Why we care: Farmers around the world
know soil is the stuff of life
Said U.S. president, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt: " A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself."
photo: Thinkstock
Winnipeg was the site of 2014’s World Congress on Conservation
Agriculture where farmers, agronomists, researchers and policy-makers from 33
countries around the globe met to discuss the world’s soil, as the stories in
the special ‘Sustainability’ section in the July 2014 issue of Country
Guide reveal.
In fact, Country Guide, and
our farm readers, feel so strongly about the message, we made the commitment to
become the official sponsors of the conference.
The quality of life of a projected
nine billion people depends absolutely on how seriously we take the message at
the conference, said University of Washington geomorphologist David Montgomery,
author of the book with exactly that title — Dirt.
“As I studied erosional processes
around the world, I came to see that soil is really a strategic resource that
we don’t talk about at a societal level,” Montgomery said. “Global soil
degradation is probably our most underappreciated environmental crisis.
“I want to address the question: why
would a geologist write a book that argues that changing the way we farm, by
adopting things like conservation agriculture on a global level, is one of the
most important issues that we face as a species?”
It’s a serious issue with serious
consequences if we don’t get it right. But amidst the dire warnings there’s
also a sense of optimism. Panels of scientists in Winnipeg gave new insights into soil and they spoke of what it
is and what it does. A group of experienced farmers from the American Midwest
shared their stories of cover crops and how they use them to build their soil
and care for their land. Delegates from Africa and India told of new machines
and management techniques aimed at their small-acreage farmers.
All of this underlines the scope of a
global problem that is being addressed at the local level.
And everyone knew the stakes.
Conservation agriculture is about the preservation of soil so local industry
may continue feeding a global market.
Many of us see the soil as nothing
more than a mineral matrix that anchors plant roots. It’s an attitude that
Montgomery says must change. He laughed as he spoke of the time he was a
geology student and his professor said the most interesting thing about soil
was that it had rocks underneath it. Now he marvels at that same soil.
“In the last few decades soils are
seen as an ecosystem and the work that’s gone on in studying symbioses between
the microbes, bacteria and fungi living in the soil and the nutrient transfers
into plants has been amazing,” Montgomery said. “The things I learned in
college about soil and fertility are increasingly out of date, and the idea that
plants are actually secreting sugars into the soil to feed micro-organisms and
trade within a whole underground barter system is something I never learned.”
That barter system brings into play
essential nutrient cycles for every continent’s ecosystems. It’s no accident
that every eulogy ends with the phrase ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The
soil is where the Earth recycles the bodies of all living things.
It starts with plants as they use
photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy. Their roots
condition the soil, opening channels for moisture infiltration while
introducing the chemical energy that nourishes soil biota. Soil biota, in turn,
go to work on the parent material, releasing inorganic elements like phosphorus
and potassium that feed back to the plants. Then the plants use those nutrients
to build tissue that animals consume, and when those animals die, they return
their nutrients to the soil where the soil biota breaks their material down
into molecules that plants rebuild into living tissue.
The soil is also the basis for that
simplified ecosystem we call agriculture, where we grow specific plants and
animals for our use. While agriculture is productive it also has the potential
to be very destructive, and history records quite a series of catastrophes that
should serve as warnings, like the collapse of Mesopotamia, the erosion of
Iceland or the dust-bowl of the North American Great Plains.
“Walter Lowdermilk, 50 years ago
wrote that we have the underlying hazard of civilization. By clearing and cultivating
sloping lands we expose them to accelerated erosion by water or by wind and by
doing this we enter into a regime of self-destructive agriculture,” Montgomery
said. “Back in the 1930s Franklin Delano Roosevelt elaborated on this when he
wrote that a nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.”
Agrarian societies seem to have a
lifespan of 500 years, which is about how long it takes to burn out the soil.
The good news is that, if given time, soil will heal itself and live again. The
bad news is that it takes a lot of time, and we don’t have that luxury anymore.
“We need a different philosophy, a
different approach,” said farmer, business magnate and conservationist Howard
Buffet. “The day is over where you can bury your head.”
Conservation agriculture aims to keep
our soils healthy and productive through three simple strategies. We want to
minimize disturbance by reducing or eliminating tillage, keep the soil covered
with living plants or trash, and run rotations of three or more different
crops.
In this way conservation agriculture
is the environmental cornerstone of sustainable farming. Sustainability takes
it the next step into the realm of our economic and social requirements. People
are important too, and farmers have to make a living off their land. When they
do, they provide the economic base that maintains their neighbours in the local
towns as well as the surrounding cities.
It’s why conservation agriculture
must be more than just ecological.
“It really has to be a cultural
movement,” claimed Rene Van Acker, associate dean of the Ontario Agricultural
College in Guelph. “I would argue that there are a number of elements required
to achieve conservation agriculture, such as the desire to do it, the knowledge
needed, political and market support, opportunities, co-operation and the
technology to make it work.”
Mark Anson farms 20,000 acres in
Indiana and Illinois along with his brothers and their sons, altogether making
a board of 10 partners. Although the farm was profitable, Anson was not happy
with the quality of the soil and, in general, he wasn’t happy with farming. He
discovered cover cropping and planting forage radishes or fall cereals as a way
to get roots in the ground to nourish the soil after harvest and into the
winter.
It’s not seen as conventional in
North America, so it took a bit of convincing to get his family to try it out.
It took a great deal of commitment to keep on going because, as with anything
new, there were a few disasters along with some successes. In the end it was
the desire to make it work that kept them going.
Cover cropping makes a farming system
a lot more complicated and it takes a great deal of know-ledge to do it well.
Anson and his family have spent the last few years learning about their soil
and how to manage it better. It’s paying big dividends to him so he’s eager to
spread the word and expand the knowledge. As more farmers understand the
benefits, he hopes these systems will catch on. Although the principles are
universal, however, the devil is in the details and each region, each soil
type, has its quirks.
Regional quirks sometimes require
unconventional technology. For example, the North American and European
big-sky, big-iron approach is unsuitable in Africa or India. There the farms
are tiny, and their machinery must reflect, said Brian Sims, an agricultural
engineering consultant to the Food and Agricultural Organization at the United
Nations.
In these places much of the work is
done by hand on very small plots and many of the implements are still animal
drawn. In these cases a small, hand-steered two-wheeled tractor is much more
suitable, but it’s not enough. Van Acker’s support component is just as
important.
“It’s very difficult to introduce
innovation to every single user,” Sims said. “It’s much more efficient to train
service providers so that they know exactly how to operate the machinery, they
can offer quality service and they understand the business.”
It’s a private-sector model that
provides a great deal of local support. In addition to training farmers in
conservation agriculture and mechanization there’s an incentive to train local
people in finance and mechanics. This builds the community of small financiers,
machine dealers and mechanics as well as educators. The farmers are now
supporting the social infrastructure that, in turn, supports them. These are
all things necessary for long-term sustainability, looking to people’s economic
and social needs as well as safeguarding the soil.
Farming has always been a tricky
business. It’s because we grow plants in ways they simply don’t grow naturally.
Disturbed monocultural systems lose topsoil, hemorrhage nutrients and generally
waste precious potential.
The good news is that we’re looking
to nature and coming up with new ways of thinking and new ways of farming that
can lead to reliable methods of food, fibre and fuel production while building
more resilient farming systems.
“Mother Nature is a very good
manager,” concluded South Dakota State University professor, Dwayne Beck.
“She’s been managing ecosystems better and longer than anyone else. She harvests
the maximum amount of sunlight, she leaves very few nutrients and she doesn’t
leak.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. government — to
cite just one example — spends five times more on crop insurance than it spends
on research. “Does that make any sense?” Beck asks. “Lack of commitment is THE
problem.”
