How Home Ecosystems Can Impact Food Security & Global Climate Change

Food security simply means access to healthy and appropriate foods. According to the US Department of Agriculture, food insecurity affected 14.8 percent of US households with children in 2020.

The issue of food security becomes more urgent with each passing year. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization estimates the global population will reach 10 billion in 2050. To feed this population, food production will need to increase by nearly 70% in developed nations and 100% in developing areas. The Population Institute estimates that this increased food production will bring rising energy prices, groundwater depletion, and loss of farmland to urbanization, along with flooding and droughts caused by climate change.

Should I worry about food security?

Food security is a growing issue because of the evolution of our global agricultural system. Our civilization rests on a system that has become massive and highly efficient. Unfortunately, we have sacrificed our planet’s resilience for this efficiency.

Today, the average US meal travels 1,500 miles to arrive on a person’s plate. It costs 13 calories to produce every calorie we consume. From an economic perspective, this massive system is extremely efficient. Even with recent food inflation, those calories are cheap relative to the effort that went into earning them.

Cheap food comes at the price of relying on a fragile system. In the past few years, we’ve seen how a global pandemic and logistics issues result in empty shelves worldwide.

Right now, our food security depends on an interconnected, complex machine. If any piece fails, it impacts the entire system. For example, ammonium nitrate, a foundational compound in fertilizer and gunpowder, is integral to the agricultural system. Last year, the price of ammonium nitrate spiked thanks to Covid and supply chain issues. In many ways, the world’s food supply rests on factors that are entirely out of our control.

Can one person impact such a massive system?

I was raised on an old Amish farm. The former owners left behind a huge orchard, a garden, grape vines, and a berry patch. We didn’t have a lot of money at the time, but my parents knew how to grow food. We found ourselves on a small farm that was already equipped with perennial food. We started a vegetable garden, canning, preserving, and supplying most of our own needs for years. It was an amazing experience.

As a result, I became involved with 4-H and their ecosystem design and land management competitions. I evaluated the use of various properties. Some were quarter-acre urban plots, and some were thousand-acre watersheds. I collected data about plant and wildlife biodiversity, made land management recommendations, and designed ecosystems to improve and balance biodiversity. My urban design actually won the national championship when I was 15 years old.

I remember using online satellite map tools to fly around the world. Everywhere I looked, the land was carved into a patchwork quilt. Most of that quilt was fields of mono-crops, hundreds of acres of one single plant. The trees, bushes, mushrooms, and animals that had thrived there before were wiped out. The mono-crops in their place survived by being chemically treated with tons of pesticides and fertilizers.

Seeing the planet from that perspective blew my mind. Even the most remote parts of the world, such as northern Canada, are no longer pristine forests — they are all chopped into patches of agriculture.

More than anything else, those years in 4-H taught me the impact humans have on the land. Our decisions have massive repercussions, but our impact does not have to be negative.

If we change our approach to agriculture, we can change our relationship with our planet. Working with nature, instead of fighting it, creates living systems that produce food at much higher yields than existing systems. That massive interconnected web of buyers and sellers in our agricultural system prevents people from discovering these possibilities. Essentially, home ecosystems benefit individual people as much as they benefit our planet.

Are unhealthy food deserts growing as a result of climate change?

Food deserts are most frequently located in dense urban areas, leaving people living in those areas without access to healthy food. Circumstances and location often force people in food deserts to purchase low-nutrient, high-carb foods.

These foods are unhealthy but incredibly cheap. It’s unbelievable that a box of crackers costs a dollar or two, especially when the grains used in making them were harvested in a field hundreds or thousands of miles away. To package those crackers, trees were harvested from forests, and petroleum was piped from the ground. All of these materials were transported to factories over a network covering thousands upon thousands of miles.

Now, compare that cheap box of crackers to a pint of raspberries that would grow in most people’s front yards if they had the knowledge to plant and maintain them. That pint of berries costs seven to ten dollars. They wouldn’t be made available in a food desert because, to most living there, they are unaffordable. Food security isn’t just about starvation in third-world countries. It’s about people marginalized in the wealthiest countries in the world.

How can home ecosystems combat global warming and food insecurity?

We’ve known agriculture’s role in global warming since the 1970s. The agricultural sector is the second largest contributor to greenhouse emissions, though the primary contributor is transportation — the same transportation that takes food from farms to be processed, packaged, shipped, and eventually shelved. Greenhouse gases are involved in every part of this massive system — planting, tilling, chemical production, harvesting, transportation, processing, and storage.

A family can support themselves with the healthy food they need on a quarter acre in the United States. With a mature ecosystem, a family can produce this food with minimal work. We can eliminate agriculture’s carbon footprint by growing food right outside our doorsteps.

In addition, our healthy ecosystem will begin trapping harmful greenhouse gases such as carbon and methane. It does this in a process known as carbon sequestering. Instead of releasing harmful carbon into the atmosphere, our land will store it in the soil, trees, bushes, plants, bees, butterflies, and birds living in the ecosystem we created.

Methane is actually 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. One of the largest methane sources is landscaping and food waste from our landfills.

When you establish an ecosystem, organic matter plays a vital role. Grass clippings, fallen leaves, and even the neighbors’ yard waste can supply the nutrients our soil needs. As organic matter breaks down, carbon and methane sequester in the soil. It becomes locked in the earth and living things receive nourishment from it.

Home ecosystems also play a role in eliminating food waste. You compost food you do not consume. Birds eat the food that falls to the ground. There are no longer piles of plastic garbage bags filled with rotting food and harmful greenhouse gasses. 

Where can I begin?

The first step in creating a thriving home ecosystem is replenishing your soil with vital organic matter. The most affordable way to do this is to take the bag off your lawn mower and leave the clippings in your yard. As leaves fall in the autumn, allow them to decompose where they are. To speed this up, we often do a sheet mulch by covering the land with layers of straw, cut cardboard, or wood chips.

Once your soil is replenished, it’s time to develop your home ecosystem. It will take some time to create a mature system, so for this reason, focus on planting perennials. Perennial plants produce year after year and are typically hardier than plants grown in traditional gardens.

For example, a mulberry tree needs virtually nothing in the way of care. It is extremely hardy and grows throughout much of the United States. It will grow up to 100 feet tall and produce 600 pounds of berries each year. All you need to do is place a net below it and catch the fruit.

People become frustrated because they try to plant “grandma’s garden” with rows of plants such as cucumbers, squash, corn, and broccoli. These are all great foods, but the problem is that they don’t exist in the wild. For that reason, maintaining them is extremely labor intensive.

On the other hand, growing raspberries, blueberries, apples, pears, mulberries, grapevines, and mushrooms are relatively easy. There are so many perennials like Jerusalem artichokes that most people have never heard of before. You won’t find these plants in the grocery store, but they produce every year and are extremely nutritious.

Because perennials will grow for decades, it’s critical to give them the best start possible. Each plant needs to be in just the right place. Layer your garden to make the most efficient use of space. Under the canopy of your largest fruit trees, you can layer smaller nut trees. Grape vines can climb the trunks, and berry bushes can sprawl beneath. Perennial kale, asparagus, mushrooms, root vegetables, and greens can cover the ground. This is an ecosystem that will deliver maximum long-term yield with minimum effort.

Why should I invest in a home ecosystem?

When you establish your own thriving ecosystem, you receive health benefits beyond even those the organic industry delivers. Agriculture breeds genetically superior plants to maximize pesticide resistance and shelf life, but not human nutrition.

For example, tomatoes you buy in the store have been genetically altered for traits that don’t benefit you at all. They were picked three weeks earlier when they were green, shipped across the country, and then sprayed with ripening agents so that they turn red. The heirloom varieties of tomatoes are usually much more nutritious and flavorful. When you eat your own heirloom tomato, it’s packed with maximum antioxidants, nutrients, and fresh flavor.

In addition, home ecosystems surround you with living, green plants and beautiful animals. There are numerous psychological benefits to spending time in nature. For example, a recent study finds that seeing a variety of birds every day delivers the equivalent happiness boost of a raise in one’s salary. Research also reveals that children who do not receive regular exposure to nature are far more vulnerable to serious physical and psychological health ramifications.

The benefits of home ecosystems are as plentiful as the food they can yield. We have been taught that organic produce is healthiest, but few of us are aware that there are better options. One might think themselves to be a lousy gardeners, but that is because they have never learned the importance of replenishing their soil. True, gardening is hard work, but there are hardier crops that thrive year after year after being planted. Limit your plants to squash and broccoli, and you’ll never realize the multitudes of other plants that can’t be found in grocery stores. If you open your mind to new possibilities, you can become part of a movement that will transform your life and our entire planet.