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land use change. In this scenario overall greenhouse gas emissions have increased. The other issue is that ethanol does not replace gasoline gallon for gallonit takes more than a gallon of ethanol to yield a gasoline gallons worth of mileage. Scaling up agricultural production to meet the demand of nine billion people by 2050 has many implications and challenges including land use consumption and pollu- tion of natural resources and energy use all in the face of climate change which can make crop yields per acre even lower. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes IPCC report from April 2014 grow- ing food in a warming climate subject to droughts and extreme weather is going to make farming more expen- sive with higher energy usageresulting in crop damage and lower yields. The IPCC went on to name crops and farm products that will serve as leaders in this trend. Milk is included in the top ve. Cows produce more milk in cooler climates between 25F to 65F. All these extra cows for milking and meat production mean more manure. Manure produces methane gas the second leading greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Depending on how manure is disposed of or repurposed more manure often means less clean water and a certain aroma in the airand that isnt good for agri-tourism a 704 million dollar industry in the U.S.1. Feeding these animals will require more grain produc- tion which will require clearing the land for row crops especially in developing countries. This will impact forests which impact the animals who live there and so on aecting biodiversity. Conventional growing methods apply chemicals in the form of pesticides and fertilizers some of which stay in the soil and nd their way into drinking water through runo. Organic methods often employ fungicides and approved pesticides too. Both methods can utilize techniques such as integrated pest management. Conventional versus organic is not black and white. The question is not whether well feed nine billion people in 2050 but how. How can we build the worlds capacity to grow more food minimize if not eliminate poverty and malnutrition yet also conserve natural resources on which both humans and other species dependresources we want preserved for ourselves and future generations Capacity and eciency go hand-in-hand. Take your freezer for instance. It has a maximum capacity of a cer- tain number of cubic feet. If you ll it haphazardly with items askew and randomly piled you will end-up with wasted spacewasted capacity. However if you orderly place items according to size and shape a la Tetris you have optimized your freezers capacity. On the other hand overlling the freezer maximiz- ing the space will lead to negatives like food falling out onto the oor every time the door is opened. You have to strike the balance to get the most out of what youve got. According to the USDAs 2012 Census of Agriculture there are 36.4 million acres of cropland that are idle or used for cover crops or soil-improvement but not har- vested and not pastured or grazed. Another 12.8 million acres are categorized as other pasture and grazing land that could have been used for crops without additional improvement. So in the U.S. we are not even growing on all available farmland. However it should be noted that these USDA designations include farmland in the federal Conservation Reserve Program2 a program that promotes conversion of ag land into wildlife habitat. SOMETIMES ITS NOT JUST LAND USE... but farm management and practices true eciency measures that optimize agricultural production. A bet- ter managed more ecient farm will produce more foodfeed more peoplewith fewer negative impacts to the countryside on which it exists and improved eco- nomic benets for the farmers. This is very applicable to dairy farms. Small scale dairies in New England and upstate New York which make up the Agri-Mark dairy cooperative and own the coveted Cabot Creamery and McCadam cheese brands are piloting a sustainability toolkit created with Manomet. Feeding a growing population while safeguarding natural resources for the future doesnt have to come down to regulation or large-scale versus small. At Cabot sometimes it has a lot to do with karma. Figure 1 Livestock feed requires on average 7 kilocalories input for each kilocalorie generated. The range extends from 16 for beef production to 3 for broiler chickens with milk somewhere in between Bender 1992. 1 United Stated Department of Agriculture 2012 Census of Agriculture Table 7 a jump of nearly 20. httpwww.agcensus.usda.govPublications2012Full_ReportVolume_1_Chapter_1_USst99_1_006_007.pdf 2 The Conservation Reserve Program CRP is a land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency FSA. In exchange for a yearly rental payment farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. httpwww.fsa.usda.govFSAwebappareahomesubjectcoprtopiccrp 20 15 10 Broiler Chickens Kilocalories input for each Kilocalorie generated Milk Beef 5 0 Livestock Feed 4 MANOMET PARTNERSHIPS WINTER 2014