From an ecological standpoint, the fundamental problem with U.S. farm policy dating back to the '70s is that it rewards farmers for maximizing yield at all cost.
Encouraged to produce as much as possible, all the time, farmers have few incentives to conserve resources or protect water, air, or soil quality. The federal government's dizzying array of biofuel subsidies -- which have propped up crop prices and encouraged yet more production -- only exacerbates the situation.
I don't think greens fully appreciate the ecological troubles associated with these policies. Peter Donovan's recent post showed how agriculture has vast -- and presently, largely untapped -- potential to mop up a significant amount of carbon from the atmosphere. And I recently posted about how the biofuel boom is unleashing a cascade of chemicals onto farmland, both domestically and globally.
And now we get this. Researchers at the University of Illinois have shown that nitrogen fertilizers, when applied at levels currently common in the Midwest, severely deplete the soil's ability to store carbon. The consequences are dire. As one of the researchers put it:
The loss of soil carbon has many adverse consequences for productivity, one of which is to decrease water storage. There are also adverse implications for air and water quality, since carbon dioxide will be released into the air, while excessive nitrogen contributes to the nitrate pollution problem.
Essentially, the boom in corn production now underway in the Midwest is a subprime mortgage on our cropland's future productivity -- and a drain on the Midwest's water resources. Since fertilizer-lashed soil loses its ability to hold water, farmers need to irrigate their land at higher levels, taxing the Midwest's water table -- to speak nothing of all the carbon that could be stored in soil, which is now drifting into the atmosphere, doing its bit to warm the planet.
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Comments
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:31 pm
03 Nov 2007
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odograph Posted 11:28 pm
03 Nov 2007
GCC reports that "Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Americans want the government to provide incentives to encourage refiners to reduce their use of oil and increase use of renewables."
Why not right? It's only money, and it's not like we actually need to save for it, or tax for it. "Tax and spend" is so last century. Now it's "Don't tax and spend anyway." It satisfies everybody ... or at least everyone for whom "fiscal responsibility" is a word problem.
That might be a "push-poll" by the corn industry, and things might not be quite that bad, but still .. citizens take on debt to buy SUVs, and governments take on debt to fuel them. It is so symmetrical.
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justlou Posted 12:02 am
04 Nov 2007
Tom, only a very small percentage of the Midwest is irrigated. The water holding capacity of soils is related more to their texture. The lighter textured soils like sands hold less water than silty and clay soils. The sands receive the greatest share of irrigation because they tend to be associated with aquifers holding significant quantities of ground water that are being replenished by rainfall at least in the more humid eastern parts of the Midwest. The drier western parts of the Midwest are a different story. But the basic problem there is not that the soils can hold less water due to any fertilizer practice, but that even the best soils do not supply enough water to achieve maximum economic yields of corn in drier climates. If farmers can utilize nitrogen more efficiently with less total applied that is good. No doubt that corn is a resource hungry plant. And farmers are no different than any other low margin producer needing to maximize production and sales.
The depletion of soil organic matter is a long term process. Nitrogen does hasten the process but so does drainage (more aeration) and tillage. The production of tons of corn stover per acre that is returned to the soil slows the process, adds to tilth and increases the ability of soils to reduce surface runoff and retain more moisture especially when managed with conservation tillage.
This does not detract from the issue raised by the research but it does help your arguments if you can get the basic agronomy right.
No matter all our wishing for a more earth friendly agriculture, industrial ag is here to stay ... until the oil, the natural gas, the fertilizer mines, etc. run out. I'd like to see less corn, less cars, and less people too. But we know that ain't going to happen without some kind of "big time".
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Erik Hoffner Posted 12:26 am
04 Nov 2007
The ability of the soil to hold carbon, any carbon at all, really, is what concerns me. Besides being a (pretty) minor hedge on atmospheric carbon loading, the main upside of holding the carbon there is that it usually means you're building soil, too, and building soil is one thing we need to do a LOT more of. We lose astronomical amounts of topsoil every year to the Mississippi Delta, and it's not coming back any time soon.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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odograph Posted 12:41 am
04 Nov 2007
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justlou Posted 1:19 am
04 Nov 2007
Erik, runoff from ag is responsible for like 75% of stream and river quality problems in the Midwest. So, yes, keeping everything we can on farm fields including more water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and soil would improve environmental quality and aquatic ecosystems. Ironically many quality problems originate with managing "excess" water via runoff and drainage tile systems. Flushing in both ag and urban areas is a major problem.
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odograph Posted 1:26 am
04 Nov 2007
I do like the parallel though, between Ogallala withdrawals, ethanol subsidies, and debt.
(I'm working in an other window, my excuse for periodic grist-scans in my PJs)
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OhioPaul Posted 4:41 am
05 Nov 2007
"...farmers have few incentives to conserve resources or protect water, air, or soil quality."
Yeah, all the farmers I know want to wipe out all the wild life, spoil all water and rape all the land so there's nothing for their sons and daughters to inherit. This is a stupid and pompous statement, like farmers are some sort of robots. Go out and meet a few before you say stuff like this.
"The loss of soil carbon has many adverse consequences for productivity, one of which is to decrease water storage. There are also adverse implications for air and water quality, since carbon dioxide will be released into the air, while excessive nitrogen contributes to the nitrate pollution problem."
If the greens don't manage to kill Monsanto, they are working on a corn plant that fixes its own nitrogen like soybeans.
And someone else mentioned that the Midwest doesn't irrigate corn to any great extent, which is true.
Just railing against some of the nonsense. Tighten up, and maybe give some credit where credit is due.
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:11 am
05 Nov 2007
The thing is, the incentives we have in place today reward gross output. There's no percentage in taking land out of production for a while, or lowering the nitrogen dose. Large-scale Corn Belt farms today survive by squeezing as much as possible out of the land. To change the incentive structure, I think we first need to scrap the insane and inane corn ethanol program; and then figure out some sort of supply management team.
The nature of farming means that farmers respond poorly to price signals, especially when prices drop. Falling prices tends to inspire farmers to plant more to make up for the loss. Look at years like 2004 and 2005--rock bottom corn prices, and record or near-record production.
As for irrigation, I'm well aware that most of the farm belt isn't irrigated. That's mostly because of the region's superior soil structure. My question is: If we continue to degrade that soil structure with artificial fertilizers, how long can they continue not irrigating?
As for Monsanto, I'm not sure what's more ridiculous--the image of this multibillion-dollar titan being somehow endangered by the green movement, or its conjuring up a nitrogen-fixing corn variety that's going to sort out our troubles.
What say we just plant less dent corn--an industrial input--and more food for people to eat?
Victual Reality
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:56 am
05 Nov 2007
The nature of farming means that farmers respond poorly to price signals, especially when prices drop. Falling prices tends to inspire farmers to plant more to make up for the loss. Look at years like 2004 and 2005--rock bottom corn prices, and record or near-record production.
... as if prices are the only factors that determine farmer planting behaviour. Have you forgotten, or do you just choose to ignore, the influence of USDA loan deficiency payments and counter-cyclical payments (not to mention crop insurance)?
Your argument would be more convincing if you could point to a real-life example (e.g., from New Zealand?) in which government support programs are not so dominant and the same kind of behaviour can still be observed.
Farmers are rational. If government programs are not guaranteeing them a minimal return whatever the price, and they have several choices among the kinds of crops they can grow, why would they not abandon low-priced crops in favour of ones that are more profitable? If you were a tomato grower (not under contract to a canner), and the price plummeted, wouldn't you consider planting something else next season, rather than trying to plant even more tomatoes on the same plot?
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Tom Philpott Posted 6:08 am
05 Nov 2007
Victual Reality
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:25 am
05 Nov 2007
But you are making a broad generalization here, suggesting that the supply response of (all) farmers, is contrary to that in all other industries, which I think at best is only partially supported by the evidence, and then only for certain crops and only in the short- to medium term. (And in traditional subsistance cultures dependent on obtaining seeds from the previous year's crop.)
ADM ready to give up subsidies? You must be joking. It, and the administration, may be willing to give up certain commodity programs, but aren't they simply substituting them with support for agro-fuels?
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Tom Philpott Posted 7:00 am
05 Nov 2007
If ADM is so into subsidies, why does Bush's own Farm Bill proposal promise a much more modest commodity title than either the house version or the Senate ag committee's? Remember, Bush threatened to veto the House version, because it wasn't a significant enough "reform."
Or are you arguing that ADM has no influence with the Bush Admin.? If so, how does one explain Chuck Conner, who has lately been a subsidy critic?
Here's what Conner said about the generous commodity title in the Senate Ag Committee's version:
This is just simply bad policy. It paints a bull's-eye on the backs of the American farmer, causes us enormous trouble internationally. It's just simply bad farm policy. No reform at all.
Victual Reality
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:42 am
05 Nov 2007
ADM doesn't give a damn about subsidies as long as farmers keep churning out as much product as possible.
That's probably right. But they certainly care about biofuel subsidies!
If ADM is so into subsidies, why does Bush's own Farm Bill proposal promise a much more modest commodity title than either the house version or the Senate ag committee's? Remember, Bush threatened to veto the House version, because it wasn't a significant enough "reform."
I don't know, but I would guess that some people in the administration genuinely believe in reform of the commodity programs. And they are also no doubt looking for places to cut spending so they can continue to finance a U.S. presence in Iraq.
Or are you arguing that ADM has no influence with the Bush Admin.?
Lacking evidence to the contrary, I certainly wouldn't argue that!
If so, how does one explain Chuck Conner, who has lately been a subsidy critic?
I haven't a clue. Why did he leave ADM?
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jarmadi Posted 9:55 am
06 Nov 2007
"From an ecological standpoint, the fundamental problem with U.S. farm policy dating back to the '70s is that it rewards farmers for maximizing yield at all cost.
Encouraged to produce as much as possible, all the time, farmers have few incentives to conserve resources or protect water, air, or soil quality. The federal government's dizzying array of biofuel subsidies -- which have propped up crop prices and encouraged yet more production -- only exacerbates the situation."
Well, the above includes a minimum of fact, along with some distortions, and some things that are just not right. First of all, it overlooks how the Soviet invasion of Chechoslovakia impacted American farming from the late 70's until now. In the early 70's the Nixon administration negotiated huge, really really huge contracts for grain sales to the USSR. The US farmer was urged/pushed to increase production of grain to meet these contractual obligations, primarily by plowing under vast acreages of fragile, highly erodable grasslands for new grain fields. Prices of grain were high, and although there were existent USDA commodity programs, the price of grain was considerably above the target prices where price supports would kick in, so the cost to the tax payer was zero.
Then, during the Carter administration, in reaction to the Soviet invasion, Pres Carter punished the Soviets by (1) pulling the US out of the Moscow olympics and (2) blocking all grain sales to the USSR. The impact on the USSR was marginal. Instead it cost the US farmer billions, and the US taxpayer further billions in price supports. Grain prices went down by about 65%. We had an excess of grains, and an excess of cultivated acres. For the next 10 years, in order to collect any price supports, grain farmers had to severely limit production. Look it up! Your basic thesis is just wrong. The conservation reserve program was also initiated in order to subtract acres in cultivation and cover them once again in native grasses and forbs.
Also, I might note that the farmer and the FSA have long partnered in terraceing land and sodding waterways and improving cultivation techniques in order to minimize erosion. It is in the nations interest and the farmers interest to do so. Your assertion that such efforts don't exist and that there is no incentive to pay attention to environmental concerns is just wrong.....insultingly so. I worry that some of your readers might be seriously mislead by the inaccuracies of this article.
FWIW.....I support a return to the price support/production management type of farm program as per prior to 1994. The "unhinged subsidy" of the current program can certainly be jettisoned, as far as I'm concerned.
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Tom Philpott Posted 11:05 am
06 Nov 2007
True, erosion has been slowed with no-till methods, but that has merely meant a gusher of herbicides and an explosion in GM seeds.
And as far as waterways being protected, well, just look at the dead zone down in the Gulf. Attempts to "sod waterways" may be earnest, but they have failed.
Victual Reality
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jarmadi Posted 12:49 pm
06 Nov 2007
You are talking corn, and I'm talking wheat.....I can't speak to corn. Not much corn at all grown around here, so we are somewhat insulated from corn issues, but changes in the corn markets ripple throughout the other grains.
My comments about conservation tillage practices did not refer to no-till. Rather than the past reliance on mold board plows and disk harrows, most current wheat farmers leave the crop residue on top of the soil as long as possible. Initial and secondary tillage is typically by chisel plow. This controls weeds, but avoids "fluffing" the soil until shortly prior to, or during, planting. Herbacides are not used. In my experience, terraceing and grassy field drainage areas do indeed have an effect on the cutting and washing of rain waters. Not saying it's perfect, nor that erosion no longer exists, just that these procedures are certainly not a waste of time.
If I sounded a little harsh in the last post, sorry. There has been quite a bit written re the upcoming farm program on the sites I visit, most seeming to me to be way off the point. The Washington Post ran a series that I thought was terrible. The NYTimes has run stuff equally bad. I've read your writings on other sites and respect your opinion, but I didn't think that this was one of your best.....
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:54 pm
06 Nov 2007
Victual Reality
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