Chemical Agriculture 205: Pharm

Did you know that glyphosate the main ingredient in Round-Up, a herbicide that works with GMO crops to kill weeds, was patented in 2010 as an antibiotic.

Turns out it is a very effective antibiotic at that...

Chemical Agriculture 204: Monoculture Failures

There are a number of examples of dismal failures of monoculture in agriculture.

Let's discuss three notable examples.

Chemical Agriculture 203: Ecological Diseases

A number of ecoloogical diseases have lead to undesirable consequences in agriculture. This was a surprise to some as it was thought that monocultures would not negatively affect society.

The technical terms for these diseases are "diseases of the ecotope" and "diseases of the biocoenosis".

Chemical Agricuture 202: Monoculture - Limited Crop Rotation

A monoculture is the human agricultural practice of growing a single species crop over a wide area and for many consecutive years. The most common monoculture is field corn, where millions of acres per year are grown and sometimes in the same place for many years.

At face value this would seem very efficient as specialized corn planting and harvesting equipment can allow one farmer to grow thousands of acres per year. However the monoculture has a dark side which we will explore in this post.

Chemical Agriculture 201: Farming is a Verb

Farmers will tell you that one of the benefits of farming is a sense of place to have their family rooted in the land. Wikipedia says, "A farm is an area that is devoted primarily to  agricultural processes in order to produce such commodities as fiber, grain, livestock or fuel. A farm is the basic production facility in food production.:" I have a few problems with this definition but let's just accept it for face value for now.

I totally agree with the "sense of place". We feel very grounded in our community because of our farming activites. Many families depend on us and we have gotten to know them at a much deeper level than if we were just casual acquaintances at school, church or neighbors down the street. Growing someone's food is an intimate act of friendship and community.

Farming is a verb. The discussion so far has focused on the "noun" definition of farm. Farming is a set of actions, it is those actions that make the differenced between a chemical farmer and an organic farmer.

Let's take a look.

Chemical Agriculture 200: Elucidation

When I was in high school I was the poster child for modern chemical agriculture. I grew up on a chemical agriculture farm and spent the first 25 years of my life being "educated" by a system that brought us the "green revolution" and I don't mean recycling. I was FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter president for three years and took 4 years of Ag training while in high school. I was an avid reader (still am) and read every book I could get my hands on how to grow corn, soybeans, oats, sorghum, alfalfa, and clover.

I also studied livestock husbandry. I wrote a 50 page thesis on bacterial diseases of livestock for my high school biology class. I was so interested in this that I borrowed all the books our local veterinary (a recent graduate of Iowa State University) had on bacteriology, biology, and livestock diseases. I read them cover to cover and then asked if I could use his micro scopes, centrifuge, stains and antibiotic sensitivity disks to identify various livestock bacteria. What newly minted PhD in veterinary science could turn down such a wannabe disciple. He and I had a great time my sophomore year in high school reviewing the basics of veterinary bacteriology. Looking back on it was probably a good review for him too. He was a very talented surgeon and was very good at diagnosing problems. By the time I was off to college I had inoculated and vaccinated thousands of head of livestock (on our farm) for various common and minor maladies.

I share this with the reader so you understand I'm not just an organic zealot (yes I am that), but I understand the other side of the coin pretty well.

Elucidation is a verb meaning to explain and make a subject that is hard to understand clear or easy to understand. The root of the word is from the Latin "lucid" to make clear. Let's look deeper...

Chemical Agriculture 113 - Eat More Chicken

Chickens are highly efficient at converting plant, bugs and grain into a high quality human friendly protein. Chick-fil-a has a lock on the "Eat More Chicken" slogan. But they are right, you should eat more chicken. But what chicken should you eat?

Chemical Agriculture 112 - Adhesive

Erosion is the ticking time bomb of the modern agriculture world. We have lost soil that took thousands of years to develop in just a few short generations due to mistaken agricultural practices. We may only have a few generations left.

Chemical Agriculture 111 - Euphoria

The meaning of euphoria has the connotation of elation, filled with joy, tremendous satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness, and well-being. Many words in our lexicon originate in our agricultural roots. In the ancient Greek world the word euphoreo meant "to yield a good crop". Not just a good crop, mind you, but one that is over the top, unbelievable, amazing, and once in a life time.

Chemical Agriculture 109 - Financing and Facilities

The family farm can be a great way of life. But the capital costs in agriculture can be very high. The barriers to entry can also be very high. For young people to get started can be difficult without financial help from their families. But part of the problem is the model that is used in the typical agriculture paradigm. Current agriculture spends a lot of money on large single use buildings and implements.

Large confinement buildings for chickens, pigs and cattle have but one use for those purposes. The investment is high and the returns relatively low. These large single use buildings handcuff these farm families to an agricultural model that rust, rot and depreciation will eventually destroy. This model is not sustainable.

Most of agricultural equipment is the same way. Limited use tillage, planting and harvesting equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and is used for only a few months each season.

Land becomes increasingly more expensive with prime farm land pushing $12,000 per acre. Making purchase difficult for the young farmer.

So what is the bottom line?

Chemical Agriculture 108 - Promiscuous Pollen

Pollen is by nature promiscuous. Corn disperses pollen prolifically so we should believe that GMO pollen carried by the jet stream has invaded and mated with local corn varieties in much of the world. A paper published in Nature showed how genes from GMO corn entered local varieties of corn in Mexico, where GM crops are banded. The corroborated results show 1 percent contamination by GM varieties.

Promiscuous GMO Pollen is already far and wide in our world. But is this an issue?

Chemical Agriculture 107 - Seeds and Genetics

Large multinational corporations control most of the commercial seed sources. What is deemed of commercial value is based on the priorities of the corporation. Many varieties that are of low sales or not deemed of commercial value have been lost as they are let go out of production. These are typically varieties for the home garden or heirlooms and much genetic potential has been lost.

The corporations are now dabbling in GMO's in a big way. Why do they do that?

Chemical Agriculture 106 - Minerals and Micro Nutrients

Chemical agriculture focuses on N, P & K to the exclusion of all others. As a result, we are mining our soils of essential minerals and micro-nutrients. We pretty much ignore these small but essential nutrients. If we had hundreds or even thousands of years the weathering of the soil would eventually restore these elements, but the removal rate is many times faster than natural processes can restore them.

The Petersen's have addressed this need by adding minerals to our soils. We started by adding 600 lbs per acre of lime (calcium carbonate) to the whole farm for the first several years. I knew that we needed calcium because of the weeds we were seeing (ones that grew well in a calcium deficient environment and because of some of the calcium deficient diseases, like blossom end rot in the tomatoes and peppers.)

In addition we added kelp a broad spectrum of minerals from the sea and we used fish emulsion which is also a broad mineral supplement.

The 3.5 million pounds of compost also has significant minerals. Why would that be?

Chemical Agriculture 105 - Soil Life

It is said that all soil on earth has been through the gut of an earth worm. Worms are some of the biggest of critters in the soil, albeit a very productive and important one. However, bacteria are the real work horses in the soil and are so tiny that billions will fit on the head of a pin and trillions in a gram of soil.

You can tell the health of the soil by the life in the soil. Chemical agriculture suppress the life in the soil. Most chemically farmed soils have no earth worms and beneficial insects are at an ebtide low. Beneficial bacteria and fungi are suppressed by anhydrous, pesticides and herbicides. We suppress and chase away the organisms that can benefit us the most in terms of soil building and crop quality.

Let me use our own farm as an example...

Our land was farmed chemically 12 years ago when we moved here. Because of the suppressed biology in the soil it took 2 acres to grow what we had previously grown on 1/4 acre. A productivity ratio of 8 to one. I also noticed that the quality of the produce was very inferior to our previous growing area. So what to do?

Chemical Agriculture 100 - Disambiguation

When I was in high school, I "drank the cool aid" on chemical agriculture. I grew up on a traditional "chemical agriculture" farm and spent the first 25 years of my life farming  that way. I was Future Farmers of America chapter president for three years, I took four years of Ag Classes in High School, I read every text book I could find on how to grow corn, soybeans, oats, sorghum, alfalfa, clover and livestock husbandry from an chemical agriculture standpoint.  I passed my chemical applicators license on the first try.   Yet all this time I had this nagging feeling that there was a better way.