Is "conventional" agriculture feasible?

[JMJones0424]

In response to Is Organic Farming Feasible?? found in this Forum (sorry, I can't post links yet)

WARNING This post will undoubtedly contain suppositions, unsupported theories, personally held beliefs, and an assortment of blasphemous claims.

I think it is very important to ask the correct questions. The "modern" agriculture experiment began with the invention of the tractor, and rose to new heights with the discovery that a few relatively easy to synthesize chemical compounds can have an extremely beneficial impact on plant growth. During the industrial revolution, farmers in the western world were encouraged to adopt the industrial model and apply it to food production. Machines vastly increased productivity by reducing the labor required to produce a given amount of food, and synthetic fertilizers simultaneously reduced labor costs and increased production. Sounds great right? With those findings in mind, wealthy nations are rapidly encouraging third-world nations to do the same, and expect to get the same results. I think this is naive at best, and here is why.

I like to look at a specific plant as a biological factory, which consumes available resources, uses energy, and produces a new, more valuable product in the end. In that model, the best way to increase yield is to increase the limiting factor of production. In my experiments with hydroponics, I have found that as long as N,P,K,Ca,S, and Mg are available above the minimum amount required, adding more does not increase yield (assuming correct environmental factors). Adding dissolved oxygen does, to a point. Then the limiting factor, as far as I can tell, becomes atmospheric CO2. Supplementation of CO2 raises production by twenty or thirty percent again. After this threshold is reached, one can increase photosynthesis by increasing light intensity (power) and all other resources proportionally. Eventually, you end up hitting a brick wall, where nothing added will increase yield substantially. At this point, I believe you are limited by the plant's natural genes.

Now, if you apply economics to the production process, you end up with marginal utility long before maximizing the plant's natural capabilities. In most places, for most plants, it is not economically feasible to use artificial lighting and CO2 supplementation. Increasing dissolved oxygen content is easy, as long as you maintain hydroponics. For at lot of crops, like grains, the final useable product is so small in relation to the plant, that hydroponics systems themselves become uneconomical.

Once you step back into the dirt, matters get far more complicated. Oxygenation becomes very hard. Water quantity demands skyrocket due to losses from evaporation, runoff, and permeation beyond the root zone. Soil borne diseases and pests bring in new complications.

I have come to believe that this approach of viewing the plant as a factory has it's benefits, but is fundamentally flawed. In the correct environment, the plant is not isolated, but is one member of a vast web of interconnected relationships between millions of organisms that have evolved over time to be quite efficient. Modern agriculture ignores this web and focuses on the individual plant, and herein lies the problem.

Nowhere on earth do you find a natural, healthy monoculture. If you want a monoculture, you are best to isolate it from nature, as she will fight you tooth and nail. Healthy plants have a natural ability to fight off predators, but a monoculture, exposed to the environment, will eventually be invaded by pests or diseases, or both, that will decimate the crop. The modern approach is to use pre-emergent and post emergent herbacides, anti-fungal treatments, and pesticides to transform the local environment into one more suitable for the crop. If done responsibly, this can work for a time, but especially with modern global trade, new invasive species and diseases will inevitably arise, demanding more and different applications of chemicals. Not to mention the difficulty of preventing contamination of surrounding areas by runoff, water table pollution, etc.

Synthetic fertilizers, even if correctly used, drastically reduce biodiversity in the soil, pollute groundwater and runoff water, and foster the rapid degradation of soil organic matter.

Lets take a pause and examine what modern agriculture has brought to the United States over the past century. Undoubtedly there has been an increase in overall food production, but at what cost. By altering the environment and disturbing the natural web of interconnected relationships, we now require more irrigation and more pesticides and have lost a large amount of fertile top soil. Almost all of the native nut trees of Appalachia have disappeared due to disease weakening the trees, and pests invading the weakened trees. Bees are dying in droves, and no one knows precisely why. Most rangelands are so infected with parasites that withholding worming treatments from livestock is equivalent to a death sentence. The instances of how far we have disturbed the natural web are far too numerous to list.

Ultimately, the question should be, is this necessary? Is there a better way? If we apply industrial production techniques to crop management responsibly, by viewing the plant as a part of the whole, rather than the whole, than the answer is a resounding yes.

What are the limiting factors of production? In most places, if you discount CO2 supplementation and sunlight intensity they are relatively few:

1) Nutrient availability. The myth that nutrients are scarce needs to be put down. My county burns tree trimmings. Organic waste rots in landfills. Every fall, I smell the sweet smell of leaf piles burning. All to often, sewer streams are pumped a "safe" distance out into the ocean, where they can conveniently be forgotten. We live on a planet made of nutrient resources. Nitrogen is free for the taking in the air, and there are few places that marketable legumes can not be grown. Phosphorus and potassium can both be had at competitive prices to synthetic fertilizers through mined rock powders, bone meals, manures, etc. Moreover, they are more persistent than synthetic fertilizers, and therefor more likely to stay in the root zone where you need them. A well cared for organic soil, where plant waste is not removed from the field, needs surprisingly little additional fertilizer every year. If rotations are planned correctly, species specific diseases can be mitigated because the refuse is decomposed before that species is replanted into that spot.

2) Potable water. The best way to use irrigation water is to construct a soil that doesn't need irrigation. High soil organic matter, coupled with the use of mulch, can easily cut water demands significantly in most environments.

3) Oxygen availability. Tilling should be used to create fertile soils, not to maintain them. Yearly or semi-annual tilling destroys soil structure unnecessarily. Reduce compaction using mulch and intelligent farm machinery use.

4) Pests, disease, fungal infection, weed competition. If care is taken to foster a diverse environment both above and below ground, most pests almost entirely disappear. For those that are persistent, the use of targeted methods of control, or natural predators, is often more effective than broad spectrum pesticides. Diseases such a mosaic virus that can not be controlled by proper management may mean that an alternative crop should be grown. Harmful fungal infections should only be seen in trees occasionally, if the soil is healthy, and these can be dealt with on an as needed basis. If they persist, try resistant varieties, or grow something else. Weed competition can largely be defeated through mulching, continuous cropping, and reduced tillage.

5) Arable land. As far as I have seen, conventional agriculture at best barely maintains arable land, whereas organic agriculture readily creates it. Desertification can be reversed, without the huge irrigation and capital investment of modern agriculture. A lot of the poor people across the world live in poorly fertile areas. Labor there is cheap, while capital investment for machinery and irrigation systems are expensive. My sister is a missionary in north west Kenya. The local people are nomads that herd cattle for their food source. The rains come in the spring, and the native grasses grow so quickly that by the summer, the grasses are all too tall and fibrous for the cattle to eat. They burn the land, to allow fresh grass to grow. Some NGOs are trying to teach them to use modern agricultural practices to grow crops like sorghum instead, but where would they get the capital and knowledge to purchase, maintain, and use the equipment? If, instead, they where taught to cut a few acres a year and produce biochar, and to construct swales to store water for irrigation, they could do this for free and end up with bountiful gardens in a few years time.

In every example I have seen or read, organic agriculture is a more productive use of land than conventional agriculture. In areas where land and capital is cheap, and labor is expensive, it may be more economical to use conventional agriculture. But where labor is cheap and capital is expensive, organic agriculture is far more effective.

Field crops here are usually used for feed, I am south of the grain belt, but my neighbor produces more on his 120 acres using organic methods than his father did. His father was constantly battling corn earworms, cattle parasites, and summer droughts. The son uses apple cider vinegar in the drinking water to prevent worms in the cows, which has allowed dung beetles to thrive again, providing natural nutrient cycling back into the ground. The field corn is now intercropped with cowpeas and soybeans, and both are sold off the farm, as he no longer needs supplemental feed, even with a higher stocking density. He grows winter rye for a green manure and straw source for mulch after harvest, so the land is always planted, reducing weed competition. His disc attachment is proudly rusting by the shed, it hasn't been used for many years. He doesn't need to cut hay, instead he uses paddocks to let the cattle harvest the grass/clover fields only when they are tall enough. Once every two or three years, he buys and spreads chicken manure and lime if needed, other than that, his farm is a well oiled machine that produces a greater income than his father's, with less effort.

End rant mode, I want to go play in my garden...

[Essay]

Hoya! You've got my vote!

If you don't mind, I'll pass this around to some friends--just to show them I'm not the only one ranting about this important solution.

I'm trying to start a "group" focused along these liines. This might help! Great timing....

Thanks,

~

p.s. Thanks for the great read. I kept having to take a break as my mind raced, prodded by the depth and ramifications of the many points.

[lemit]

After much coaxing, I finally read your "rant" very carefully. Your neighbor doesn't do things exactly the way we did on the farm where I grew up, but he comes very close. The basic ideas of diversified farming, crop rotation, and using whatever materials are at hand for fertilizer ring true.

We left the farm in the early sixties, just before farming became competitive with all other businesses. It can't compete as a business. It needs to be either a vocation or a heredity.

If we understand farming isn't a business, we can go about the truly necessary work of stewardship. The guy who runs my farm wouldn't like to hear that. He farms about a thousand acres and makes the money necessary to farm by being a construction contractor...

So, farming of any kind probably isn't competitive. Why can't we admit that and start something that will maybe feed our families and communities, and make the world a little better? Farmers do have that capability. Not everybody can say that.

Oh, by the way, before electricity we all had "caves"--root or storm cellars--to store produce we planned on selling, and would depend on exchanging milk and eggs every saturday evening for groceries. That's very micro-economics, but it put three of us through college.

--lemit

[Essay]

Hiya leMit... Welcome....

Originally Posted by lemit

We left the farm in the early sixties, just before farming became competitive with all other businesses. It can't compete as a business. It needs to be either a vocation or a heredity.

If we understand farming isn't a business, we can go about the truly necessary work of stewardship. The guy who runs my farm wouldn't like to hear that. He farms about a thousand acres and makes the money necessary to farm by being a construction contractor...

So, farming of any kind probably isn't competitive. Why can't we admit that and start something that will maybe feed our families and communities, and make the world a little better? Farmers do have that capability. Not everybody can say that.

Yes, the economy was never the same after '68. I blame Nixon (and his staff) for these continuing ramifications--S&L, Banking, Financial Houses, Speculation--scandals.
...but that's a whole 'nother topic....
===

I still am amazed that agriculture is nowadays only 1% of our economy.
...but I suppose that is all relative to the financial/banking sector--that is now (or it was in 2007) a full third of GDP.

I wonder though, if our "business" economy were not so inflated (with the huge financial sector), then the (uninflated) economy--based on true production--might be on a par with "family" or non-corporate farming.
===

I also think that if we combined farming with carbon management (through education) we could increase the value of "farming" as a profession--creating additional job/product opportunities for farmers and farm families.
...rather than paying for future high-tech CO2 mitigation--pay now to the farmers!

~

[JMJones0424]

Originally Posted by lemit

... It (farming) can't compete as a business. It needs to be either a vocation or a heredity.

If we understand farming isn't a business, we can go about the truly necessary work of stewardship. The guy who runs my farm wouldn't like to hear that. He farms about a thousand acres and makes the money necessary to farm by being a construction contractor...

On farming being necessarily hereditary, that is a function of land value alone. In areas of the world where land is cheap, or owned by the community, this obviously doesn't apply. Here in the US, where quality land is expensive, this is all the more reason to use organic farming, as it is more efficient per unit of land than conventional agriculture.

Farming is a business, and if one wishes to be efficient, it must be approached as such. I admit, being in Texas provides for two growing seasons rather than one, and that adds to farm efficiency. My neighbor supports a family of four very well on 120 acres. If he had started in debt to purchase the land, it would admittedly be a different story, but he could also easily support his family on ten or twenty acres with room to spare by growing more fresh produce for local markets rather than organic feed for the mill. I think the average consumer is mislead by higher prices for organic foods in supermarkets. Organic food production, if done correctly, can be easy and more cost efficient than conventional production. The supply is limited, and consumers are willing to pay a premium for what is perceived to be a better product, and this creates a higher price in supermarkets. In the US, organic certification for small farms is difficult, as it requires setbacks from neighbors using conventional methods, and a small farm likely would not have the space to provide for this.

Certified Naturally Grown CNG - Home Page is a non-profit certifying agency that seeks to maintain the spirit of US organic certification, while eliminating the policies that favor large-scale industrial agriculture. It could be compared to a free-market approach to independent product safety testing performed by many groups on industrially produced products (like Underwriters Laboratories)

If organic farming is approached as a noble act, it will never be able to compete. Very few people work as a noble act, and farming is work just like anything else.

If the guy who runs your farm has a hard time making a profit on 1000 acres, I would suggest that something is being done wrong. Likely, you are carrying a huge debt load, and this is the very mechanism that makes conventional farming so difficult in areas where land is not cheap. If land is expensive, one should focus on the processes that make the most efficient use of land, and I believe organic farming fits that need nicely, regardless of its "environmental" benefits.

[JMJones0424]

One of the common things that conventional farmers point to when considering using "organic" fertilizers is the density of nutrients in fertilizers. Why should one buy rock phosphate when it contains 3 pounds of P2O5 equivalent per one hundred pounds when compared to triple superphosphate which contains 45?

The answer is simple. You don't need 45 pounds of phosphate per one hundred pounds of fertilizer. You are not gardening in a lab, you are gardening in a natural environment. A large percentage of that 45 pounds of phosphate leaches away from the soil. Application of a fertilizer of that strength immediately decreases microbe populations, which intern affects the health of the soil. Decreased soil health means increased chance of disease. A diseased plant is far more likely to be attacked by pests. A pest invasion requires pesticides, which also decreases soil health, and the feedback loop is now excellerated.

Rock phosphate only shows a value of 3, because the processes used to test it don't allow for long term release. Rock phosphate will provide P for five years or more, and it only becomes soluble through action of humic acids and other organic processes capable of releasing the phosphorous from the rock powder. Where TSP excesses are leached from the root zone, rock phosphate remains in place until needed.

Organic gardening requires an entirely different approach. It can not be accomplished by a one for one substitution from synthetic chemical agriculture.

[Roadam]

In my place wo mostly fertilize with cow manure. If thats not organic what is?

Anyway, i think since we grow crops on the same piece of land year after year, nutritions gets used. So adding nitrates is basically good thing in small concentrations. But it also depends on the type of soil.

Our small farm provides us with most of the things such as meat, milk, potatoes, etc. which we would have to buy otherwise. And with that in mind it is actually cheaper for us to have a farm.

Yield isnt really top notch, but I would like to think its done more cheaply as we do crop rotation, fertilizing with manure, some basic mechanization some manual work and little pesticides for the must have.

[lemit]

I may need to correct a misimpression I may have given. The guy who runs my farm doesn't do any farming on my land, just a little haying. I just have 140 acres, a little over half of which is in the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP. He does his farming on land surrounding mine and up to five miles away. He does no-till farming in the way it's often done in the midwest now, with a dependence on chemicals I will discuss another time.

Another possible misimpression is the word "heredity." I was searching for a way to describe the people who stay on the farm simply because they would feel out of place anywhere else. I wanted to avoid the trite phrases I grew up with, such as that it's "in their blood." (I'm sure people who still live in the rural environment can give more and better examples than someone who's lived in a college town close to 50 years.)

Roadam, I think you may have hit exactly the idea I would like to see stressed. You can call it organic farming or you can call it spreading manure, it doesn't matter that much, specially if you're cleaning out the back end of a chicken house. In fact, if you're cleaning out the back end of a chicken house, you probably won't want to engage in linguistics. That's what killed Brook Farm.

Thank you for this thread. If, some time in the future, traditional farming peacefully co-exists with whatever surrounds it, discussions like this may deserve some credit. I know that seems hyperbolic, but when we moved here from Missouri, my Dad thought it was strange that the college professors in his Sunday School class all wanted to listen to his stories about north Missouri farming. Of course, they were creating the Peace Corps, so they needed more, uh, sustainable ideas than the ones being taught in colleges.

Again, thanks.

--lemit

[Essay]

Wow, I guess somebody had to invent the Peace Corps, huh?
===


I was intrigued by the mention of Brook Farm. What was that?
...at the risk of incurring the wrath of the flying binghi, I include some wiki-based background research/reference.
...before any conclusions are drawn, further research would be advised.

Brook Farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...inspired in part by the ideals of Transcendentalism, a religious and cultural philosophy based in New England. The joint stock company promised its participants a portion of the profits from the farm in exchange for performing an equal share of the work. Brook Farmers believed that by sharing the workload, ample time would be available for leisure activities and intellectual pursuits.
Life on Brook Farm was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community. Each member could choose to do whatever work they found most appealing and all were paid equally, including women.
At Brook Farm, and as in other communities, physical labor was perceived as a condition of mental well-being and health. Brook Farm was one of approximately 84 communal experiments active throughout the 1840s, though it was the first to be secular.[6] Ripley believed his experiment would be a model for the rest of the society. As he said, "If wisely executed, it will be a light over this country and this age. If not the sunrise, it will be the morning star."[1]
In the late 1830s Ripley became increasingly engaged in "Associationism", an early socialist movement based on the work of Charles Fourier.
Some have also seen a resemblance between Margaret Fuller and Hawthorne's fictional character Zenobia.[15] In the novel, a visitor—a writer like Hawthorne—finds that hard farm labor is not conducive to intellectual creativity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitla...ndental_center)

"Fruitlands was a Utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s, based on Transcendentalist principles. An account of its less-than-successful activities can be found in Alcott's daughter Louisa May Alcott's Transcendental Wild Oats.
The community was short-lived and lasted only seven months. It was dependent on farming, which turned out to be too difficult. "

Charles Fourier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"François Marie Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 - October 10, 1837) was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier is credited by modern scholars with having originated the word féminisme in 1837;[1] as early as 1808, he had argued, in the Theory of the Four Movements, that the extension of the liberty of women was the general principle of all social progress, though he disdained any attachment to a discourse of 'equal rights'. Fourier inspired the founding of the communist community called La Reunion near present-day Dallas, Texas as well as several other communities within the United States of America, such as the North American Phalanx."

This Brook Farm / transcendental-agrarian movement sounds pretty neat--very much along the lines of what I've been envisioning.
They were just a bit ahead of their time--a "morning star," but not yet the dawn of a new age.

Maybe now--with the dawning of science and modern machinery, equipment, and technology--the labor wouldn't be quite so daunting. That seems to have been the main problem--figuring out an easier way to do something, in concordance with the local environs, that creates enough value.

~

[lemit]

So, how does anyone merge diversified farming with a life of the mind?

I think we did in my family, but I don't remember how.

--lemit