@clarkinks You mention 20 years ago modern agriculture meant something different, but even back then and before there were many voices speaking up about the value of a regenerative approach. Masanobu Fukuoka wrote One Straw Revolution in 1985 and I just started reading a book written 25 years ago by Dan O’Brien, the buffalo rancher in the first video.
Among the first things O’Brien mentions is that the major product of the great plains is grass, with cattle and other livestock just being the means to harvest it, so his success as a rancher is directly related to creating and sustaining the best pastures. He moves his livestock from pasture to pasture frequently to let the grasses regenerate the soil instead of being overgrazed - what the modern regenerative crowd would call mob grazing. In one passage he talks about counting grouse to measure the health of the pastures, “… the number of grouse in a given pasture relative to that of the pasture next door tells the story. Grouse will use the healthiest range they can find. They are right down in it every day and sensitive to the nuances we can only imagine. They are better range evaluators than the most learned of scientists.”
As you can probably tell, the idea of regenerative agriculture really appeals to me and I love doing things like using cover crops and seeing my soil improve or interplanting crops that support each other. The challenge is for us to look to what nature does when we let it work and how we can support and mimic that, instead of always thinking we have to somehow step in and improve the process.
It would be great to see regenerative ag replace most of the more destructive modern approaches, but I’m not sure how that happens when every year is make or break for most farmers and trying something new seems like too big of a risk. Gabe Brown, one of the best-known regen farmers, really only got started with no-till and cover crops because he had three years of crop failures and the banks wouldn’t loan him more money for sprays, fuel for tilling, etc. Thankfully the stories we hear and the success of some of the regenerative farmers is getting out there so hopefully more and more acres will be farmed with a regenerative approach. And definitely, new farmers seem more open to these ideas, particularly market farmers, small scale ranchers, etc. But so many much of the farming that feeds the country is massive in scale and not so easily changed.
I think it starts with appreciating just how complex the systems we rely on are, such as the soil biology or how keeping vegetation on the land can even impact local weather systems and rainfall. We all like the idea of simple “hacks” that help us get ahead, but simple hacks only work on simple systems, at least in the long term. So how do we get more of the large scale farmers, many of which are corporate at this point, to think long-term when so much rides on getting every bushel per acre possible out of this year’s crop?
It’s my opinion trees need worked into crop rotation. My farm was in soybeans, wheat and corn in rotation in early years. Some property was put into fruit back then when i first bought the place. Transitioned my farm to grass and fruiting trees and shrubs in a shorter time than many would think possible.
If I ever hit the lottery big I would consider funding a non-profit to accept compostable waste and generate compost. There is a lot of good waste that ends up in the landfill just because there is no outlet for it. In association with industry and the borough all of it could be turn into a net plus to the community. I would run it with an aim to promote food self sufficiency.
Plus I would get to play all day with heavy machinery
If you can talk anyone that grows cash crops into this very strange idea it may start something.
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.”
Exodus 23:11
I dont think thats happened yet since we broke ground here in North America. Probably never will.
It does in Kansas many farmers historically leave a strip of unharvested grain every year. We do not harvest every pear or blackberry ever. Acres of my land are unused and animals live there. We do not practice intensive agriculture. Most people want to or need to plant every inch of their property.
'approximately 90% of the land area of Kansas is devoted to agriculture production.
Kansas ranks first in the nation in flour milling, wheat gluten production and wheat stored.
Kansas leads the nation in the production of both wheat and grain sorghum. It ranks 7th in corn production, 10th in soybean production and in the top three in sunflower production.’
Things must have changed alot… that seems pretty intense to me.
Oh, the ‘probably never will’ part of that I think is incorrect.
(Just turn on over to the book of Leviticus…Lev. 26:34-35. If our lives keep getting farther from His standards, this is a warning the land may be getting some idle time!)
The land I bought a few years ago had been leased and farmed for 70 years prior to my purchase. Standard corn and soybean rotation. I am planting a few dozen fruit trees and letting the rest go “back to nature.” Good for me, I guess, but I am also conflicted on this subject. I have a hard time believing that the guy who leased and farmed it prior to me doesn’t think “long term.” He has leased and farmed a few thousand acres his whole life and the rest of his fields are still going strong and will continue to go strong for whoever takes over after him. Big ag" has done a pretty good job of feeding 8 billion people in the world this past half century. I resist taking any prescription medicine and love the romantic idea of farming my own small scale regenerative food forest, but people around the globe are living longer than ever due to two main reasons. 1) modern medicines (which are just chemicals) and 2) modern big agriculture.
I think this article explains things that they probably dont teach anyone in school.
How Illinois soil became the deep, fertile, crop-growing wonder it is today.
Settlers discover that thousands of years of grasses growing and dying in the same spot gave us some of the richest, most productive soils in the world. Naturally, this type of land became highly sought after for farming. While prairie vegetation once covered about 40% of the land in Illinois, native prairie is now only a fraction of 1% of our total land cover. It’s ironic. Some of the best remnants of prairie cling to bits of land that lie along railroads, roads and cemeteries left by the settlers who were themselves responsible for the demise of our tallgrass prairie.
Looks like we have experienced several agricultural revolutions already and several more are in process now.
I see a small shift to local food production for local consumption. Even have free high tunnels from the USDA and more research on small scale and organic production systems. The system is changing slowly but even the big supermarkets are advertising and selling “local” fruits and vegetables. We see a lot of new growers selling at several farmer’s markets or selling direct from the farm or from their E-commerce site. Our small PYO farm is part of this important shift.
No till for large scale production is evolving too. The downside of no or low till is the use of herbicides like Roundup or Liberty and the GMO seed but older systems that mostly relied on mechanical cultivation used a lot of herbicides too. A few months ago I watched a dairy farm in my neighborhood y plant 500 acres in tillage radishes and some other cover crop which will winter kill. He will plant corn with a no till planter in the spring. No plow, no subsoil, no disk. He saved a bundle of money on tractor time and fuel and also reduced the soil erosion in a big way.
Perhaps the most significant revolutions came from the development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and improved varieties take advantage of the nitrogen to produce yields that were thought to be impossible.
The combination of cheap synthetic nitrogen and large scale mechanical agriculture changed the world forever but not all changes were positive. Once huge benefit is that food costs now account for a much lower percentage of the average family budget by a surprising amount.
I don’t hear much about the requirement for the agricultural system to produce a profit for the farm owner. As a small farmer I know that I have to produce a profit to continue to farm. I’m not sure if profit is a requirement for huge corporate farms like those owned by Bill Gates but I suspect it is.
Looks like the most likely source of failure of the modern ag system is lack of water. I see lots of discussion about soils and chemicals but not much talk about the shrinking supply of water for. irrigation even as the level of the Colorado river plummets to dangerous levels.
I think this is the factor that’s easy to blow off when you’re the onlooker and not the owner. Does the public want to pay owners to rest their land or whatever some think is needed? We’ve done some of that with the conservation reserve program. Can the taxpayer fork over more? Or can regenerative ag pay it’s own way?
You ask important questions. The average taxpayer is already paying a bunch for those things through the current USDA budget. I don’t understand it at all but it’s huge.
Looks like overall the number of small farms is still declining so perhaps the some of the budget could be spent more effectively . I just read that less than one tenth of 1 percent of US farms are 10 acres or less.
Most importantly, the richest folks in the country who already own huge amounts of farm land and are constantly buying more could afford to do big things in regenerative ag if they tried hard. They have the money and technical resources that no other source can provide.
We found a model that works for us but only with the help of low amounts of chemicals so I’m not sure its really regenerative ag.
Thousands of leased acres in soybeans this year around here. Most harvested easily by giant combines in the dry fall.
I am curious if it’ll be a big corn planting next year, or if the bio-diesel plant in the area is going to ask for soy. Or, does the new bourbon distilleries bid for corn?
Soybeans do add considerable Nitrogen to the soil for the crop the following season.
I’m surprised there isn’t any of that land gone into wheat, so I expect a big corn planting next year.
valuable chernozem, which is russian term for black earth.
and is probably one of the reasons russians are claiming ukraine, since the chernozem-rich nation’s land area approximates texas
Yes, this was before 70% of Americans were taking chemical combinations that aren’t helpful to everyone. I’m not interested in eating food that has been fertilized with community biosoilds at this point.
Me either. We are fertilizing with forever chemicals now. There is no requirement to test for it so in the following years i guess we will see if it makes us any sicker or not… we are test subjects currently.
