Sustainable Agriculture and Governmental Regulation

Matthew Cameron reports on a policy seminar at the National Press Club:

As U.S. politicians continued to fret over the national debt, a small group of scientists, policy experts, and journalists gathered at the National Press Club this morning to discuss a truly frightening long-term problem: how to feed a world population that is projected to exceed 9 billion people by 2045. The title of the seminar was “A Greener Revolution: Improving Productivity and Increasing Food Security by Enhancing Ecosystem Services,” and the key take-away was that more effective governance rather than new technology or advanced farming techniques is going to be the chief determinant of whether the world can avoid a catastrophic population crash before the conclusion of the 21st century.
There are a couple unique characteristics of food production that make it particularly dependent upon government regulation. First and foremost, it is an industry that is necessary for human survival. Whereas people can choose whether or not to buy other products based on their economic conditions and preferences, it is biologically essential for individuals to obtain a certain level of daily nutrition from food. Additionally, two of the primary inputs of food production — fertile land and water — are finite public goods that many different people share. Thus, without effective government regulation, there will be severe pressure placed upon these resources as individuals appropriate them without regard for the aggregate impact had by their entire community.

A lot of work will need to be done to make agriculture sustainable.  Today's standard practices amount to mining fertilizer to replace soil fertility which we are essentially mining away in grain production.  Higher and higher yields remove more and more fertilizer.  It will be interesting to see if we find any cost-effective ways to collect and transport nutrients from sewage, which can make up for some of the mined fertilizers.  Sludge application already does this, but the high water content makes it ineffective for very long distances, and most of the population is far from our most productive soils.