Hello and welcome back everybody. If, if you remember I wanted to use the first few lectures to just sort of set the stage and provide a little bit of context on some of the bigger picture, agriculture and environmental issues that we face around the globe so that we'll be better positioned to talk about some of the sus, sustainability practices that agriculture uses. In our first lecture we talked about the issue of population increase and, and the pressures that, that puts on food production system in the world and how agriculture is going to be asked to increase productivity. And we acknowledged that part of the issue in terms of food production around the world has to do with just the availability. The affordability transportation preservation issues with food. We do produce a lot of food in the world but nonetheless, agriculture in developed countries is going to be asked to continue to increase food production. And at the same time developing countries will be increasing food production. And the key is going to be to increase food production at the same time that we provide keen attention to our environmental resources so that they are protected as well. I want to continue that discussion today and continue to set the table a little bit with some of the issues that agriculture is going, is facing today, and will face even more as we move forward. Okay. So, as we continue to set the stage for our course, here are some other issues that I think agriculture will be facing as we try to increase food production. Availability of good land for agriculture, already, we see in many countries. The lack of availability of in, increasing amounts, at least, of good farm production land. We're going to, to have to increase the productivity on the land that we have and use it more wisely and, and more sustainably. We're going to have to keep agriculture profitable. There are alternate uses for good agriculture land. And so, farmers are going to have to produce crops profitably and we may have to help in that regard, and some of what, what we'll talk about in this course is exactly that. Helping farmers adopt production practices that are economical and sustainable. As farmers move forward to increase food production, they're going to be asked to do that along side of protecting the environment. So, that they are as efficient as possible in the use of their water resources for irrigating crops and also in terms of nutrient management, so that the nutrients stay in the root zone for the crop's benefit and do not end up in a water body, for example. And also this is, this whole process is going to take continual inputs in terms of research and education which is going to be very important to isolate and identify and, and study those kinds of issues so that we can present increased generations of best management practices for farmers to use. Land availability is going to be continue to be a, a challenge for producers. Obviously farms farmers compete with urban development and expansion. And so, the value of the land for those alternative, alternative uses is going to be very important. The average age of farmers in the United States is approaching 60 years. And so I often wonder how many farms will stay as family farms under the ownership as, as farmers become older and older, and what happens to those farms in the, in the years as farmers approach retirement. While the availability land, available availability of good agriculture production land has only increased about 8 to 10% globally. Food production has increased tremendously. It's doubled between 1967 and 2007. So, this tells me, the farmers had been doing more and more on the same land. And a lot of this increase in productivity on the same land has come as a result of research and development and institution of better growing practices for, for food. This is a picture that I, I show my classes. On the top part we see urbanization and a warm area on the west coast of the state of Florida. We produce a lot of vegetables and fruit crops, for example along the coastal areas of the state. Those are the warm areas where food crop production is carried out easiest because they're not subject to freezes and, and frosts in the winter time. But it just so happens that they're also those same areas that people like to live. And so, the competition for that land as you can see, the result has been that urbanization has, has won out. The picture in the bottom is also a favorite of mine because this is the tomato farm that I've conducted a lot of research on over the years, since I've been with the University of Florida. Recently though, the neighboring farm was sold for, for development. And now, there's a community that is now the neighbor of this tomato farm and it, I sometimes wonder how long the community will enjoy having a farm in the, in the background. Some homeowners enjoy being out in the country while others may not. This is another example of what happens to agricultural land. I can imagine that maybe 80 years ago, that road going across the center of the photograph might have been a farm road separating fields of this farm. Part of the farm obviously was sold off for development and that good agricultural land you can see is level probably was very good for producing crops, but now is a, a community. In the forefront, you see what probably was the farm homestead. The interesting thing when I look at this picture is that it apparently was not purchased by another farmer because I don't see any farm equipment, I don't see farm animals. So, agricultural land is, is changing. And particularly in a country like, like mine and in a state like mine, there's always competition for agriculture land for other land uses. This is another picture that I use in, in my class on campus because I think it illustrates this continuing urban encroachment in agricultural land areas. Here we have a, a small stream or a river in a watershed. And if you think about the potential or the alternate land uses in that watershed urbanization in the lower left-hand corner, and agriculture along that watershed. And you have to ask the question, for the, the quality of the water which is more preferable? Especially as we go through the course and talk about soil conservation, we talk about Riparian buffer zones, and land management strategies that agriculture landowners can use to protect water bodies. So, I use these as, as illustrations of some things that we'll, we'll be talking about how in a watershed like this, what are some of the practices that farmers can adopt that will protect that, that water body. And we're also going to be talking about practices that farmers can institute on their, their farms to conserve and mange soils both from water or wind erosion. We'll talk about wind breaks for example, and we'll talk about soil conservation practices that farmers can adopt on their farm to minimize the losses of soil during rain storms, for example. And when you see a picture like this in the, in the upper part, you'll be able to identify in your mind some production practices or some soil conservation practices that, that farmer might institute to, to keep or to at least minimize the loss of, of soil from that field. I tell my students that the soil is the most valuable asset that a farmer has, even above tractors and, and trucks and equipment. When we lose the soil, particularly if we lose our topsoil, we've lost a lot of the, the, the productivity capacity and the income generating capacity for that farm. And in this picture you see during a possibly a rain storm gullies forming and loss of topsoil off of that field and possibly into a river or stream in the lower right-hand photo in this slide and then eventually out into a river. For example, the Mississippi River, which we'll learn about and, or the Chesapeake Bay estuary system. We're also going to talk, in this course, about soils because I think soils are, are very important to, to understanding how they help us manage nutrients and, and water. Some soils are vulnerable to nutrient losses. For example, this pic, picture here shows potatoes that have been, the vines have been killed and they're ready to harvest. And this particular farm, the soils are very deep and very sandy and very vulnerable to nitrate leaching during particularly rainstorms, or perhaps from overirrigation. A colleague of mine and, and I teach a summer travel course for graduate students and these are some of our students experiencing for the first time, believe it or not potato production and potato harvesting on these very sandy soils. We're also going to talk a little bit about various kinds of topography and land management or, or soil management, practices that we can use to protect from losses of, of soils. Karst Topography is, is important in this state, we have a lot of this kind of topography that we use for agricultural purposes. In this particular case here, you can see that the underlying limestone is our source of water, this is our aquifer. But you can also see that activities that we might do on the surface on the land surface, such as farming, we need to manage very carefully because we know that this, we know a little about the, the, the topography here. The fact that there are springs sinkholes direct conduits to the drinking water. And so, anything that we do on the surface in terms of nutrient and water management farming practices must be carefully carried out in a scenario like this so that we can minimize the losses of particularly nitrate into the, the ground water. In this particular case Northern Florida is very popular for cave diving so all of these springs in these caves are very popular tourist attractions. And so, tourism is a very important economic force in this area of the state, so as agriculture. And so, this is a really, really good example of how agriculture and our tourism need to exist side-by-side. Also, this water is obviously our aquifer for our drinking water. And contaminating with nutrients or other chemicals from activities that we might be do on the, on the surface of the soil, is something that we need to be very concerned about. The spring water also eventually ends up in our surface water in our rivers, and our estuaries. And so, we have we potential issues with eutrophication that we'll learn about in our next lecture in these surface water bodies. So, this is a really good example of how interconnected our natural resources are with our land management activities. And we'll talk about some things that farmers can do in a farming scenario like this to minimize their contribution. We had Tropical Storm Debby last summer here in the southeastern part of this country. This is a field near to the campus where I do a lot of research with a, a commercial farmer. And we were looking at nutrient managing on this farm and, and here's the result of what can happen in this Karst topography. This is a huge sinkhole. As big as a baseball stadium in this peanut field. Rolling topography is another issue that we'll, we'll talk about. These are areas where we're farming and that we will want to use special soil management practices to minimize particularly erosion losses of our topsoil. We'll talk about some other practices that farmers can use. For example here, contour farming that's used in the Chesapeake Bay area to keep the soil on the farm and reduce the chances of losses of soil and, and phosphorus in particular, into the rivers and streams and estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay. So, this course is going to focus on nutrient use and land management and the impacts of those two issues on water quality. We'll focus on nitrogen and phosphorus because those are the two nutrients most often associated with eutrophication pollution problems and their two large nutrient inputs for successful farming. But also, water quantity is very important and we're going to spend some time talking about water quantity. Water is often the most important driver for nutrients in the ecosystem. So, rainfall irrigation management on our farms is going to be important for keeping nutrients in the root zone and minimizing the chances that they'll be lost to the groundwater for example. Not many years ago we learned to increase our ability to irrigate with deep wells and powerful pumps that could remove large amounts of water, from the groundwater and increase our productivity in terms of crop production and make it more uniform and more consistent by smoothing out production during dry, dry periods. So, irrigation is very, very important to successful farming and food production. It's very critical. 70% of the fresh water, the world's fresh water is used by agriculture mostly for irrigating crops. And as we increase food production over the next several decades, irrigation is going to play a role. And so, our withdrawal and our use of water for irrigation purposes will probably increase. How can we make that as efficient as possible, so that we minimize the negative impacts of increasing demands of water for, for irrigation? There are many examples of water bodies around the world that have been, have dried up or in a process of, of drying up. So you see pictures like this of a lake happens to be in Australia drying up. There's lots of examples out there and I'm giving you a list ff some of them, many of them here in the United States. Recently, there was a study conducted that showed that freshwater bodies in the middle East are, are starting to reduce in capacity and in size. And so, as we look to irrigation we need to think about production efficient irrigation practices so that we minimize the need for particularly withdrawal from our groundwater resources to the very minimal that we need to successfully grow crops. In, in places like Florida and in many other places of the world the lower arena of the water table is of immense concern. And this illustration or this diagram just shows sort of what can happen as we increase the withdrawal of quantities of water from glacial resources of water in the ground. And as we depress the water table it not only has negative impacts on our ability to continue to gain water from the water table, but it also, it has, could have potentially negative impacts on the ecosystem, for example, lowering the level of water so much in our springs that they no longer are suitable for diving for example, or reducing the flow in our streams. And later on in the course, we'll talk about some of the actions that regulating agencies take to try to, to control the overextraction of water. And I want to make it very clear that these examples are not only agriculture related. There are some where scientists have implicated the, the lowering of water tables and the drying up of water bodies, to excessive pumping for irrigation, but surely, agriculture is not the only issue or direction that water is, is used. Weather and climate have a big impact for example, just in this country we see water bodies like the Mississippi River or Lake Michigan with low levels of water, mostly due to drought conditions especially over the last few years. So, urban areas also, as they grow and demand more water they put a tremendous stress on the, the water supply. But what we're going to be concerned about in this course is, what can agriculture do to acknowledge that we do use significant amounts of water, and what kinds of practices can we do to minimize our impact on those resources and make them available continually for generations to come. So, as I mentioned earlier in our first lecture, I like to close these lectures as we go through the course with a few take-homes that I think are important points to try to remember. Obviously, our increasing demand for food in this world is going to place many challenges on agricultural systems. Population growth is sort of a double-edged sword. On the one hand increases in the numbers of people and places increasing demands for more food. On the other hand, increasing in populations and urbanization also places a stress on our natural resources. More people means a need for more water. And so, agriculture in many areas of the world will be competing with increase, increasing numbers of people for those water resources. So, again how agriculture can become more and more efficient in using water will reduce some of that stress and competition. We need to acknowledge that soil is a very, very important resource to agriculture. And many farmers understand that protecting the soil and taking care of it, and conserving it, is critical to the success of the farm. So, soil conservation practices are extremely critical in that regard. We've mentioned that agricultural will increasingly compete with urban areas for water resources, water supplies. And we want to do what we can in terms of research development and also education to help farmers become as efficient as possible and hopefully that's what everyone will want to learn from a course like this so that we all can become more educated about these issues and some of the principles and practices that farmers could, should implement to be more and more efficient. So, when we talk about sustainable, sustainability and particularly sustainable agriculture I hope that we'll leave with the strongly held conviction that it's about attention to both water and nutrients. In a state like ours, it's, it's impossible to separate water quality from water quantity because we're farming and we need both of those inputs nutrients and chemicals that might impact water quality. But we're also requiring more and more water for irrigating crops. So, throughout this course, we're going to take a look at all of these kinds of practices that in one way or another affect the water quantity and water quality. And in many cases both of them are going to be considered together and as we move forward we'll start taking a look at some of these important principles and practices for increasing the sustainability of agriculture. So, I'll be looking for you at our next lecture.
