Gone Agro: Upgrading Modern Agriculture with Pre-War Farming Practices

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Recent controversy has stirred over whether organic produce and meats are more healthful than conventionally produced food. There is less debate over the fact that an industrial agricultural system, which is typically not organic, causes environmental damage, but is also understood to offer the benefits of cost-efficiency and increased production volume.

For farmers looking for a more sustainable way to raise crops and cattle, but hesitant to restrict themselves to fully organic techniques, a new study offers a middle path. The study, “Increasing Cropping System Diversity Balances Productivity, Profitability and Environmental Health,” by Davis et al., also known as the Marsden Farm experiment, describes a nine-year long farming trial that managed to significantly reduce the use of agrichemicals and fossil fuels without sacrificing crop production or profit. This is done by increasing crop rotation and diversification.

Modern industrial agriculture systems rely heavily on monoculture: the growing of a single variety of crop, buttressed by extensive use of fossil fuels and agrichemicals, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to suppress weeds and pests. These practices have deleterious consequences. Livestock are also raised indoors, separately from crops.

“Cropping system diversification,” on the other hand, rotates a variety of crops on the same fields and allows cattle to graze on those fields. Diversification can prevent weeds naturally, and integration with livestock provides natural fertilizer, both reducing demand for agrichemicals. Diversified crop rotation systems were used for thousands of years to preserve soil quality and output and to suppress weed growth until the 1950s, when newly available, low-cost, synthetic fertilizers made “mixed farming and nutrient recycling biologically unnecessary” and made modern agricultural practices cost-effective. Since then, agrichemical and fossil fuel prices have increased, making modern practices less cost-effective than they once were.

Davis et al. hypothesized that by using modern technologies, cropping system diversification could be done in a way that both reduced demand for synthetic inputs and maintained production levels and profits.

The experiment was performed on three fields in Boone County, Iowa from 2003 to 2011. The fields used three different cropping systems: varying in length of crop sequence, agrichemical inputs, and manure usage, and were measured for production and profitability. The first field was a conventionally managed two-year rotation of corn and soybeans. The second and third field utilized a retro system of crop diversification. The second field featured a three-year rotation of corn, soybeans and red clover. The third field used a four-year rotation of corn, soybeans, small grains and alfalfa. Manure from local livestock largely supplanted use of artificial fertilizer on the three- and four-year rotations. Energy inputs were measured by five categories: seed, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel for operations, and propane/electricity.  An economic analysis involved net returns to land and management for a given unit of land and was calculated without accounting for the cost of land itself (rent or mortgage payments), management time (including marketing) or federal subsidies.

The results showed that cropping system diversification—used in the unconventional three- and four-year rotations—enhanced production of corn, soybeans, grain, straw and hay, while equaling economic returns. Corn production was four percent greater and soybean production nine percent greater on the three- and four-year rotations than conventional two-year rotation, with the additional crops showing similar results. The shifting of crops also suppressed weed growth.

Notably, the three- and four-year rotations required 88 percent less herbicides to manage the fields. The toxicity for the conventional two-year system was double the unconventional systems from 2003 to 2005, and then had a 200-fold relative increase in toxicity from 2006 to 2011, due to the reliance on herbicides.

The costs of the conventionally managed two-year crop rotation equaled that of the diversified three- and four-year crop rotations, in spite of differences in demand for labor, energy and agrichemical for the different crop rotations. Unconventional crop rotations required more manual labor but less chemical energy. Labor needs were 33 percent greater for the unconventional rotations, with a strong negative correlation between fossil energy use and labor inputs over time. But the increased labor costs required for the hands on management of unconventional rotations were balanced out by reduction in the use of agrichemicals, fossil fuels, and increased crop production. Far greater amounts of artificial nitrogen fertilizer were needed for the two-year rotation compared to the three- and four-year rotations, as animal manure provided the necessary nutrients.

Overall, profits did not vary among the three separate fields, either in the startup phase (2003-2005) or the established phase (2006-2011).

The results support the authors’ hypothesis that increasing crop rotation diversity enhances the natural benefits provided by the local ecosystem, and is a viable way to displace the need for synthetic agrichemicals and fossil fuels. The study offers a practical and immediately applicable alternative to farmers looking for ways to negate the worst environmental byproducts of industrial farming. This alternative presents a cost-effective, scalable system for industrial output with sustainable management.

Feature Photo: cc/tricky (rick harrison)

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