The end of water-hungry agriculture?

In today's email:

• 💧 The big idea: The end of water-hungry agriculture?

• 🌎 Natural wonders: an endangered Bornean pheasant and Japanese trees

• 🤏 The small idea: 12 Backyard nut trees you might not know

The Big Idea

💧 The end of water-hungry agriculture?

Every year, 70% of global water consumption is used in agriculture.

That amounts to over 2 quadrillion gallons of water.

That's enough water to cover more than 5.5 billion football fields with 1 foot of water or all of the US with 13 feet of water.

Agriculture wasn't always so wasteful. Why does modern farming consume so much water?

A Brief History of Industrial Farming

Every civilization that's ever relied on monoculture agriculture has perished, but after World War II, we put nearly all of our chips into maximizing our single-crop efforts.

With that decision came record investments in chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and larger machines to cultivate the land.

As a result, farmers were told to "get big or get out." Small farms couldn't produce enough grains to afford the prescribed technology, so farmland was concentrated into larger monoculture plots manicured with massive tractors.

In about 70 years, average farm acreage more than quadrupled in the U.S. There's no question these large farms produced more truckloads of grains, but at what cost?

Nutrients per crop decreased by about half, major rivers worldwide started drying up, and an annual soil loss of 6 tons per acre became the accepted norm.

The Death of Soil

When farms of any size spray and till, the life that makes up healthy soil dies. Dead soil doesn't hold water. So to keep plants alive, farms use more water and chemical fertilizers. When rain falls, the soil is both too compacted and too dead to hold onto it.

Heavy rain, instead of soaking into the ground, makes contact with dusty topsoil and forms muddy sheets that flow into streams and rivers.

California is the perfect example here. Tilled farmland exceeds 40 million acres. In studies, tilled soil has roughly 10% less organic content than untilled soil, meaning it can't hold onto water at the same rate.

On California's 40 million tilled acres, that 10% reduction amounts to an increase in 8 trillion gallons of water required to reach the same soil moisture as untilled acreage.

Eight trillion gallons is a lot of water. What if we could save it?

The Rebirth of Water-Friendly Farming

There's an awakening happening around the world. Consumers are realizing the devastation caused by short-sighted industrialism and demanding a more harmonious approach to growing food.

Agriculture was once able to hide behind a veil of ignorance, but supply chain transparency and accountability are forcing the industry to recognize its failings.

Grass-fed products are becoming a standard option in grocery stores around the U.S., and more consumers are building relationships with the farmers producing their food.

Farms are listening to the need for more sustainable practices, and they're implementing techniques like Keyline Design, permaculture, rainwater harvesting, and mob grazing.

Companies like PepsiCo have stepped up to say they want the 7 million acres of farmland they source from to be "regenerative" by 2030.

Best of all, more consumers are choosing to become pseudo-producers with backyard gardens, chickens, and orchards.

The future of water-friendly farming is bright. Next week, we'll be back with water-harvesting techniques for the backyard grower.

🌎 Natural wonders from the interwebs:

• 😍 That's pretty: An endangered bird from Borneo

• ❄ That's cool: Ice flowers coating a lake

• 🌸 That's crazy: A Japanese tree in bloom

The Small Idea:

🥜 12 Types of Nut Trees to Get More Backyard Calories

Nut trees are the epitome of delayed gratification. They tend to take longer to produce a significant crop, but once they do, you'll have no shortage of calories.

Knowing the best plants to throw in the ground isn't always straightforward, so we made a short list of awesome nut trees to get you started.

One you probably didn't know? You can grow apricots for their seeds. Apricots are a cousin of almonds, but they have the added benefit of a tasty fruit to eat before you get the seed out.

That's it for this week's newsletter.

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