FEW Workshop - Planned Migration as a Strategy to Sustain Agricultural Production

来自阿拉巴马大学亨茨维尔分校的研究人员和他们的NCAR合作者将在科罗拉多博尔德召开一个研讨会，以确定问题，并分享与农业移民在维持生产中可能发挥的作用有关的研究和想法，以及如何在食品，能源和水关系系统方面定义可持续生产的地理。 研讨会的主要成果将是一份简短的报告，总结主要的研究需求和潜在的方法。在上个世纪，美国农业生产的地理位置发生了巨大的变化，大量的食物和纤维转移到干旱的西部，灌溉和粮食生产集中在上中西部。问题是，上个世纪的这种模式在未来是否可持续和可靠。西部地区现在面临水资源压力的一部分生产能否通过灌溉转移到东部地区？西南部的一些生产能转移到水资源更丰富的西北部吗？粮食生产能否在地理上更加分散，以避免目前生产集中所带来的环境问题（如养分流失）和易受小规模区域干旱影响？农业生产的这种地理位置也改变了能源消耗，因为在西部，电能被用来输送地表水，在高原地区，电能被用来抽水。它创造了运输能源的需求，将冷藏食品从西部运到东部，将谷物从中西部运到东南部，供家禽和猪食用。另一方面，农业向东南部的新一轮迁移可能会导致热电发电和水力发电损失对冷却用水的竞争。这次研讨会将汇集水文学家、农学家、经济学家、气候学家、生态学家、能源专家和水资源规划者，讨论当前农业地理的脆弱性，并讨论新的农业迁移是否可能在下一个世纪维持生产。

Researchers from the University of Alabama-Huntsville and their NCAR collaborators will convene a workshop in Boulder Colorado to define issues and to share research and ideas relevant to the role that migration of agriculture might play in sustaining production and how the geography of sustainable production might be defined in terms of food, energy, and water nexus systems. The primary outcome from the workshop will be a short report that summarizes primary research needs and potential approaches.The geography of agricultural production in the U.S. changed dramatically in the last century with substantial food and fiber shifting to the arid west under irrigation and grain production becoming concentrated in the upper Midwest. The question is whether this paradigm of the last century is sustainable and reliable for the future. Can some portion of the production in the West now under water stress be migrated back to the East under irrigation? Can some production in the Southwest migrate to the Northwest where water is more plentiful? Can grain production be more geographically distributed to avoid the environmental issues (e.g. nutrient run-off) and vulnerability to small regional droughts that the present concentration of production entails? This geography of agricultural production has also changed energy consumption through electrical energy used to move surface water in the West and to pump water in the High Plains. It has created the need for transportation energy to move refrigerated food from the West to the East and grains from the Midwest to the Southeast for consumption by poultry and swine. On the other hand, a new migration of agriculture back to the Southeast may see competition for water for cooling in thermoelectric generation and hydroelectric losses. This workshop will bring together hydrologists, agronomists, economists, climatologists, ecologists, energy experts, and water resource planners to discuss the vulnerabilities of the present geography of agriculture and discuss whether a new migration of agriculture might sustain production in the coming century.