Organic farming more profitable and beats no-till

[nosmokes]

original-gmwatch

Organic farming more profitable and beats no-till

1.Organic Farming Beats No-Till?
2.Growers Can Make More Money by Going Organic

NOTE: ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

---

1.Organic Farming Beats No-Till?
By Don Comis
U.S. Dept of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), July 10, 2007 http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070710.htm

Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than conventional no-till farming can, according to a long-term study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.

Researchers made this discovery during a nine-year study at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), Beltsville, Md. BARC is operated by ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

Plant physiologist John Teasdale, with the ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, was surprised to find that organic farming was a better soil builder than no-till. No-till has always been thought to be the best soil builder because it eliminates plowing and minimizes even light tillage to avoid damaging organic matter and exposing the soil to erosion.
~snip~





2.Growers Can Make More Money by Going Organic
By Don Comis
U.S. Dept of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), July 25 2006 http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2006/060725.htm

It looks like Minnesota grain farmers could make more money by switching to organic grain crops. That's the conclusion of a four-year study being announced today at the American Agricultural Economics Association's annual meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

David W. Archer, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) economist, and Hillarius Kludze, an ARS soil scientist, will present a paper on this study, conducted at the Swan Lake Research Farm near Morris, Minn. The study was unusual in that it analyzed both economic risks and transition effects of switching to organic farming.

The 130-acre Swan Lake farm is representative of typical corn-soybean farms in Minnesota. The ARS North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab in Morris leases this farm for field research from the local Barnes-Aastad Soil and Water Conservation Research Association.
~snip~























both articles in full here

[NashVegas]

1. There Was a Recent Story About Organic Dairy Prices Expected to Hold Steady While Others Shoot Up

Because of corn prices, thanks to bio-fuels.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/25/news/companies/organicmilk_prices/?postversion=2007062512

[nosmokes]

2. There's a study out yesterday confirming organic farming can feed the

world and then some, easily. One of the abstracts talks about the researchers being surprised at the yields from the small scale organic farmers, especially in the developing world, sometime s almost 3 times what was happening from the conventional farms, though I think that was prolly a misprint and they meant a third more.I'll post it as soon as a decent link in english is available.

[formercia]

4. The quality of the produce is better

My veggies keep much longer in Winter storage that store-bought produce. The flavor is much better as well.

100 Years ago, most produce was 'Organic.' The factory farms changed that.

[BlooInBloo]

5. Organic vegetables cured my leprosy!

[nosmokes]

7. keep eatin' em brother,

and maybe you'll be able to getcher head outta yer ass too.

[formercia]

17. by promoting regularity

there's always somebody.....

[KansDem]

13. Tell me about it!

The flavor is much better as well.

I buy organic whenever I can. I like celery and when I bring it home, you can smell its luscious aroma throughout the house!

[formercia]

3. Adding high Nitrogen fertilizer 'burns' up organic matter

It feeds the soil organisms that break down organic matter. It's like giving them the equivalent of speed.

[mzmolly]

6. Wow, that's great news!

Now there's no excuse NOT to farm organically.

[piedmont]

8. About that first headline--

I've always understood "organic farming" to mean farming without herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers. The intensive soil tilling to control weeds would be just one method of organic farming (though probably the most widely practiced). No-till can be done with or without herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, so it can also be practiced organically.

[SmokingJacket]

9. That's what I was thinking.

I'm starting a small organic hobby farm, and I was considering going no-till after the first year -- but organic either way. In fact, all the reading I've done about no-till assumes you're doing it organically.

[piedmont]

10. It makes me wonder if they were doing some weird no-till/conventional hybrid

If that was the case, then it would make it impossible to draw any conclusions at all from the experiment because of confounding factors

Edit to add: I was right! The two methods they were comparing were:
1) tilled, heavy addition of compost, no pesticides, herbicide or fertilizers
and
2) no-till, no compost addition, but pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers were used.

This study is crap! One can't conclude anything at all about any effects caused by the three (!!!) variables that differed between these two treaments!

"From 1994 to 2002, Teasdale compared light-tillage organic corn, soybean and wheat with the same crops grown with no-till plus pesticides and synthetic fertilizers."

[nosmokes]

12. Problems with no-till and organic comes with rotation as well as weed

control and getting the compost into the soil. You can do it no-till, but it's far more efficient to get it dug in. Also, since you're hopefully doing a fair amount of companion planting for disease and insect ontrol you need to have a pretty decent record of what's where and when it went in.

[piedmont]

14. The thing is, this study is complete crap. They had confounding factors out the wazoo.

"From 1994 to 2002, Teasdale compared light-tillage organic corn, soybean and wheat with the same crops grown with no-till plus pesticides and synthetic fertilizers."

I would LOVE to see no-till organic compared to organic+till. What I'm doing in my garden is more of a no-till, heavy compost addition method, where mainly it's just the worms digging it in. But this study is crap. One can't draw any conclusion about the effectiveness of any of the variables involved because they're confounding.

[JohnyCanuck]

11. Jesuit brother breaks all the rules he learned in agricultural college

Br. Paul's Organic Cotton and Vegetable Farm

Jesuit brother breaks all the rules he learned in agricultural college, and shows how to bring food security to the world

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Brother Paul Desmarais of the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre of Lusaka in Zambia is a happy man. He has just demonstrated that cotton can be grown organically, and furthermore, at yields up to more than twice the national average. That is quite an achievement as cotton is notorious for consuming the most agrochemicals of any crop, some 21 percent of that consumed worldwide; and most people have been led to believe that cotton cannot be grown without chemical sprays.

“I am confident that anyone can grow cotton organically in Zambia”, says Br. Paul, beaming from ear to ear. You need to do only two things: increase the fertility of the soil with organic matter, and put extra local plant species into the cotton fields to control insect pests.”

Plants that are sick or doing poorly will be the first to succumb to insect pests; so keeping a crop healthy with fertile soil reduces insect attacks.

The species inter-planted with the cotton crop are those that attract pests away from the cotton crop or beneficial predators, or provide home for beneficial predators; many species serving both purposes. For example, munsale (sweet sorghum) attracts bollworm and aphids as well as a host of beneficial insects; nyemba (cowpeas) provides a habitat and food source for ants and predatory wasps, and also attracts the pests leafhoppers, aphids and bollworms; sanyembe (sunhemp) is highly attractive to beneficial insects as a border crop and controls nematodes as well. Delele (okra) attracts bollworms, caterpillars and leaf eaters; milisi (maize) traps aphids on tassels and bollworms; mupilu (mustard) attracts beneficial hover flies and parasitic wasps as well as aphids on which they feed. Malanga (sunflower) attracts bollworm moths to lay eggs, and the beneficial lacewings that feed on aphids. A horizontal row containing a mixture of all these were planted for every 20 rows of cotton in the field bordered by sunnhemp on two sides. A host of other species can be planted, adding to the diversity of the farm. A variety of trees, such as Sesbania , Leucaena , and other indigenous species can act as windbreaks and provide habitat for farmers' friends and provide material for composting and making teas.

SNIP

Br. Paul majored in plant pathology while studying for his agricultural degree, his studies were focussed on the Green Revolution. He confesses, “When I came to Zambia, I naively thought that I would change things here. During the first 15 years, I promoted the use of fertiliser, chemical spraying in the vegetable gardens and using hybrid seed. It finally dawned on me that we were not going anywhere. Every year farmers were asking for loans to buy seed and fertiliser. Farmers made some money on maize production in only two years out of those 15 years.”

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BrPaulsOrganicFarm.php

More articles on organic farming and research into sustainable agriculture here: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php

[formercia]

18. Before there were chemical fertilizers and pesticides

there were successful farmers that knew how to do these things. The chemical companies and corporate agriculture bought off the schools in order to promote their way of doing things. They were hoping that people would forget how to save seeds and use companion planting.

They were a victim of their own success. Now, we have to relearn everything.

I haven't used pesticides in over 8 years. My potato crop doesn't suffer from potato beetles because I grow the companion plants that act as a nursery for the predators that feed on potato beetle eggs. The adult potato beetles fly in on schedule every year and lay their eggs, but they never hatch.

[JohnyCanuck]

15. If organic agriculture can't feed the world,

we're in a heap of trouble because industrialized, energy-intensive agriculture can't continue to do so for much longer either.

Eating Fossil Fuels.

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

© Copyright 2004, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

SNIP

The Green Revolution

In the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation commonly referred to as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.4 That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.

The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.5 In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more.6

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7 Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:

· 31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer

· 19% for the operation of field machinery

· 16% for transportation

· 13% for irrigation

· 08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)

· 05% for crop drying

· 05% for pesticide production

· 08% miscellaneous8

Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.9 According to The Fertilizer Institute (http://www.tfi.org), in the year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the United States used 12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.10 Using the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 96.2 million barrels.

Of course, this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the energy requirements for modern agriculture.

In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt.

SNIP

Soil, Cropland and Water

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water.

It takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil.21 In a natural environment, topsoil is built up by decaying plant matter and weathering rock, and it is protected from erosion by growing plants. In soil made susceptible by agriculture, erosion is reducing productivity up to 65% each year.22 Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about 100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate.23 Food crops are much hungrier than the natural grasses that once covered the Great Plains. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly depleted of nutrients. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from U.S. agricultural soils every year.24 Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to produce crops.

Every year in the U.S., more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging. On top of this, urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million acres annually from farmland.24 Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry.25 The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land availability. Incidentally, only a small portion of U.S. land area remains available for the solar energy technologies necessary to support a solar energy-based economy. The land area for harvesting biomass is likewise limited. For this reason, the development of solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of agriculture.

Modern agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. Agriculture consumes fully 85% of all U.S. freshwater resources.26 Overdraft is occurring from many surface water resources, especially in the west and south. The typical example is the Colorado River, which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific. Yet surface water only supplies 60% of the water used in irrigation. The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. Ground water is recharged slowly by the percolation of rainwater through the earth's crust. Less than 0.1% of the stored ground water mined annually is replaced by rainfall.27 The great Ogallala aquifer that supplies agriculture, industry and home use in much of the southern and central plains states has an annual overdraft up to 160% above its recharge rate. The Ogallala aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.28

We can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. A corn crop that produces 118 bushels/acre/year requires more than 500,000 gallons/acre of water during the growing season. The production of 1 pound of maize requires 1,400 pounds (or 175 gallons) of water.29 Unless something is done to lower these consumption rates, modern agriculture will help to propel the United States into a water crisis.

In the last two decades, the use of hydrocarbon-based pesticides in the U.S. has increased 33-fold, yet each year we lose more crops to pests.30 This is the result of the abandonment of traditional crop rotation practices. Nearly 50% of U.S. corn land is grown continuously as a monoculture.31 This results in an increase in corn pests, which in turn requires the use of more pesticides. Pesticide use on corn crops had increased 1,000-fold even before the introduction of genetically engineered, pesticide resistant corn. However, corn losses have still risen 4-fold.32

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. It is damaging the land, draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant. Yet this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into declining fossil fuel production.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

[formercia]

16. The connection to global warming

"Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt."

The addition of inorganic fertilizer increases yield at the expense of organic matter in the soil. When the organic matter breaks down, it releases Carbon Dioxide, some of which is used by the growing plants, but most escapes into the atmosphere.

[Recursion]

19. Hunger is not from some mythical global food shortage

If there's one Monsanto/ADM talking point we really need to counter, it's that there's "not enough food" in the world and we need to buy their poisons so people in the third world can eat. There's plenty of food, we just don't have the political will to distribute it equitably.