S1032: Animal Production Systems: Synthesis of Methods to Determine Triple Bottom Line Sustainability from Findings of Reductionist Research
(Multistate Research Project)
Status: Inactive/Terminating
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As a result of population growth and increases in caloric intake associated with increasing income to expend on food (FAO, 2008), food demand is expected to increase by 70% by year 2050. The demand for animal protein is expected to outpace the growth in total food consumption. However, at the same time, the quantity and quality of available land, fresh water, and energy resources are declining. Furthermore, consumers increasingly want to know how their food is produced, and as they learn, their evolving product preferences create demand for different production practices with respect to (for example) food safety, nutrition, animal welfare, and environmental protection. Balancing accelerating global demand for animal protein with finite production resources, vulnerable environments and ecosystems, economic viability of allied industries and surrounding communities, and social acceptance of food-production practices requires an approach unlike what has been used in the past. Results from reductionist research that addressed individual or isolated components of livestock- and poultry-production systems must now be integrated in ways that reflect the complexity of the systems as a whole.
A systematic and holistic approach to livestock production is the only possible means of continuously meeting global food needs while 1) protecting natural resources such that soil health, water quality and quantity, species diversity, air quality, and climate homeostasis are sustained 2) producing animal products in a manner that is socially acceptable to consumers, and 3) ensuring continued financial solvency of farm operations. The challenges faced by the livestock industry are complex and intertwined. Therefore, approaches to addressing the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) of sustainability that is, sustainability as expressed in the ensemble of planet (environmental), people (social), and profit (economic) subsystems (Elkington, 1997) must be comprehensive and reveal the broader, system-wide impacts of decisions.
At our 2001 annual meeting in San Antonio, co-hosted by the National Center for Manure and Animal Waste Management, we began to recognize that the tremendous, technical progress our members had made over the past decades in reducing waste streams and making more efficient, beneficial use of manure and wastewater from animal-confinement facilities was reaching, or perhaps had already reached, a pivotal phase. Up to then, the primary function of our multistate research committee (then known as S-1000) had been to report to one another on that component-focused, reductionist research, the tacit assumption being that efficiency improvements in various processes were leading the livestock and poultry industries toward ever-increasing sustainability. Around that time, however, we were beginning to observe various forms of evidence that our efficiency-centered view of livestock and poultry systems was not well suited to explaining a number of perverse effects we were seeing from efficiency gains in other industries. We saw irrigation efficiencies approaching 100% in the Great Plains, but aquifer depletion was accelerating. Clearly, efficiency gains in discrete processes, as impressive as they were, have not consistently led us to greater sustainability. In some cases, in fact, increased efficiency was simply allowing finite resources to be accessed more easily by a broader range of newly deployed processes (highly efficient in their own rights) that had not been involved in these systems before or extending the useful life of other resources. The result in those cases was greater usage of finite resources, not lesser usage; and with the specter of Peak Oil and related geophysical limitations emerging in the popular awareness; such a result could not reasonably be considered a contribution to greater sustainability.
In retrospect, we should have predicted that efficiency gains might lead to such perverse outcomes in some cases, especially in the agricultural systems that give focus to our work. But in order to predict such outcomes, we would have had to be listening closely to our colleagues in macroeconomics, ecology, the social sciences, and system dynamics. From macroeconomists, we might have learned that humans respond dynamically and self-interestedly to changes in their economic surroundings. From the ecologists, we might have learned that biological systems can be driven by external subsidies (e. g., fossil energy) to levels of productivity that lead to ecosystem collapse. From the system dynamicists, we might have learned that feedback, delays, and other structural attributes of a system often have as much or more to say about the systems evolution as the individual processes themselves. Throw in the specialized, culturally contingent dynamics associated with human agency, the social scientists might have warned us, and we should be prepared for indeterminate, perverse outcomes in even the simplest, most isolated communities.
Trans-disciplinary and non-traditional research teams are needed due to the technical complexity of these challenges and the growing social aspects of livestock production. Therefore, integration of our efforts among our traditional participants (continuation of previous work on chemical, physical and biological changes occurring in animal facilities from feeding animals through manure generation, treatment, storage and ultimately utilization) and an expansion of participants to include additional colleagues is a key aspect of this proposal to better synthesize scientific findings and aid in policy development. Individually, we will continue to conduct fundamental and applied research that aligns with our specific expertise, similar to what was done previously in S-275, S-1000 and S-1032. Under this proposed project, however, we will contribute our individual findings to the larger project team to integrate findings beyond what any of us could do independently.
Figure 1 (attached) is a causal-loop diagram (CLD) in which animal-protein production systems are embedded within the conceptual environments of triple-bottom-line (TBL) sustainability. Traditionally, our membership has conducted its research within a small area within the CLD. However, changes/decisions within any given area create intended and unintended changes throughout the CLD. These changes are often difficult to identify unless one is aware of and looking for broader impacts. The relative density of interactions in the environmental and economic sustainability sections of the CLD, together with the relative scarcity of interactions in the social sustainability section, reflects the need of our Multistate Research Committee to establish constructive, long-term collaboration with researchers in the social sciences and related disciplines.
Through the efforts described below we propose to evaluate more comprehensively how animal protein production practices impact all facets of the CLD by providing a more integrated view of the system. The long-term goal of the project team is to identify strategies to optimize animal protein production by balancing environmental, social, and economic drivers and effects. The overall objective of this proposal is to construct and develop an increasingly quantitative framework that conveys the system-wide impacts of decisions and the tradeoffs that result from scenarios under consideration. These tradeoffs will include environmental, social, and economic impacts.
A systematic and holistic approach to livestock production is the only possible means of continuously meeting global food needs while 1) protecting natural resources such that soil health, water quality and quantity, species diversity, air quality, and climate homeostasis are sustained 2) producing animal products in a manner that is socially acceptable to consumers, and 3) ensuring continued financial solvency of farm operations. The challenges faced by the livestock industry are complex and intertwined. Therefore, approaches to addressing the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) of sustainability that is, sustainability as expressed in the ensemble of planet (environmental), people (social), and profit (economic) subsystems (Elkington, 1997) must be comprehensive and reveal the broader, system-wide impacts of decisions.
At our 2001 annual meeting in San Antonio, co-hosted by the National Center for Manure and Animal Waste Management, we began to recognize that the tremendous, technical progress our members had made over the past decades in reducing waste streams and making more efficient, beneficial use of manure and wastewater from animal-confinement facilities was reaching, or perhaps had already reached, a pivotal phase. Up to then, the primary function of our multistate research committee (then known as S-1000) had been to report to one another on that component-focused, reductionist research, the tacit assumption being that efficiency improvements in various processes were leading the livestock and poultry industries toward ever-increasing sustainability. Around that time, however, we were beginning to observe various forms of evidence that our efficiency-centered view of livestock and poultry systems was not well suited to explaining a number of perverse effects we were seeing from efficiency gains in other industries. We saw irrigation efficiencies approaching 100% in the Great Plains, but aquifer depletion was accelerating. Clearly, efficiency gains in discrete processes, as impressive as they were, have not consistently led us to greater sustainability. In some cases, in fact, increased efficiency was simply allowing finite resources to be accessed more easily by a broader range of newly deployed processes (highly efficient in their own rights) that had not been involved in these systems before or extending the useful life of other resources. The result in those cases was greater usage of finite resources, not lesser usage; and with the specter of Peak Oil and related geophysical limitations emerging in the popular awareness; such a result could not reasonably be considered a contribution to greater sustainability.
In retrospect, we should have predicted that efficiency gains might lead to such perverse outcomes in some cases, especially in the agricultural systems that give focus to our work. But in order to predict such outcomes, we would have had to be listening closely to our colleagues in macroeconomics, ecology, the social sciences, and system dynamics. From macroeconomists, we might have learned that humans respond dynamically and self-interestedly to changes in their economic surroundings. From the ecologists, we might have learned that biological systems can be driven by external subsidies (e. g., fossil energy) to levels of productivity that lead to ecosystem collapse. From the system dynamicists, we might have learned that feedback, delays, and other structural attributes of a system often have as much or more to say about the systems evolution as the individual processes themselves. Throw in the specialized, culturally contingent dynamics associated with human agency, the social scientists might have warned us, and we should be prepared for indeterminate, perverse outcomes in even the simplest, most isolated communities.
Trans-disciplinary and non-traditional research teams are needed due to the technical complexity of these challenges and the growing social aspects of livestock production. Therefore, integration of our efforts among our traditional participants (continuation of previous work on chemical, physical and biological changes occurring in animal facilities from feeding animals through manure generation, treatment, storage and ultimately utilization) and an expansion of participants to include additional colleagues is a key aspect of this proposal to better synthesize scientific findings and aid in policy development. Individually, we will continue to conduct fundamental and applied research that aligns with our specific expertise, similar to what was done previously in S-275, S-1000 and S-1032. Under this proposed project, however, we will contribute our individual findings to the larger project team to integrate findings beyond what any of us could do independently.
Figure 1 (attached) is a causal-loop diagram (CLD) in which animal-protein production systems are embedded within the conceptual environments of triple-bottom-line (TBL) sustainability. Traditionally, our membership has conducted its research within a small area within the CLD. However, changes/decisions within any given area create intended and unintended changes throughout the CLD. These changes are often difficult to identify unless one is aware of and looking for broader impacts. The relative density of interactions in the environmental and economic sustainability sections of the CLD, together with the relative scarcity of interactions in the social sustainability section, reflects the need of our Multistate Research Committee to establish constructive, long-term collaboration with researchers in the social sciences and related disciplines.
Through the efforts described below we propose to evaluate more comprehensively how animal protein production practices impact all facets of the CLD by providing a more integrated view of the system. The long-term goal of the project team is to identify strategies to optimize animal protein production by balancing environmental, social, and economic drivers and effects. The overall objective of this proposal is to construct and develop an increasingly quantitative framework that conveys the system-wide impacts of decisions and the tradeoffs that result from scenarios under consideration. These tradeoffs will include environmental, social, and economic impacts.