nexus is a crisis that we as future scientists need to develop social interventions, such as planting local food forests, in order to overcome a global imbalance in Maslow’s physiological base in the hierarchy of needs. There are a number of international researchers who are promoting the intervention of planting urban food forests or “edible urban forests” including the journal of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, citing the “potential of urban and peri-urban forests as sources of food and the role that urban food forests can play in fostering sustainable cities” (Castro et al., 2018). The article defined urban food forests as “the intentional and strategic use of woody perennial food-producing species in edible urban landscapes to improve the sustainability and resilience of urban communities” (Castro et al., 2018). The article posited the intervention of an “edible landscaping practice” in cities where “urban food forestry involves a combination of agriculture, forestry, and agroforestry in urban areas to supply cities with food” (Castro et al., 2018). Castro et al. discussed how edible city gardens “provide urban dwellers with many benefits” suggesting evidence where urban food forests “motivate stewardship practices and give inhabitants opportunities to interact with nature and each other; enable the development of more resilient food systems and promote social and environmental sustainability; improve social cohesion and wellbeing and strengthen local communities; enhance biodiversity; and provide economic benefits for both municipalities and citizens” (2018).
As a family, my daughter and I have decided to plant a food forest in our backyard, and I would like to encourage you to do the same. Even in a small space, you can purchase an indoor aquaponic garden kit with LED lights that promote growing or use your balcony to create an edible garden with containers. I believe that food sustainability is an environmental resource dilemma that deserves further research and study, specifically how to engineer optimal weather conditions in harsh winter climates. I’ve seen solar panels for sale that heat roofs or are buried underground working alongside other geothermal heating alternatives, and I ask why this cannot be extrapolated to large-scale farming lands in colder climates. Through additional research, perhaps heating technologies via solar panels which melt snow can be identified to use as a water supply for crops in the winter months. I don’t have the answers, but I think there must be a way to solve this future resource dilemma through applied social psychology interventions. My thoughts are that we all need to think outside the box as future scientists to create solutions and interventions that help solve food scarcity issues here in the U.S. and globally. What are your thoughts?
References
Arizona Superbloom – Google Images. (2021). Google. https://www.google.com/search?q=arizona+superbloom
Cash receipts by commodity State ranking. (2020). USDA. https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844
Castro, J., Ostoić, S. K., Cariñanos, P., Fini, A., & Sitzia, T. (2018). “Edible” urban forests as part of inclusive, sustainable cities. Unasylva, 69(250), 59-65. http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/scholarly-journals/edible-urban-forests-as-part-inclusive/docview/2083654018/se-2?accountid=13158
Climate Change In California Is Threatening The World’s Top Almond Producer. (2021, August 17). NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/17/1028452988/climate-change-california-drought-heat-almond-production
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
G.S. (2021, June 14). Mega-dairies, disappearing wells, and Arizona’s deepening water crisis. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/02/mega-dairies-disappearing-wells-and-arizonas-deepening-water-crisis
Hub, I. S. K. (2020). World Population to Reach 9.9 Billion by 2050 | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD. International Institute for Sustainable Development. http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-population-to-reach-9-9-billion-by-2050/
Ian James, The Arizona Republic. (2021, April 28). A “hidden crisis”: Millions of groundwater wells are at risk of running dry, scientists find. Arizona Republic. https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/04/28/scientists-find-many-groundwater-wells-risk-running-dry/7347312002/
Mishra, A., Bruno, E., & Zilberman, D. (2021). Compound natural and human disasters: Managing drought and COVID-19 to sustain global agriculture and food sectors. Science of The Total Environment, 754, 142210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142210
Newman, J. (2021, July 5). Almonds Swept California Farms. Then the Water Ran Out. WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/almonds-swept-california-farms-then-the-water-ran-out-11625490000
Parker, L. E., McElrone, A. J., Ostoja, S. M., & Forrestel, E. J. (2020). Extreme heat effects on perennial crops and strategies for sustaining future production. Plant Science, 295, 110397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2019.110397
Population Reference Bureau. (2021, February 15). 2020 World Population Data Sheet. Population Reference Bureau. https://interactives.prb.org/2020-wpds/
Scardigno, A. (2020). New solutions to reduce water and energy consumption in crop production: A water–energy–food nexus perspective. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, 13, 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2019.09.007
Simpson, G. B., & Jewitt, G. P. W. (2019). The Development of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus as a Framework for Achieving Resource Security: A Review. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00008
Tags: California, climate change, droughts, environment, environment sustainability, environmental dilmma, extreme weather, food forests, food scarcity, sustainability