Agriculture and global physicochemical deregulation: planetary boundaries that challenge planetary health
Authors: Jazmin Arguello Velazquez, Ioan Negrutiu
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2019)

Clear identification and characterisation of social and ecological challenges is crucial to define priorities and allocate limited resources,1Lomborg B The skeptical environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2001Crossref Google Scholar and to work out solutions and tools for their implementation. Research should serve to increase human understanding of those challenges and the objective interdependencies among them. The resource concept constitutes a unifying theme across disciplines and sectors, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar a first point of reference for systemic change. Therefore, the resource approach becomes the most effective tool to address the surrounding issues of planetary health.2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar The notion of social and planetary boundaries3Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockstrom J, et al. Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 201; 47: 1259855.Google Scholar, 4Raworth K A safe and just space for humanity: can we live within the doughnut?. Oxfam, February 2012https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/dp-a-safe-and-just-spacefor-humanity-130212-en.pdfDate accessed: April 29, 2018Google Scholar is a complementary conceptual framework that defines safe operating boundaries for its nine dimensions (climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrogen and phosphorus loading, freshwater withdrawals, land conversion, biodiversity loss, air pollution, and ozone layer depletion). The framework's goal is to help achieve a sustainable future for humanity3Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockstrom J, et al. Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 201; 47: 1259855.Google Scholar by suggesting safe limits to the nine dimensions. This framework allows to measure such limits by using a combination of warning sign, threshold, and regime shift indicators. The transgression of the framework's boundaries through the misuse and misallocation of resources has undesired consequences to global functions and cycles of Earth's life-supporting systems and is leading to the disturbance of complex ecological and physicochemical equilibria to a degree beyond their natural resilience. The framework and its use has sparked interest within the scientific, societal, and political communities.3Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockstrom J, et al. Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 201; 47: 1259855.Google Scholar, 4Raworth K A safe and just space for humanity: can we live within the doughnut?. Oxfam, February 2012https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/dp-a-safe-and-just-spacefor-humanity-130212-en.pdfDate accessed: April 29, 2018Google Scholar, 5Whitmee S Haines A Beyrer C et al.Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation. Lancet Commission on planetary health.Lancet. 2015; 386: 1973-2028Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1122) Google Scholar By showing the interconnectedness of the boundaries, it is possible to clarify planetary health issues and give them meaning in political and societal terms. The framework can be condensed down to a two-component system: agriculture and physicochemical deregulation. Agriculture is both the greatest labour provider and resource consumer (land-use change and biomass appropriation). Agriculture and associated food systems (from fork to farm)6Westhoek H Ingram J Van Berkum S Özay L Hajer M Food systems and natural resources. A report of the working group on food systems of the international resource panel. 2016. UN Environment Programme.file://C:/Users/OCONNOR2/Downloads/food_systems_summary_report_english.pdfDate accessed: September 15, 2018Google Scholar are the biggest contributors to the stressors of planetary boundaries, including changes in land and water systems, ecosystem alterations, fertiliser chemical flows, air and water pollution, and climate change. More specifically, agriculture entangles the key biogeophysical building blocks of the biosphere—biomass, soil, and water—which need protection from environmental and management related risks through policy decision making. This is important because the geopolitics of biomass, water, and land are driving the new resource scarcities,7Mathijs E Brunori G Carus M et al.Sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the Bioeconomy—a challenge for Europe.https://ec.europa.eu/research/scar/pdf/feg4_final.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=noneDate: 2015Date accessed: April 28, 2018Google Scholar, 8Gabriel-Oyhamburu K Le retour d'une géopolitique des ressources?.L'Espace Politique. 2011; 12: 1-15Google Scholar which are causing conflict between national security and international order mechanisms. Global physicochemical deregulation is a pervasive and hidden global challenge. It is generated through ocean acidification; more general atmospheric, land, and water pollutions; waste accumulation; and climate change. The corresponding chemical intensification affects societies daily on a large scale: 144 000 types of chemicals are manufactured, with a 500-fold increase in volume over the last several decades.9UN Environment ProgrammeGlobal chemicals outlook: synthesis report for decision-makers.http://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/8264Date: 2012Date accessed: September 15, 2018Google Scholar The result is a so-called mega-pollution system consisting of complex chemical cocktails in the environment (eg, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, antibiotics, and microplastics) that interact with the natural chemical world1Lomborg B The skeptical environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2001Crossref Google Scholar and change over space and time. This makes it hard, and sometimes impossible, to measure, understand, and control the exposure to a mixture of chemicals for which safe limits for polluting factors have to be estimated with regard to exposure to any single chemical.1Lomborg B The skeptical environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2001Crossref Google Scholar Current standards are based on studies that have been done on one chemical at a time. Mixing different chemicals can result in additive, synergistic, or antagonistic effects. For example, simple chemical mixtures that consist of five pesticides found in food commodities showed additive to synergistic genotoxic effects in cultured cells.10Graillot V Takakura N Le Hegarat L et al.Genotoxicity mixtures present in the diet of the French population.Environ Mol Mutagen. 2012; 53: 173-184Crossref PubMed Scopus (60) Google Scholar Consequently, a detailed knowledge of the response to all possible combinations of chemical risk factors implies dividing the limit value for an individual factor by the square root of the number of factors under consideration. Although this calculation would be unrealistic in practice, it suggests that the adoption of limit values two or three orders of magnitude smaller than those estimated by single factor impact studies1Lomborg B The skeptical environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2001Crossref Google Scholar is relevant to legislation. However, this is a problem: prevention protocols, standards, and legislation are not well adapted to the scale of risks operating in constantly evolving environments. Agriculture and physicochemical deregulation act in synergy, are first order systemic risks to planetary health2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar with long-term effects on the society. For example, the health and economic burden of conventional food systems and global pollution is estimated to cost trillions of US dollars annually and contribute to millions of deaths globally.11International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food SystemsUnravelling the food-health nexus.http://www.ipesfood.org/images/Reports/Health_FullReport.pdfDate: 2017Date accessed: April 15, 2018Google Scholar, 12Ghebreyesus TA Acting on NCDs: counting the cost.Lancet. 2018; 391: 1973-1974Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar Low-income countries are the most affected. We argue that the health and economic burden constitutes a systemic challenge (so-called health bubble), which government and society will have to address over the next decade. Therefore, we call for, first, coordinated measures that target planetary health through coherent chemical simplification (effectively reduce, redesign, and recycle to make better use of a smaller number of different chemicals) in transitions to societies that decrease their use of resources and are resource efficient.2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar, 13Haines A Hanson C Ranganathan J Planetary Health Watch: integrated monitoring in the Anthropocene epoch.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e141-e143Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (13) Google Scholar This measure could also help to slow down climate change. Second, we call for the integration of sustainable agriculture practices into food system transitions9UN Environment ProgrammeGlobal chemicals outlook: synthesis report for decision-makers.http://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/8264Date: 2012Date accessed: September 15, 2018Google Scholar with priority on land tenure and value and the food-health nexus. These measures are at the apex of further changes in joint environmental and societal policies that articulate physical and social boundaries4Raworth K A safe and just space for humanity: can we live within the doughnut?. Oxfam, February 2012https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/dp-a-safe-and-just-spacefor-humanity-130212-en.pdfDate accessed: April 29, 2018Google Scholar in a resource stewardship approach. They are guided by simple, universal, and indivisible principles in support of a civilisation contract.2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar The goal is to measure the total costs to society of no action versus partial-to-complete phase-out of large sets of chemicals and unsustainable practices. This phase out would help to align equity in health and wealth within the limits of the biosphere. By addressing the health concerns associated with agriculture and physicochemical deregulation it could be possible to devise laws that enable fair access to and allocation of resources, a process for which WHO13Haines A Hanson C Ranganathan J Planetary Health Watch: integrated monitoring in the Anthropocene epoch.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e141-e143Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (13) Google Scholar and the International Resource Panel2Acunzo D Escher G Ottersen OP et al.Framing planetary health: arguing for research centred science.Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2: e101-e102Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar could ensure the initial coordination role. We declare no competing interests.