Regenerate Agricultural Potential
Bob Rodale, 1987.
INTRODUCTION
The U.S. food system has two components. One embodies the production, storage and processing of food. The other concerns food selection, purchase and use.
In this paper, I discuss the ways in which both producers and users of food are beginning to achieve their economic, personal, and health goals by working with natural systems, instead of trying to dominate them. The paper is therefore divided into two parts-one focused primarily on the production of food, and the other its use.
Particular emphasis is placed on the achievement of agricultural sustainability by developing methods of regenerating resources, and by improving our capacity to integrate production and consumption systems.
Presented at the Agriculture Research Institute Annual Meeting
Thursday, October 8, 1987, Washington, D.C.
CONTRASTING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS FOR A VIABLE AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
The theoretical basis for regenerative food production systems is rooted in the observation that degraded agricultural land, if allowed to rest or revert to wild conditions, usually regenerates. That process can happen quickly or take many years. But almost all agricultural lands have significant regenerative tendencies and capacity for self-renewal.
Seven major regenerative tendencies occur when the normal agricultural production process is ended:
- There is a quick increase in the diversity of plant species, often including some legumes.
- More plant cover is present on the surface of the soil, and for the whole year. That greatly diminishes or ends erosion, and allows increases in microbial and "critter" populations near the surface.
- The ending of biocide use-particularly herbicides-allows a greater mass of plant and other life to exist in the soil.
- More perennials, and other plants with vigorous root systems, begin to grow.
- Past patterns of weed and pest interference with growing systems are disrupted.
- Nutrients tend to either move upward in the soil profile, or to accumulate near the surface, thereby becoming more available for use by plants.
- Soil structure begins to improve, increasing water-retention capacity.
More conventional forms of agriculture take little or no advantage of that capacity for self-renewal within the soil-plant environment. They substitute high levels of inputs for the soil's in-built regenerative capacity. Serious economic problems often result, especially in the present situation of high input costs and low commodity prices. Environmental problems also occur when the level of input use is higher than the capacity of the soil/plant environment to absorb and retain fertilizer and pesticide elements.
Regenerative agriculture takes advantage of the natural tendencies of ecosystems to regenerate when disturbed. In that primary sense it is distinguished from other types of agriculture, that either oppose or ignore the value of those natural tendencies. Regenerative agriculture moves the production system in these directions:
- More closed nutrient cycles.
- A higher state of diversity in the biological community.
- A greater percentage of perennials as opposed to annuals.
- More reliance on internal resources of the farm.
RESOURCE SYSTEMS FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
INTERNAL / / EXTERNAL
Soil / Hydroponic Medium
Sun-main source of energy / Sun-energy used as "catalyst" for conversion of fossil energy
Water-mainly rain and small irrigation / Water-increased use of large dams and centralized water distribution systems
Nitrogen-collected from air and recycled / Nitrogen-primarily from synthetic fertilizer
Minerals-released from soil reserves and recycled / Minerals-mined, processed, and imported
Weed & Pest Control-biological & mechanical / Weed & Pest Control-with pesticides
Energy-some generated and collected on farm / Energy-dependence on fossil fuel
Seed-some produced on-farm / Seed-all purchased
Management Decisions-by farmer and community / Management Decisions-some provided by suppliers of inputs
Animals-produced synergistically on farm / Animals-feed lot production at separate location
Cropping System-rotations and diversity enhance value of all of above components / Cropping System-monocropping
Varieties of Plants-thrive with lower moisture and fertility levels to thrive / Varieties of Plants-need high input
Labor-most work done by the family living on the farm / Labor-most work done by hired labor
Capital-initial source is family and community any accumulation of wealth is reinvested locally / Capital-initial source is external indebtedness or equity, and any accumulation flows mainly to outside investments
As you look at the diagram, keep in mind that agriculture is about 10,000 years old. And for the first 9,900 of those years, farmers could use only internal resources, those listed on the left side of the diagram. That's all they had. Until about 100 years ago, the scientific knowledge needed to create input industries was not available widely. Nor did countries have the industrial capacity to produce significant levels of inputs. But advancing science and technology combined with the needs of a growing population created a rush toward the use of external resources during this past century.
The line separating the two resource systems can therefore move either to the left or to the right. For 9,900 years it was almost all the way to the right side. Where is the line today in the U.S.? There is no way to say with certainty, but my opinion is that the line is now a short way from the left side of the page.
In other words, the internal resources available to American farmers are being used lightly. Farmers are relying much more on external inputs to provide the driving force for agricultural production.
Those of us working on regenerative agricultural methods are encouraging farmers to move their personal line to the right. We are not asking them to avoid the use of all external inputs. But we point out that the way such inputs have been introduced into agricultural production during the past century has often diminished unnecessarily the vitality of internal agricultural resources.
Internal resources verge on being free, we tell farmers. You get them when you inherit a farm. Or you pay for them once when you buy a farm. After that initial investment is made, the cost of internal resources is extremely low. Even more important is the fact that often the internal resources are made stronger through use. Just the opposite happens to the utility of external inputs. As soil quality declines, more inputs are needed. And the cost per unit for those inputs keeps increasing.
Nitrogen is the usual starting point for discussion of the value of internal resources. All soils need infusions of nitrogen to maintain high levels of production. More money is spent on nitrogen fertilizer world-wide than on any other fertilizer element.
Yet the air is 78 percent nitrogen, we tell farmers. You can get some of that nitrogen into your soils and plants through the greater use of legumes. And you can encourage free-living nitrogen-fixing organisms, plus take more steps to retain and cycle nitrogen within your soil. Those are appealing and practical arguments.
Similar statements can be made about all the other internal resources of agricultural systems. When the farm management approach is looked at carefully, ways can almost always be found to make more use of any of the internal resources, and by doing so to help them regenerate.
Some of those management methods are old and well known, like crop rotations and integration of animals into the system where possible or desired. Integrated pest management also has the potential to be a practical regenerative method. High standards of observation of farm conditions, combined with generally efficient management, also are important.
Other regenerative methods are either new or have not been widely adapted for use in American agriculture. Allelopathic interactions are extremely promising for use in regenerative weed control systems. Interplanting is of course an old technique, but research at The Rodale Research Center is developing new ways to use it for grain production on American farms. Overseeding with legumes, often using aerial application methods, is also important.
Selection of plant varieties that produce well with lower levels of inputs, such as amaranth, is also an important step in designing low input systems. But that is only the beginning. In the future, it may be important to search for or create plants that have especially vigorous root systems, and therefore can be useful in improving soil structure. Farmers could use such plants to regenerate subsoil quality, thereby improving infiltration capacity and drainage.
Most regenerative of all are perennial plants. They have vigorous root systems and are especially useful for soil improvement. If higher-yielding perennial cereals could be developed, the need for tillage could be reduced greatly, and steep slopes could be used for grain production without fear of erosion damage. Work on that challenge has been underway for several years at the RodaleResearchCenter.
The Potential to Marry Conservation and Agriculture
- To reiterate, the three goals of regenerative agriculture are:
- To develop farming systems that can produce large amounts of food and fiber.
- To be more profitable to operate than conventional systems-because they are able to make greater use of internal resources.
- While accomplishing goals one and two, to also regenerate the quality of land and water. (A closely related goal is to regenerate rural communities tied closely to agriculture, by improving both the natural and economic environment in the region. See Appendix for references to publications in that area.)
A large scale series of experiments aimed at that goal is now being established at the RodaleResearchCenter. Our plan is to maintain the series of plots for at least 10 years, and to provide ample area for additional experiments to be superimposed by collaborators who would like to use this site.
Efforts of that type are by their nature more ambitious than what we now think of as conservation. The conventional view is that agriculture is a method of production and conservation is a technique of protection. Regenerative agricultural systems combine production and protection into one method. But they add still another goal-the improvement over time of the level of soil and water quality.
From a strategic point of view, there are two important reasons why the marriage of conservation and agriculture into a regenerative production system should be given very serious consideration:
- Having two separate systems divides authority and responsibility, and fosters either inaction or ineffective action.
- The concept of conservation has unnecessary self-imposed constraints. Its central theme is to save, to conserve for future use. But often soil has the potential to be improved well beyond its current state of fertility and usefulness. In that sense soil is different than water and air, which can only be rendered pure. Soil is a mixture of numerous elements, qualities and forms of life, most of which can be improved, increased in volume or quality, or regenerated. That potential for improvement should be recognized. It should be incorporated into strategic planning for agricultural research. And eventually the idea that the American land can be improved in quality while it is being used productively should supplant the present goal of protection.
The Importance of Food Consumption Systems to Strategic Planning of Agricultural Research.
The division between agriculture and conservation is one unnecessary conceptual separation that has limited the benefits that can be gained from agricultural research. Another such division is the separate thinking and planning that occurs in the areas of food production and food consumption.
Agriculture and nutrition are two separate sciences. At the very least, that separation leads to an unfortunately long lag time for the sharing of important information. At worst, the separate thinking that characterizes agriculture and nutrition wastes important food and health resources. In addition, at least part of the high cost of present world-wide farm subsidy programs can be blamed on a poor match between the things people want to eat and the products farmers want to (or are led to) produce.
It wasn't always so. And by going back into ancient history-of agriculture, of food, and of ourselves-we may be able to gain some insights that will be useful in sharpening our agricultural research goals.
Agriculture, as I said above, is about 10,000 years old. But we human beings are older. Genetically, we have not changed in any significant way for 50,000 years, perhaps longer. Clearly, we evolved in a nutritional environment that had nothing to do with agriculture. We are tuned by our evolutionary history to thrive on a diet typical of a hunting-gathering food economy.
The best recent review of the implications of our evolutionary history to nutrition (and, I contend, also to agriculture) is the article "Paleolithic Nutrition," by Eaton and Konner, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, January 31, 1985.
To focus on only one important manifestation of that evolutionary history, I will discuss our taste preferences.
In pre-agricultural times, our taste preferences were not merely senses to be gratified for pleasure. They were guides to survival, and incentives to action.
In a diet of wild foods, fiber was relatively abundant. So was starch. Fats and oils, essential sources of vitally needed energy, were difficult to find. We therefore evolved with a taste preference for fats-a continual motivation to find energy-rich foods.
Our taste for sweets, which we perceive at the tip of our tongues, was a helpful guide to determining the ripeness of fruits. When they became ripe, they were digestible and nutritious. We needed that sweet taste at the tip of our tongues to be able to sample fruits without getting them back into the mouth, where they would be swallowed.
A preference for salt has similar utility. Salt was hard to get in a diet of hunted and gathered foods. If people had not developed a taste for salt, they might not have survived, or thrived.
The life of a pre-agricultural person was dominated by the success or failure of his or her food consumption system. Taste preferences played an important role in that system. Also vital were, of course, geography, climate, and the natural systems within which people lived. But there was a consumption system, one that was intuitive, not scientific. No food production system at all existed for most of our history.
As agriculture began to develop, people worked hard to put into their evolving food production system the qualities they wanted from their food gathering system. It took time. Progress didn't occur rapidly. But in time people bred animals that could produce large amounts of fat, and selected rich oil-bearing plants as well. Salt became a cheap commodity. So did sugar. Processing methods to reduce fiber content were created..
In affluent countries where the richest fruits of that effort could be harvested, people tended to become fatter. Many became vulnerable to diseases related in some way to overnutrition of good-tasting food components. The low levels of exertion possible in an affluent society often compounded nutritional problems. So-called "diseases of civilization" related to diet, lack of fitness, and environmental factors related to industry and agriculture either surfaced or became more common.