Conventional Farming Is Killing Us And Our Planet

The Green Revolution—based on heavy chemical use, genetically modified seeds, and monocropped specialization—succeeded in feeding billions of people, but the toll it has taken on our environment and on our carbon cycle has been extreme. Our present agricultural system uses the same principle as someone who decides to start a cocaine habit to lose weight. We’ve got to kick our habit before it’s too late—too late for our health and for the health this lonely blue dot we call our home.

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure to speak with Mr. Gabe Brown, a giant in the world of regenerative farming, and his team at his new regenerative agriculture standards and verification company, Regenified. (Please read my companion article about Regenified along with this article!)

I thought the best way to explain what regenerative farming is would be to contrast them with the techniques used in conventional (a/k/a “industrial”) farming. Read the companion piece to know why I believe that regenerative farming represents the single most promising tool humanity has to first halt climate change and then to restore our ecosystem.

I also highly recommend the new documentary entitled “Common Ground” which features Brown (and is dedicated to him) as an approachable and fascinating overview of regenerative agriculture.

Conventional Farming

A conventional farm’s season starts by tilling the soil–a process that disrupts all the roots, mycelial networks, and habitats for micro- and macroscopic organisms that exist in the field. Once the ground is tilled, seeds are planted in the upturned soil. Conventional farmers plant one cash crop in a given field at a time–this is what is known as monocropping. The most popular crops in the U.S. are corn and soybeans and the most popular seeds are GMOs (genetically modified organisms) that have been engineered to be immune to a herbicide called glyphosate (trade name “Roundup”), which is discussed below. (See also my earlier article Here’s The Real Reason GMOs Are Bad And Why They May Save Humanity)

Over 40% of the corn produced in the U.S. goes to produce ethanol (used as a food additive), nearly 40% goes to animal feed (of which the vast majority goes to feed ruminants like cattle which did not evolve to eat grain), and much of the remainder gets converted into the sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup.[1] 90% of all soybeans are shipped off to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which we will discuss more in the Climate and Ecological Impacts in this article’s companion piece. In short, conventional farms are plant factories, CAFOs are protein factories.

Because a conventional farm’s soil is tilled and the underground ecosystem is disrupted, it has very low levels of “Soil Organic Matter” (“SOM”), usually in the 1% to 3% range. With so little organic matter (which includes temporarily sequestered carbon), only the hardiest plants—which we normally call weeds—can survive.

(Brown pointed out to me that, while farmers consider weeds to be an expensive nuisance, in fact, those weeds are nature’s attempt to heal the ecosystem. The hardy weeds draw down the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is released when tillage releases what was stored in the soil.)

To make up for the low SOM so the cash crop seeds will grow, farmers must apply synthetic fertilizers; these are either produced using fossil fuels (nitrogen) or mined overseas and shipped to the farm via ship and rail (potassium and phosphorous).

Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous are like rocket fuel for plants. But a farmer only wants to grow the cash crop in his field, so needs to spray herbicide to kill any plants he doesn’t want to grow in that field. The cash crop is not killed when the herbicide is sprayed because the farmer has spent a lot of money on “Roundup Ready” GMO seeds that are immune to glyphosate.

In due time, the cash crop emerges, but because it is not growing in healthy soil and is not protected by its below-ground symbionts, it has few defenses against harmful insects and pathogens. As such, the farmer must spray fungicide and insecticide. These chemicals kill indiscriminately, so pollinators and insects that would prey on harmful insects are also killed.

After the cash crop is harvested, the vast majority of the revenues the farmer receives must immediately be paid to the local bank that loaned him the funds for the synthetic fertilizers, the Roundup Ready seeds, the Roundup herbicide, the fungicide, and the insecticide. Approximately $0.50 of every dollar the farmer takes in as revenue comes from one form of government subsidy or another. Every year, our government spends roughly $125 billion on farming subsidies, including one called crop insurance.

After the farmer writes checks to the bank and the seed suppliers and the crop consultants and everybody else in the supply chain, he can expect anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars per acre as take-home pay. According to the USDA, the average farm size is 445 acres. You do the math, and you will soon figure out one of the reasons why the suicide rate of farmers is several times higher than the general population in the U.S.

After the crop is harvested and the checks are written and the cold weather starts, no matter how the season turned out financially, the farmer still has the soil. Unfortunately, because the SOM on conventional farms is so low, a lot of the soil that is left simply blows away or is washed away in a rainstorm–further lowering the SOM. [2] Nitrogen fertilizer residues also gets washed away in storms, leading to unhealthy water, algal blooms, and oceanic dead zones when the nitrogen runoff reaches the sea.

In financial terms, the only productive asset controlled by the farmer—his land—ends up depleted, making it harder to ensure future productivity.

Regenerative Farming

We will use Brown’s own operations to illustrate how a well-functioning regenerative farm and ranch functions. (Read the companion piece to learn more about Brown.)

Brown never starts the season by tilling because he has employed “no-till” agriculture for over three decades. In no-till, a blade creates a narrow opening for planting seeds, leaving the surrounding soil undisturbed. Because the soil remains undisturbed, the complex ecosystem within the soil also remains intact. Mycelial networks retain communication links between plants and feed the plants necessary minerals in exchange for the carbon-based sugars the plants produce through photosynthesis.

Brown also plants several different species in each of his fields at one time. This practice is known as polyculture; polyculture allows for beneficial symbiotic relationships to develop that increases all the plants’ resilience against pests and diseases as well as providing habitat for useful insects that prey on harmful ones and pollinate plants.

Rather than ship off the fruits of his field to a CAFO, Brown grazes livestock on fields that are being rotated out of cash crop production.[3] The manure from the grazing cattle fertilizes the field and attracts insects; the insects attract birds. As birds (including Brown’s laying hens and fryers) feed on the insects, they fertilize the soil with their nitrogen-rich droppings.

Grazing of large livestock is carried out in a way that forces the livestock to move quickly through the field, biting off just the tops of the plants (thus spurring the plants to work harder to store carbon with their remaining leaves) rather than eating every green bit that pokes up above the ground. Because the animals are living in a natural condition eating their natural food (grasses not grains), Brown does not need to make wide use of antibiotics. Because of the natural setting and the judicious use of antibiotics, the milk and meat is healthier for us to consume. For example, grass-fed beef have higher proportions of omega-3 fatty acids (a beneficial ingredient found in salmon and other fatty fish) and lower saturated fats than grain-fed counterparts.

By avoiding traditional tilling techniques and using the “armor” of “cover crops,” Brown preserves a vibrant under- and above-ground ecosystem and records SOM levels of around 7%. A rich soil with lots of organic matter is crucial for enhancing fertility, supporting nutrient-rich crops, retaining moisture, and preventing erosion and nutrient runoff. A high SOM is indicative of the existence of a diverse microbial community. This community forms symbiotic relationships that protects plants from insect infestations and fungal infections and also helps reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. Regenerative farming prioritizes organic and natural inputs over synthetic ones, reducing the use of fossil fuel-derived and imported fertilizers.

Brown has not used glyphosate in over ten years and has no need to buy expensive Roundup Ready seeds from Bayer’s Monsanto division.

All these soil health measures are, as I’m sure you will realize, carried out to allow Brown’s commercial farmland to mirror the amazing, inherent productivity and sustainability of wild spaces. In virgin lands, wild herbivores graze through plant-covered fields that are not plowed but remain fecund habitats year-round.

Using natural inputs and leveraging symbiotic relationships means that he keeps his costs much lower than his conventional farming neighbors. “I like signing the back of the check rather than the front of it,” Brown quips. Brown has not taken any government subsidies in over 10 years and enjoys a profit of several hundred dollars per acre. [4] Just like a good investor, Brown’s portfolio of crops is well-diversified, so a poor year in one crop is often offset by a good year in another.

Even after the crops are harvested, Brown keeps his ground covered with living plants, some of which fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil or simply just keep the soil protected from direct exposure to the elements.

Because his ground is covered year-round and because Brown plants rows of short trees and bushes as windbreaks, even if a late- or early-season deluge dumps a lot of rain or a big windstorm blows through, his soil stays put. [5] He ends the year with money in the bank and his most important productive asset—the land itself—in good shape for the next season.

While all of Brown’s methods might seem easy, it takes real consideration, understanding, and insight to implement these on different farms with different soils and environmental conditions. An understanding of how to tailor regenerative practices to a particular farm or ranch is where Brown’s deep experience is so valuable and is an element that forms a key criterion of Regenified’s verification system.

If you haven’t already, please read the sister article to this one to learn more about Regenified and about the amazing potential regenerative agriculture holds for our health and the health of our planet.

Brown knows, as I know, that we cannot keep doing the same things and expecting different results. Intelligent investors take note.

---

Martha Martins contributed to the reporting of this article.

NOTES:

[1] Feeding corn to cattle is something like raising children by feeding them only Twinkies. Corn fattens up the cattle very quickly, which means that—in the terminology of financial analysts—the cash conversion cycle is faster because the cattle inventory is getting turned into saleable meat products much faster.

[2] The soil organic matter produces compounds that holds the soil together and makes it clump, so as the SOM level falls, it is more likely to blow away. At one farmer conference I attended, one of the speakers claimed that in the Midwestern U.S.—one of the most naturally fecund and productive agricultural areas on earth—35% of the topsoil was 100% depleted.

[3] A conventional farmer would never mix livestock with “row crops” like corn or soy. Industrial farming is set up like a factory. Corn farmers are supposed to maximize the corn grown per yard of land; Beef ranchers are supposed to maximize the number of cattle per yard.

[4] Considering the huge difference in financial results, you might ask why a farmer would ever do anything but grow crops using regenerative methods. According to Brown, the reason farmers have not been quick to adopt regenerative practices is primarily structural and cultural. Many farmers operate with high levels of structural debt, making them hesitant to try farming using different methods, mainly when government policies do not support those methods.

Also, federal farm programs have been established to encourage conventional, not regenerative, Farming. Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture in the Nixon Administration, shaped farm policy based on a model incentivizing farmer revenues rather than profits. The result has been that “marginal” land—which supported healthy ecosystems such as forests or wetlands not well-suited to agriculture—was forcibly transformed into agricultural land that could be productive only by supercharging it with solid chemical inputs.

On the cultural side, farm communities tend to be tight-knit, and everyone knows what others are doing. Brown believes there is intense pressure to maintain practices that neighboring farms use; since most farmers are still farming conventionally, there is enormous peer pressure on “regenerative curious” agriculturalists.

[5] When Brown bought his farm, his SOM was in the 2% range; at this level the soil was only able to absorb a half inch of water per hour. Now, with an SOM of around 7%, his soil can absorb 30 inches of water per hour!

Source: forbes.com