One way to get Big Agriculture to clean up its act

[HuckleB]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/one-way-to-get-big-agriculture-to-clean-up-its-act/2016/04/25/f83c6f56-0725-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html

"This month, I set out to discover whether what we think of as “Big Ag” is cleaning up its act.

What’s to clean up? There’s widespread agreement that, as industrial agriculture has intensified over the past 75 years, concentrating on relatively few crops and dramatically increasing yields, it has also polluted waterways and degraded soil. But we’ve also seen increased focus on such practices as no-till farming and cover cropping, which mitigate or even reverse that damage. How widespread are those practices? Are they having an impact?

...

First, though, you should know that, yes, Big Ag is at least beginning to clean up, but adoption of conservation practices still has a long way to go. No-till (growing crops without plowing up the soil) is used on about 38 percent of the acreage of America’s four biggest crops but doesn’t seem to be increasing. (Corn is holding steady; soy has ticked down.) Fertilizer use remains stubbornly high. Cover cropping (growing crops over the winter or at fallow times so the soil isn’t bare) inspires enthusiasm and wins converts — it’s the Bernie Sanders of conservation practices — but as of 2012, the first year the USDA tracked it, it was used on less than 5 percent of crop acreage.

Not all practices are appropriate for all farms, of course, and many of the practices being implemented are too new to be reflected in USDA data. But I found general agreement that farmers are increasingly focused on these issues and that conservation, particularly in the face of climate change, is important to them.

...

Let’s talk, instead, about money. If conservation practices are to be implemented more broadly, somebody has to pay.

..."

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If farming issues concern you, this piece is very much worth the time it takes to read it. It's quite well researched. There is also a discussion about it on Facebook in the group Food and Farm Discussion Lab.

[dembotoz]

1. k and r

[HuckleB]

2. Thanks.

It's interesting that this piece is being mostly ignored. Hmm.

[Rex]

3. This is what I think of when I read 'clean up' of a large industry.

The EPA needs to do a better job of penalizing industrial polluters.

[HuckleB]

4. Indeed, it does, and in a timely manner.

[Rex]

5. An interesting study imo would be to compare mass waste and run off of the GMO industry against

the Organic industry. An unbiased, scientific study to see which one is the largest polluter. People go round and round about those two titans of industry.

IMO Ronald Reagan gutted the EPA way back when and it has never fully recovered. Then again did you ever think you would see the day someone like Ted Cruz was in charge of NASA's budget? The idiots want to mothball science and just depend on dumb luck to save the environment.



Because of you know God and all the times He has saved us in the past...oh wait...he never does that.

[HuckleB]

6. Indeed. But it would need a third arm, for non-GMO conventional crops.

And I'm not sure how one would deal with farms that grow all three types of crops. But, it could be done.

And, yeah, too many of our politicians seem to think ignorance is a badge of honor. In an age where he have more information to utilize to make better decisions, we seem to be deciding to ignore that information all too often.

On an aside, back to the organic/GMO conversation, this is a great article on a couple that works to find the best of both worlds. And their book is quite good, too.

AN ORGANIC FARMER AND A GENETICIST WALK INTO A FIELD
http://ensia.com/articles/an-organic-farmer-and-a-geneticist-walk-into-a-field/

[Rex]

7. Thanks for the article that was a good read.

It really is about feeding an ever growing population. Trying to balance safety with quality and quantity. Then again so many millions die from starvation, all they care about is getting food to live another day. We fail them and mostly for political reasons.

Politicians muck up everything when they interfere with science and make it about emotions and not facts. I am so tired of watching leaders pretend they are learned enough to reject what a scientist is telling them. How insulting.

[BronxBoy]

8. Thanks for posting this article.

I probably almost never agree with some of the things you post but this is spot on. As a small farmer and someone who works heavily in the sustainable agriculture arena. I actually sit on one of the regional boards cited in the article), I can definitely say that there is definitely more discussion between all parties in the ag community about dealing with this issue. The problem with some sustainable ag folks is that we can see the problems but in many cases don't present solutions to work with conventional ag folks to solve what everyone thinks are problems.

In the Southeast for example, cover cropping is not being widely implemented because most of the traditional cover crops which have shown to have value in cropping systems simply don't work in most of the south because of our heat and humidity. Most of the cover crop studies to date were conducted in the midwest and Northeast.

A 7 state cover crop study focused specifically on identifying varieties that will perform well in the south has been completed and there will be a large conference and field trial demonstrations in North Carolina this summer. And there has been a LOT of interest from all sectors of ag.

Thanks

[HuckleB]

9. Awesome news on the cover crops.

I hope they are successful in the South. And I hope we can all work find a way to make it so farmers can afford to utilize them.

[HuckleB]

10. .

The lack of response to this pretty much shows that DU's anti-GMO crowd has no actual interest in improving agriculture. It merely wants to spread baseless fear of a seed development technology.

And there it is.