A Vision For Sustainable Row Crop Farming

(Originally posted on Applied Mythology on 3 15/11)

It has been estimated that between increasing standards of living and

increasing population, there will be 1.5 to 2 times as much demand for food
as there is today by mid century.  To meet that demand without adding
more farmed land, the current farms must achieve greater productivity per
acre or hectare.  The challenge is to do that without increased, and
hopefully decreased, environmental impact.  As challenging as that sounds,
I actually believe that this is possible because of a number of agricultural
advances that have been made over the past few decades.  I'm not saying it
is obvious that we will get there, just that it is possible.

These Are Not My Ideas

As part of my consulting business, I have had the privilege to spend time
reading hundreds of scholarly articles about agricultural sustainability.
Over the past few decades there has been an extensive research effort to
quantify the environmental problems/benefits of various farming
practices.  I have not conducted any of this research myself, but I have had
the chance to digest it and learn from all the hard work that was involved.
Many of the studies were based on field research over many years, often 10
or more.  This academic research has also been complimented by
commercial innovation on the part of farm equipment companies,
agricultural chemical companies, seed companies and other commercial
entities.  The most important aspect of this innovation cycle is that
progressive farmers have tested, integrated, and perfected the new farming
options that flow from the academic/commercial activity.

What emerges from all of this effort is a vision of the kind of agriculture
that could not only feed the world, but do it in an age of climate change and
with far less impact on the environment than has been the case in the past.
Agriculture is a vast and diverse industry, so I will limit my discussion here
to the largest segment: rain-fed row crops (wheat, soy, corn, cotton...).  For
these crops the five, quantifiably best, farming practices are as follows:

No-till Crop following Wheat

1. Minimum Tillage
When soils are plowed or otherwise disturbed, the organic matter content
declines and with it the complex aggregate structures and biological
systems of the soil.  When soils are farmed with "no-till" systems or related
options, the soil organic matter is preserved and soil "health" is enhanced.
This practice also leads to less fuel use, far less erosion, and thus less off-
site movement of fertilizers or pesticides.  Minimum tillage systems require
specialized equipment.  They are aided by good seed treatments and
genetics, by either herbicide tolerance traits or selective herbicides.  The
transition to a minimum tillage regime can take several years and during
that time there are some risks particularly during cold springs.  No-till
systems have been in commercial development since 1960.
 A cover crop following Corn in Iowa

2. Cover Cropping
The land were most US, rain-fed crops are grown was once a prairie biome.
That system had a mix of annual and mostly perennial plant species.  The
annual crops that are now planted in this area are only growing, and thus
feeding the soil, for a part of the year.  A cover crop is planted to grow after
the main annual crop and before the next planting.  A cover crop after an
annual crop is the best substitute for the perennial systems that preceded
farming of the Midwest.  Cover crops can be used either to tie up excess
nutrients from the previous crop or to generate more nutrients for the next
crop (e.g. a legume).  They further reduce erosion and contribute to the
storage of carbon in soils.  Most farmers recognize the benefits of cover
cropping and the main barrier to their use is the logistics of planting them
during the busy harvest season.  When minimum tillage and cover
cropping are combined, the development of soil health is optimized.  Such
soils are also more efficient at capturing rainfall and at holding on to the
moisture.  Over time the soils become increasingly "drought proofed"
which will be of great value in an age of climate change.
Diagram of How Auto-steer or RTK
works

3. Controlled Wheel Traffic

One problem has discouraged many farmers from continuing in no-till.
After some years without plowing, the soils can suffer from compaction.
Growers describe them as feeling "tight," and they often feel the need to
break out the plow.  A more recent technology can prevent this compaction
issue.  It is called "Controlled Wheel Traffic" and it uses enhanced GPS to
guide the tractors and far implements so accurately, that no wheel ever
rolls over most of the area of the field.  By preventing soil compaction, this
technology greatly reduces the production of nitrous oxide during wet
periods.  Nitrous oxide is more than 300 times as potent as Carbon dioxide
as a greenhouse gas, and is often the single largest contributor to the
carbon footprint of farming.
 The sort of soil maps and yield maps used for variable rate
fertilization

4. Precision Fertilization
One of the greatest ecological challenges for farming is the efficiency of
fertilizer uptake.  The growing crop has a certain pattern of uptake from
the soil that changes throughout the season.  There can be periods before
or after the peak plant demand when fertilizers can be lost to surface or
ground water or to the atmosphere.  In all those cases the lost fertilizer can
cause pollution and/or greenhouse gas problems. Farmers now have the
tools to minimize those losses as much as possible.  "Precision
Fertilization" is really a combination of practices through which the
fertilizer is precisely placed where the plant is likely to find it easily and
applied at rates which differ across the field.  Extensive data is collected
through devices like a GPS enabled "yield monitor", by soil sampling, and
even by real-time infra-red monitoring of the nutrient status of the crop.
Specialized fertilizer applicators then apply less fertilizer or more fertilizer
as needed for each spot in the field.   This not only saves money by
requiring less total fertilizer, it increases yields by avoiding inadequate
fertilization of some parts of the field.   The addition of variable rate,
precision fertilization, combined with the improved soil characteristics
from the three practices above, can almost eliminate nitrate and phosphate
pollution issues.

5. Integrated Pest Management

To achieve the sort of yields that will be needed in the future, it will be
necessary to control the yield losses that can occur because of weeds,
insects and diseases.  This will by necessity involve the use of pesticides,
but by using Integrated Pest Management (IPM), farmers can do this is a
way that is safe for humans and safe for the environment.  Over the last
two decades, there has been enormous progress in finding new pesticide
options which are intrinsically low in mammalian toxicity and very soft on
the environment.  They also tend to be used at much lower rates.  That can
be combined with only using pesticides if needed and fostering any degree
of natural "biocontrol" that can occur.  The growers also have to be careful
to practice good "resistance management" strategies to preserve the utility
of these tools.  Insect resistance traits developed through biotechnology
also help to reduce the need for insecticide sprays.

All five of these technologies/practices are being used on a very significant

scale in modern, conventional agriculture.  They are not yet being used as
widely as would be desirable, and I have explained why not in another post.

Wheat field image from adarsh

No-till image from NRCS

Cover crop image from Iowa State University

RTK diagram from Ohio State University

Yield and soil maps from Vermont Extension

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