Global agricultural expansion cut a wide swath through tropical forests during the 1980s and 1990s. More than half a million square miles of new farmland - an area roughly the size of Alaska - was created in the developing world between 1980 and 2000, of which over 80 percent was carved out of tropical forests, according to Stanford researcher Holly Gibbs.

"This has huge implications for global warming, if we continue to expand our farmland into tropical forests at that rate," said Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science and in the Program on Food Security and the Environment, who led the study.

Gibbs and colleagues at several other universities analyzed Landsat satellite data and images from the United Nations to reach their conclusions. Theirs is the first study to map and quantify what types of land have been replaced by the immense area of new farmland developed across the tropical forest belt during the 1980s and 1990s.

While this huge increase was happening within the tropics, agricultural land in the non-tropical countries actually decreased in area.

The study was published this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that to keep pace with increasing demand, global agricultural production will have to keep increasing, possibly even doubling by 2050. That would likely lead to millions of additional acres of tropical forest being felled over the next 40 years.

Direct impact on carbon released into atmosphere

"Every million acres of forest that is cut releases the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as 40 million cars do in a year," Gibbs said.

Most of the carbon released comes from burning the forests, but even if the trees are simply cast aside, the bulk of the carbon from the plants makes its way into the atmosphere during decomposition, she said.

Gibbs and her colleagues found that about 55 percent of the tropical forests that had been cut between 1980 and 2000 were intact forests and another 28 percent were forests that had experienced some degradation, such as some small-scale farming, logging or gathering of wood and brush for cooking or heating fuel.

"The tropical forests store more than 340 billion tons of carbon, which is 40 times the total current worldwide annual fossil fuel emissions," Gibbs said. "If we continue cutting down these forests, there is a huge potential to further contribute to climate change."

The increasing demand for agricultural production stems in part from the ever-growing number of people on the planet, who all want to eat. Additionally, members of the growing middle class in emerging economies such as China and India are showing interest in eating more meat, which further intensifies demand. And incentives to grow crops for biofuel production have increased.

But Gibbs and her colleagues also observed some encouraging signs. The patterns of change in the locations they analyzed made it clear that during the 1990s, less of the deforestation was done by small family farms than was the case in the 1980s and more was done by large, corporate-run farms. Big agribusiness tends to be more responsive to global economic signals as well as pressure campaigns from advocacy organizations and consumer groups than individual small farmers.

In Brazil, where a pattern had developed of expanding soy production by direct forest clearing and by pushing cattle ranching off pastureland and into forested areas, a campaign by Greenpeace and others resulted in agreements by key companies to rein in their expansion. Instead, they worked to increase production on land already in agricultural use.

'Seeing positive changes'

"These farmers effectively increased the yield of soy on existing lands and they have also increased the head of cattle per acre by a factor of five or six," Gibbs said. "It is exciting that we are starting to see how responsive industry can be to consumer demands. We really are seeing positive changes in this area."

Along with wiser use of land already cleared, Gibbs said, improvements in technology and advances in yield intensification also could slow the expansion of farming into the forests.

Other studies that analyzed land use changes between 2000 and 2007 have shown that the pace of cutting down the tropical forests has begun to slow in some regions.

But as long as the human population on the planet continues to grow, the pressure to put food on the table, feed in the barnyard and fuel in the gas tank will continue to grow, too.

"It is critical that we focus our efforts on reducing rates of deforestation while at the same time restoring degraded lands and improving land management across the tropics," Gibbs said. "The good news is that pressure from consumer groups and nongovernmental organizations combined with international climate agreements could provide a real opportunity to shift the tide in favor of forest conservation rather than farmland expansion."

In addition to her position at the Department of Environmental Earth System Science and the Program on Food Security and the Environment, Gibbs is affiliated with Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. Jon Foley, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior, and director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, was Gibbs' PhD adviser when the research was begun. He is a coauthor of the paper.

Initial funding for the project was provided by NASA. Gibbs is currently funded by a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship.

 

FSE Center Fellow David Lobell contributes a commentary to Climate Central on the recent heat wave in Russia, its impact on wheat production and global prices, and what rising temperatures mean in the larger context of climate change and food security.

The heat wave in Russia has captured international media attention, breaking temperature records left and right. It has also captured the attention of commodity traders. You see, in a typical year Russia produces about as much wheat as the United States, and is among the top exporters of wheat flour in the world. But this year, wheat has been decimated in the areas around Moscow, with yield expected to be 30 percent or so below normal. This week Russia announced they are banning all exports of wheat from August 15 through the end of the year. Since late June, wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade have risen by 50 percent, to more than $7 a bushel.

It is, and always will be, impossible to say whether a single event is caused by climate change. But we can ask, is this the type of thing we expect to be more common? In terms of warming, we can say with little doubt that heat waves like this will become more common with global warming. Exactly how much more common is tough to say, but it is likely that the average summer in 2050 will be as warm as the warmest summer in the 20th century. I am not aware of anyone who has done the calculation of exactly how common the type of heat experienced this year will be, but based on projections in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports one can suspect this type of heat wave will be relatively common in Russia in a few decades.

Starting winter 2011, FSE will bring the world's leading policy experts in the fields of food and agricultural development to Stanford University to participate in an integrated seminar series on pro-poor growth and food security policy. The series, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will consist of twelve lectures delivered on the Stanford campus over the course of two years.

"Providing food security for a world that will be warmer, more populous, and continually developing requires the implementation of sound policies that enhance agricultural production, incomes, and resource stewardship," said FSE director Rosamond L. Naylor.

"New ideas and exchanges are needed to meet this challenge and this seminar series intends to facilitate that process."

Participants will address the major themes of hunger and rural poverty, agricultural productivity, resource and climate constraints on agriculture, and food and agriculture policy. The series will draw heavily from economics, and will embrace polices related to demand, supply, price formation, marketing, trade and development.

"We focus this series on policy because it has proven to be extremely difficult to develop successful projects for hunger and poverty alleviation without first ensuring that sound policies are in play," noted Walter P. Falcon, FSE deputy director and project director. "Even the best-designed programs and projects at the local scale often fail due to counter-productive national policies."

The specific challenges will be to supply sufficient food at reasonable prices, to provide economic access to that food by all segments of society, and to do so without destroying the environment in the process, said Naylor.

In addition to lecturing, participants will write a significant paper that brings together new, relevant thinking about a particular topic area. At the end of the series, a volume of edited papers on international food security and food policy issues will be published. The volume will be designed for M.A. programs and mid-career professionals-individuals who later in their careers will have policy responsibilities. All the materials, including the videotaped lectures, will be freely available on the FSE website.

"We see an important opportunity to complement other efforts that have been funded by the Gates Foundation," said Naylor. "For example, the lecture series and educational volume are expected to contribute to the curriculum of the new Collaborative Master of Science in Agricultural and Applied Economics (CMAAE) program of the African Economic Research Consortium, partially funded by the foundation."

The lecture series will also target audiences in South Asia, and in particular India where there are more malnourished people than in all of sub-Saharan Africa.

The grant also provides funding to produce a specialized educational unit on food policy and food security for high school students. FSE will work closely with Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) to complete this project.

With the renewed interest in food, agriculture, and food security, it is important that the next generation have access to thoughtful commentary about global food issues, said Falcon.

This grant is part of the foundation's Agricultural Development initiative, which is working with a wide range of partners to provide millions of small farmers in the developing world with tools and opportunities to boost their yields, increase their incomes, and build better lives for themselves and their families. The Foundation is working to strengthen the entire agricultural value chain-from seeds and soil to farm management and market access-so that progress against hunger and poverty is sustainable over the long term.

New Draper Hills Summer Fellows come to Stanford to study linkages between democracy, development, and the rule of law

Rising leaders from a diverse group of nations in transition, including China, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Nigeria arrived on campus on July 25 for a three-week seminar as Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. Initiated by FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) six years ago, the program has created a network of some 139 leaders from 62 transitioning countries.  This year's exceptional class of  23 fellows includes a deputy minister of Ukraine, current and former members of parliament (including a deputy speaker), leading attorneys and rule of law experts, civic activists, journalists, international development practitioners, and founders of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). (One fellow needed to withdraw because he was named to the Cabinet of the new Philippine president, Noynoy Aquino).

Draper Hills Summer Fellows are innovative, courageous, and committed leaders, who strive to improve governance, enhance civic participation, and invigorate development under very challenging circumstances"
- Larry Diamond"Draper Hills Summer Fellows are innovative, courageous, and committed leaders, who strive to improve governance, enhance civic participation, and invigorate development under very challenging circumstances," says CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. "This year's fellows are an inspiring group. They have come here to learn from us, but even more so from one another. And we will learn much from them, about the progress they are making and the obstacles they confront as they work to build democracy, improve government accountability, strengthen the rule of law, energize civil society, and enhance the institutional environment for broadly shared economic growth."

The three-week seminar is taught by an interdisciplinary team of leading Stanford faculty. In addition to Diamond, faculty include FSI Senior Fellow and CDDRL Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner; Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper; FSI Deputy Director and political science Professor Stephen D. Krasner; Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama; professor of political science, philosophy, and law Joshua Cohen; professor of pediatrics and Stanford Health Policy core faculty Paul H. Wise; visiting associate professor Beth van Schaack; FSI Senior Fellow Helen Stacy; Walter P. Falcon, deputy director, Program on Food Security and the Environment; Erik Jensen, co-director of the Stanford Law School's Rule of Law Program; Avner Greif, professor of economics; Rick Aubry, lecturer in management, Stanford Graduate School of Business; and Nicholas Hope, director, Stanford Center on International Development.

Other leading experts who will engage the fellows include President of the National Endowment for Democracy Carl Gershman, United States Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Rymer, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict founding chair Peter Ackerman, Omidyar Network partner Matt Halprin, Conservation International's Olivier Langrand, executives of leading Silicon Valley companies, such as Google and Facebook, and media and nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area.  Michael McFaul, a Stanford political science professor and former CDDRL director, who now serves on the National Security Council as President Obama's chief advisor on Russia, will come to campus to teach a session on U.S. foreign policy in the Obama administration.

The demanding, but compelling curriculum will devote the first week of the seminar to defining the fundamentals of democracy, good governance, economic development, and the rule of law.  In the second week, faculty will turn to democratic and economic transitions and the feedback mechanisms between democracy, development, and a predictable rule of law. This week will include offerings on liberation technology, social entrepreneurship, and issues raised by development and the environment.  The third week will turn to the critical - and often controversial - role of international assistance to foster and support democracy, judicial reform, and economic development, including the proper role of foreign aid.

Our program helps to create a broader community of global activists and practitioners, intent on sharing experiences to bring positive change to some of the world's most troubled countries and regions"
- Kathryn Stoner-Weiss The fellows themselves also lead discussions, focused on the concrete challenges they face in their ongoing work in political and economic development. "Fellows come to realize that they are often engaged in solving similar problems - such as endemic corruption in different country contexts," says Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. "Our program helps to create a broader community of global activists and practitioners, intent on sharing experiences to bring positive change to some of the world's most troubled countries and regions."

The program has received generous gifts from donors William Draper III and Ingrid Hills.  Bill Draper made his gift in honor of his father, Maj. Gen. William H. Draper, Jr., a chief advisor to Gen. George Marshall and chief diplomatic administrator of the Marshall Plan in Germany, who confronted challenges comparable to those faced by Draper Hills Summer Fellows in building democracy, a market economy, and a rule of law, often in post-conflict conditions. Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills, made her gift in honor of her husband, Reuben Hills, president and chairman of Hills Bros. Coffee and a leading philanthropist. The Hills project they ran for 12 years improved the lives of inner city children and Ingrid saw in the Summer Fellows Program a promising opportunity to improve the lives of so many people in developing countries.

Thanking the program's benefactors, Larry Diamond says, "The benefit to CDDRL faculty and researchers is incalculable, and we are deeply grateful for the vision and generosity of Bill Draper and Ingrid Hills." As he and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss state, "The Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program allows us to interact with a highly, talented group of emerging leaders in political and economic development from diverse countries and regions. They benefit from exposure to the faculty's cutting edge work, while we benefit from a cycle of feedback on whether these ideas work in the field."  Like CDDRL, which bridges academic theory and policy, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program, they note, "is an ideal marriage between democratic and development theory and practice."

For additional details on the program or to request permission to attend a session, please contact program coordinator Audrey McGowan, audrey.mcgowan@stanford.edu.

Advances in high-yield agriculture achieved during the so-called Green Revolution have not only helped feed the planet, but also have helped slow the pace of global warming by cutting the amount of biomass burned - and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions - when forests or grasslands are cleared for farming. Stanford researchers estimate those emissions have been trimmed by over half a trillion tons of carbon dioxide. The paper is being released this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere - the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide - according to a new study led by two Stanford Earth scientists.

The yield improvements reduced the need to convert forests to farmland, a process that typically involves burning of trees and other plants, which generates carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The researchers estimate that if not for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

The researchers also calculated that for every dollar spent on agricultural research and development since 1961, emissions of the three principal greenhouse gases - methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide - were reduced by the equivalent of about a quarter of a ton of carbon dioxide - a high rate of financial return compared to other approaches to reducing the gases.

"Our results dispel the notion that modern intensive agriculture is inherently worse for the environment than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things," said Jennifer Burney, lead author of a paper describing the study that will be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adding up the impact

The researchers calculated emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, converting the amounts of the latter two gases into the quantities of carbon dioxide that would have an equivalent impact on the atmosphere, to facilitate comparison of total greenhouse gas outputs.

Burney, a postdoctoral researcher with the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, said agriculture currently accounts for about 12 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Although greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of fertilizer have increased with agricultural intensification, those emissions are far outstripped by the emissions that would have been generated in converting additional forest and grassland to farmland.

"Every time forest or shrub land is cleared for farming, the carbon that was tied up in the biomass is released and rapidly makes its way into the atmosphere - usually by being burned," she said. "Yield intensification has lessened the pressure to clear land and reduced emissions by up to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year."

"When we look at the costs of the research and development that went into these improvements, we find that funding agricultural research ranks among the cheapest ways to prevent greenhouse gas emissions," said Steven Davis, a co-author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford.

To evaluate the impact of yield intensification on climate change, the researchers compared actual agricultural production between 1961 and 2005 with hypothetical scenarios in which the world's increasing food needs were met by expanding the amount of farmland rather than by the boost in yields produced by the Green Revolution.

"Even without higher yields, population and food demand would likely have climbed to levels close to what they are today," said David Lobell, also a coauthor and assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford.

"Lower yields per acre would likely have meant more starvation and death, but the population would still have increased because of much higher birth rates," he said. "People tend to have more children when survival of those children is less certain."

Avoiding the need for more farmland

The researchers found that without the advances in high-yield agriculture, several billion additional acres of cropland would have been needed.

Comparing emissions in the theoretical scenarios with real-world emissions from 1961 to 2005, the researchers estimated that the actual improvements in crop yields probably kept greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to at least 317 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and perhaps as much as 590 billion tons.

Without the emission reductions from yield improvements, the total amount of greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere over the preceding 155 years would have been between 18 and 34 percent greater than it has been, they said.

To calculate how much money was spent on research for each ton of avoided emissions, the researchers calculated the total amount of agricultural research funding related to yield improvements since 1961 through 2005. That produced a price between approximately $4 and $7.50 for each ton of carbon dioxide that was not emitted.

"The size and cost-effectiveness of this carbon reduction is striking when compared with proposed mitigation options in other sectors," said Lobell. "For example, strategies proposed to reduce emissions related to construction would cut emissions by a little less than half the amount that we estimate has been achieved by yield improvements and would cost close to $20 per ton."

The authors also note that raising yields alone won't guarantee lower emissions from land use change.

"It has been shown in several contexts that yield gains alone do not necessarily stop expansion of cropland," Lobell said. "That suggests that intensification must be coupled with conservation and development efforts.

"In certain cases, when yields go up in an area, it increases the profitability of farming there and gives people more incentive to expand their farm. But in general, high yields keep prices low, which reduces the incentive to expand."

The researchers concluded that improvement of crop yields should be prominent among a portfolio of strategies to reduce global greenhouse gases emissions.

"The striking thing is that all of these climate benefits were not the explicit intention of historical investments in agriculture. This was simply a side benefit of efforts to feed the world," Burney noted. "If climate policy intentionally rewarded these kinds of efforts, that could make an even bigger difference. The question going forward is how climate policy might be designed to achieve that."

David Lobell is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Woods Institute for the Environment. The Program on Food Security and the Environment is a joint project of the Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute. The Precourt Institute for Energy and FSE provided funding for Jennifer Burney's research on agriculture and energy.

In mid April, FSI convened a special conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development, to examine how technical innovation solves, or fails to solve, the problems of chronic global underdevelopment.  Experts from business, medicine, philanthropy, academia, government and non-governmental organizations, along with young Stanford alumni, addressed technology's ability to help secure gains in health, economic development, agricultural innovation, food security, and human development.

With a wealth of expertise and on-the-ground experience, panelists tackled central issues and engaged in spirited debate, animated by moderator Philip Taubman.  "The Promise of Information and Communications Technology" examined whether technology can transform lives of individuals, even in poorly governed countries, finding encouraging evidence in technology-based medical and health services and novel approaches to economic development, including sharing vital information and banking via mobile phones. 

A panel of young Stanford alumni discussed their entrepreneurial efforts that led to the development of a low-cost, lifesaving incubator for low birth weight babies, the FACE AIDS program begun at Stanford that now has 20 chapters and has contributed some $2 million for treatment of people with AIDS in Africa, a new Global Health Corps to train health care workers, and other innovations to save lives in underserved areas.

Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, gave the lunchtime keynote with a focus on why democracies are more effective and ultimately more efficient in delivering economic development. Democracies are better at protection of rule of law and property rights, she noted. Democracies are less corrupt, more in touch with their people, more stable, and better able to deliver the benefits of human capital development, health, and education to their population as a whole.

A third panel on "Governance, Innovation, and Service Delivery" addressed how innovative institutions and technologies could overcome poor governance and deliver needed services in underdeveloped regions. "Despite extraordinary growth in our technical capacity to prevent and treat child illness and death, we are seeing stagnation or a rise in mortality rates of children under five in some areas," said pediatrician Paul Wise. "This reflects gross failures in delivering highly efficacious health interventions." Some 9 million children still die each year, and 65 percent of child deaths in unstable areas are preventable, he noted. Wise has launched a new program to improve child health in areas of unstable governance through new integrated technical and political strategies.

A fourth session on "Creative Markets for Technical Innovation" honed in on the institutions, innovations, and incentives needed to stimulate development of products and services that address the needs of the poor. Panelists focused on pharmaceuticals, agricultural innovation, use of mobile technologies to share information on best practices, improved food security through innovative technology - such as solar-powered irrigation to expand growing seasons, crops, and incomes, and the development of human capital in China through rigorous evaluation, field trials, and nutritional intervention.

Among the experts addressing these vital issues were Google.org's Megan Smith, BP Solar's Reyad Fezzani, Center for Global Development President Nancy Birdsall, Gates Foundation Director of Agricultural Development Sam Dryden, Gilead Science's Clifford Samuel, dynamic Stanford alumni Nava Ashraf ‘97, Jared Cohen ‘04, Jane Chen ‘08, and Jonny Dorsey ‘07, and FSI's Coit D. Blacker, Joshua Cohen, Stephen D. Krasner, Paul H. Wise, Rosamond L. Naylor, and Scott Rozelle.

FSI Payne Lecturer Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chairman, Microsoft, gave an address on "Giving Back: Finding the Best Way to Make a Difference."  He urged students to become involved in the central issues of global health—including the need to reduce child mortality through more vaccines and better delivery systems—and education, saying we need to find out "what works" and use the Internet to share lessons learned globally.

"We need to shift talent toward bigger needs," Gates said, urging students to provide the passion and ideas to drive us forward in health, education, and energy.  To make a difference, Gates advised, "Get your hands dirty, do the hard work in the actual environment, early in your career."  Telling students that he is looking for "great ideas," he challenged them to post answers on the Gates Foundation Facebook wall to three questions: What problems are you working on? What draws you in? How will you draw other people in to work on solutions to the world's great challenges.