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Facing Soil Crisis, US Farmers Look Beyond Corn and Soybeans (csmonitor.com)
Corn and soybean crops have been good to farmers in the American Midwest and Plains. But these staple crops have taken a toll on the very earth they draw nourishment from. Now, a new generation of farmers is looking underground to try to replenish their soils in a way that both restores nutrients and reduces chemical runoff into the environment. From a report: "Mainstream agriculture, they just don't get it," says North Dakota farmer Jerry Doan. "You have got to feed the biology of the soil." Some farmers are experimenting with growing cover crops on their fields. Devoting valuable land to new crops can be risky for producers, whose thin margins make them reluctant to make big changes if their yields are going to fall, even temporarily. But in some communities, such as Washington County, Iowa, farmers are taking the leap together.
Only short-term profits.
"Building Soil with Animal Impact: White Oak Pastures Sustainability isn't enough; it has to be regenerative." https://www.whiteoakpastures.c...
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
I listened to a local farmer talk about it. With industrial farming, you pump the soil full of chemicals, plant your seed, harvest, wash, rinse, repeat. He said it works, but it takes a terrible toil on the soil and surrounding environment.
He's now gone to a sustainable farming model. He said it's completely 100% against what industrial farming is all about. He doesn't till the soil, he uses lots of cover crops, doesn't harvest all of it each year, lets his cattle free-graze his fields, and he makes more money doing it. I've heard people say his beef is the best-tasting in the county. Here's a neat write-up about it.
Another neat benefit he mentioned: He got an 8" rainfall last year, and his fields soaked it all up. All his neighbors had run-off into the river valleys, taking all the chemicals with it, but his fields are full of decomposing tillage that took it all in like a sponge.
..ained.
I don't know why "the economy" doesn't understand that, or is portrayed as not understanding that.
Surely, every business is interested in long-term survival. Which obviously can't be achieved, if you define exponential growth as survival, or the goal of your business.
So wouldn't they logically make sure that every resource they need is replenished and every waste they produce is recycled, so they don't starve and/or drown? I mean a smart business would turn that into a advantageous business *too*.
Is it just managers whose career and life do not depend on the survival of the business? If so, why don't the owners rein them in. Short-sightedness? Stupidity?
It seems like not giving a fuck about all of that is an important part of the philosophy of certain more extreme "capitalist" types, who also seem to think it's an "American" and "freedom". (Excuse me, if I disagree.)
I just don't get such types.
As of a couple weeks ago, hemp is a legal crop in the US. (n.b. marihuana [sic] is still illegal at the federal level. Hemp is his straight laced brother). Growing hemp is one of the best things you can do for the soil. I expect in a 5 or 10 years, hemp will start displacing corn as an industrial crop -- as a raw ingredient for hemp ethanol, hemp plastic, hemp cloth, hemp paper, etc.
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...worries soybean and corn farmers face right now. Thousands of years have taught them how to rotate crops.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Farming has moved so far beyond this article that I am not sure why it was even published. No-till farming has been in use heavily for over 30 years. For those that don't know what this means, farmers don't continuously plow their fields before planing and after harvest. This keeps the topsoil in-tact and far more healthy as well as promotes the worm population which is very important and a key sign of the health of the soil. These are just a few of the major items because there is not enough space to fully elaborate. In the last 10 years, the use of cover crops alone has become the normal here in MI which reduces herbicide use and promotes organic material in the soil. Bottom line: the farmers of today are far better maintainers of land than then used to be and there is no worries that the world will end or another dust bowl is in our future.
Because business doesn't understand "sustainable".
The MBA-way of doing things is to run things into the ground while milking it for all it's worth, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground for any creditors who aren't smart enough to get out in time.
Then you move on, get VC-funding and start up a new business with something which works for the next quarter, rinse and repeat.
Too bad the earth doesn't really work with that model. Not that such facts bothers the MBA's though.
As much and strong pesticide as possible to increase the yield, isn't that the American way to go?
It has been well known by much older famers that is apart of sustainable farming. I recently talked to a 80ish year old farmer that complained of the lack of more crop rotation and cover crop usage
Sirius Minerals will be the "saviour"
https://siriusminerals.com/latest-news/blog/why-the-world-needs-sirius-to-succeed/
So like, what people knew in Mediaeval times and before - that you need to rotate the crops - has somehow been lost from modern farming practice!? America is fucked. Seriously fucked.
Wasn't all this discovered in the Middle Ages with three and four field rotation schemes? And more recently with George Washington Carver and his peanut plants in the old cotton plantations?
"No-till farming has been in use heavily for over 30 years."
From the article: continuous no-till and low-till farming, which decades of studies have shown improve the soil and reduce costs, is still used on only 1 in every 5 acres of US cropland, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
I don't respond to AC's.
Everything described as new or different has been standard proceedure for decades. Not sure what they are selling (beyond FUD), but farmers routinely consider which crops to plant based on expected returns. They care for the soil (what do you think fertilizers are? Replacement nutrients for those extracted by last years crops). Cover crops are a very common way to care for soil if north west Indiana is any indication. Youâ(TM)ve been able to buy seeds with beneficial bacteria already applied for at least 5-10 years.
Literally nothing to see here. Move along.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Ok, humanity *is* already the largest extinction event in Earths history, I’m being told by "the news" and their numbers.
But those growth patterns, and killing its own basis of living, looks exactly like certain stupid bacteria in a Petri dish, literal explosions, or badly unsuccessful pathogens that kill their host and themselves in the process before even getting a chance to hop to the next one. :)
Most people simply don't comprehend what a travesty the WW ban on cannabis has been for mankind. One of the most nutritious plants available for humans and more derivative products than most any other crop. The problem is it would liberate and empower so many "common" people that the evil elites had to prevent our access to it's benefits so they could sell us their patented products to make themselves stupid rich.
"The love of $ is the root of all evil."
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
If they do it properly then after a few cycles they can get the assets of the first thing they fucked up at a knock-down price.
Now that's sustainable!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Facing Soil Crisis
Seriously, fuck off.
Maybe try a little dignity next time.
I've been growing my own produce in 5 gallon buckets in my front and back yards for 2 years running. This summer I'm finally going to do a real bed and irrigation system. Harvest doubled the second time around, after learning a few things the first year. I live deep inner-city, right smack in the middle of a valley in western WA. I Don't use ferts or chems at all, and a package of enough raddish seeds to last years is like a buck. I get that it's GMO seeds, but I'm OK with that. Carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, I'm even doing some garlic but it's got to overwinter? I wish I had some fruit trees.
I started when the family was going extreme budget on everything to solve a few problems, that's past now, but I'll be doing this every year of my life from now on.
I feel like I'm learning a very valuable skill, passing it onto my child, and I can refuse to buy into the "Organic" marketing at the grocery store. I'll make my own, thanks.
It's DAMN easy in the summers here too, even the mild summers of western WA. I just water it, and watch for bugs. Feels great carving my own pumpkins.
I've been told I'm not allowed to grow my own food in my front yard (yeah? sue me fukko) My rain buckets are "stealing" from the local farmers (wanna fight about it?) and my buckets are poisoning my food (says food grade on the can) all by the same helpless snobs I see all over town telling everybody else how to do things. Today, everybody wants to point fingers at people that are actually doing something, and tell them they are doing it wrong, but nobody wants to take a little responsibility themselves and show us what right looks like. You want to be able to tell the farmers their doing it wrong? You need to be able to feed your family without them, otherwise, your just another taker complaining that it's not good enough.
This is the age of big oil protesters in plastic Kyaks, coal powered electric cars, logging protesters passing out paper fliers by the 100s, and recycling zealots sucking down water bottled in non-reusable plastic. 9/10 times, the whole noble message is overpowered by us humans being assholes. Change starts with you, Mr. Journalist man, show us what right looks like.
The most satisfying thing of the year? Eating a salad.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Big Business agriculture cares only about what will give them profit. They're not going to support any practice that isn't profitable for them, no matter how much it benefits the farmer.
The USA is ahead in a lot of things, but in some things (like banking) it is years behind the rest of the world.
Is the lack of uptake of zero-till and other soil conservation practices really as bad as the article indicates? Is it because of climate and soil characteristics (high rainfall, deep rich soils) or is it because of lack of scale or the profusion of subsidies?
Farmers are socially and politically conservative, but they are certainly not when it comes to adopting new techniques and technologies, or at least that's how it is here in Australia. We don't subsidise our farmers and because of that our farmers are the most technologically advanced and efficient in the world - they have to be in order to be able to compete against subsidised product from the USA, EU and Japan on the global market. You can't make a living cropping here unless you're working thousands of acres.
On the farms I've been shooting on since a teenager, we can't drive the shooting wagons across the paddocks anymore because everyone has adopted controlled-traffic as a part of zero-till - farm tractors use precision GPS guidance systems so that their wheels always run in the same tracks to avoid compacting the soil. Combined with precision spraying and fertiliser application and improved genetics our farms are producing more food than ever before with fewer people.
Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton will soon be sharing a cell in the gulag. Yay gulag!!1!
https://www.iowafarmbureau.com/Article/US-Soybean-Exports-Lag-Behind-Last-Marketing-Year
- 60% plus of US soybean production is exported.
- Reduce the amount of exports
- Lower total production
- Rebuild the land taken out of soybean production
There's no obligation to produce soybeans for export.
And yes, the medieval practice of 3 fields, 2 for crops and 1 fallow for animal grazing; with a yearly crop/field rotation has been around for a few hundred years to rebuild the soil.
No need to deplete California's aquifer around Modesto to export almonds to Asia.