This issue of NR&E may change the landscape for me, and on behalf of our Board of Editors, I hope it provides similar opportunities for you. As indicated by this issue’s title, Farming the Land, Farming the Sea explores a number of different agricultural and aquacultural practices and issues that may be less on the forefront of your daily practice. But as we all must eat, each of the topics brings a universality more readily expected from matters such as clean air and water.
On the agriculture front, you will find a troubling report on the widespread presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in fertilizers and the regulatory efforts to contain and manage the associated risks. The issue also explores certain perils presented by agricultural operations. In the context of animal agricultural practices, we learn more about the very real contribution animals make to global greenhouse gas emissions and potential approaches to mitigating the problem. We also find analysis of agricultural nuisances, such as light pollution, and how efforts to address the perceived harms can be frustrated by right to farm laws enacted in various states. This issue also evaluates continuing changes in the area of agrivoltaics, which is a promising combination of traditional agriculture practices and solar technology deployment that optimizes land use and transforms otherwise unproductive regions into food and energy sources.
With respect to aquaculture, the issue includes the aforementioned review of federal policies in the space and the need to elevate the attention and support given aquaculture to the levels enjoyed by its agricultural counterpoint. The issue also focuses on two aspects of aquacultural practices: the use of recirculatory aquaculture systems for raising salmon and the expansion of seaweed farming efforts in the states of Alaska, California, and Maine.
While perhaps not slotting nicely within the farming dichotomy of this issue, we bring two additional articles that explore topics critical to both industries and their common goal of more sustainable cultivation practices. First, we have a report on emerging desalinization techniques in California and the various legal and regulatory considerations at play in the deployment of efforts to create new sources of potable water. Then, three authors take a hard look at the greenwashing and humanewashing practices endemic in agriculture, particularly animal agriculture, and the harms caused to society at large and the communities particularly at risk of harm.
For those like me, and for those who wish those like me (and me) were more like them, a frequent reaction to the articles in this issue will be a better understanding of the extent to which historical farming practices warrant change. Perhaps, if we want to put some force behind the transition, we make The Jungle required reading. Or, borrowing from David Foster Wallace, maybe that will reframe the question that we do not ask ourselves enough—is the moral comparison here the value of one human’s life versus the value of one animal’s life, or is it the value of one animal’s life versus the value of one human’s taste for a particular kind of protein? Wallace, David Foster, Consider the Lobster, Gourmet, p. 64, n. 20 (Aug. 2004).
