Atmospheric Science, Nourishment Economies

Newly emerging scientific data intensifies the importance of fostering nutrient-nutrition-nourishment cycles between people and ecosystems.

POLITICO’s news article The great nutrient collapse, published last week, summarizes science suggesting that increases in atmospheric carbon are directly altering the nutrient balance in the food we eat.

This information is new and important. In brief, crops are apparently growing more vigorously because of carbon increases in the air, but most of that growth is in the form of sugars and starches, and bioavailable nutrients are not keeping pace. Per scientist Irakli Loladze in the article,

“We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.”

We have previously identified decreases in nutrient density and micronutrient content – and accompanying health, environmental, and economic problems of many types – due to decades of selective plant breeding, engineered genetic modification, and ongoing decreases in soil quality and biodiversity which affect nutrient qualities in crops and foods (and people and ecosystems). From social and business perspectives, these trends are fueled by a number of motives having nothing to do with nutrition, and reflect society’s lack of analytic and economic understanding of the nutrient spectrum’s role in personal health, food systems, and natural ecosystems. But we’ve never before assumed that changing characteristics of the air (i.e. carbon dioxide content) are an additional driver in all of this.

This emerging data raises a peculiar mix of surprise, alarm, and opportunity among the staff and affiliated social entrepreneurs and scientists at Nourishⁿ (Nourish to the Nth Degree). We have spent years identifying, supporting and helping spread systemic approaches that increase nutrient cycling relationships between people and the land. The foundation of this work and the value propositions it offers to public and private sector actors in society is the integrated health, environment, agricultural, economic, and cultural benefits which result, illustrated directly by the diverse enterprises and social entrepreneurs we work with. In fact, it is the innovative approaches of those social entrepreneurs which led us to recognize the unconventional nutrient-nutrition-nourishment patterns and opportunities (what we now call #NutrientValueChains) to begin with. Our 2016 article on the U.S. government’s Agrilinks web site provides examples, Nourishment Entrepreneurs Seize on Climate and Population Pressures.

In the context of The great nutrient collapse, none of these examples reduce carbon in the air as the primary value proposition driving their success, but a great many help replenish macro- and micro-nutrients in foods and people in sustainable ways (which now appears more urgent than ever), while also sequestering and preserving carbon in soils and/or forests as an aspect of the process.

Scientific commentary in The great nutrient collapse also highlights another peculiar, pervasive challenge-and-opportunity we know well: the lack of a unified scientific framework around these issues. Per the article,

“…tackling globe-spanning new questions that cross the boundaries of scientific fields can be difficult.”

“…how hard it is to do research in a field that doesn’t quite exist yet.”

 “When POLITICO contacted top nutrition experts about the growing body of research on the topic, they were almost universally perplexed…”

 “It’s been hard for us to get people to understand how many questions they should have.”

These comments are all too familiar in our global work. While value opportunities weaving across the environmental, agricultural, food and health sectors are often intuitive and clear to social entrepreneurs, they have proven challenging to discuss and analyze with technical experts in those fields. There is not usually disagreement per se, but a difficulty in talking with each other, as each field’s reference frameworks and sectoral objectives are so deeply engrained that the conversations become cumbersome quickly.

In this sense, The great nutrient collapse highlights how putting cycles of bioavailable nutrients (or lack thereof) at the centerpoint of conversations, policies and actions offers a practical mechanism both for bolstering vitality of both people and the land directly, and for facilitating cross-sectoral alignment over time.