Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
The dust bowl was less than a century ago, you'd think we'd learn.
Whatever gave you that particular delusion? ;)
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.
I'm not surprised that they're this stupid.
But I am surprised that there are people in the world who are aware enough about the existence of farming to talk about it, but think that cover crops are an "experimental" idea.
"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.
Itâ(TM)s not experimental. Itâ(TM)s common practice on many farms, and has been for a while. The fact that they refer to cover crops as experimental proves the authors have no fucking clue what they are talking about, or what modern farming actually looks like. Just an ignorant twit spreading FUD.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Hemp doesn't replace either of those, as it's uses are primarily as a textile and isn't useful as food for people or animals.
Hemp seed makes excellent food. One of the few plant products with complete proteins, it also has most of the essential oils. Throw in some greens and you could live a long time on a hemp seed diet.
Hemp seed oil is also useful for other products, tons used to be used in the paint industry for example.
Then there is the blas (sp?) that is left over after extracting the fiber from the stems, can be used to make plastics and quite a few other uses.
There's a reason that hemp was made illegal, and it wasn't that it made people stoned, though that was a convenient excuse to get the busybodies on side. hemp illegalization was mostly a Hearst initiative to remove hemp as a competitor to his new pulp paper industry. DuPont and similar companies were onboard as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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.
It depends on the weeds. Pretty much all of them can bind carbon from the air. Some have the ability to work with bacteria that can bind nitrogen from the air, which plants need in bound form in order to use the nitrogen - the N2 in the air is pretty much inert and unusable for higher life forms like plants.
Clover and field peas are examples of nitrogen binding plants, and so are some "weeds".
Not sure where you are getting your information, but the vast majority of farms are still family owned.
Yes, big farms are getting bigger, and they get subsidies. The thing is, the small farms are doomed for reasons that have nothing to do with subsidies or price supports. They lack economies of scale. Simple as that. When prices for their inputs go up, larger operations are more resilient to prolonged losses, and better positioned to capitalize on good prices. Thus the smaller guys go out of business.
It’s the same basic economics that mean most mom & pop business of any kind is more likely to fold during a recession than a national chain.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
You can buy hemp seeds legally, a 20 lbs or 100 lbs bag if you want. There is no ban on you buying or eating hemp seeds.
pothead spotted