Friday, March 29, 2024

PULPIT: Good soil the key to prosperity

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While we support its underlying intention to improve the environment through farming practices we have an issue with sustainable farming.
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Farming is based on our soil resource. We have a degraded soil resource that is eroding, contributing water pollutants, often compacted, low in microbes and somewhat flat-lined in terms of profit and production. 

We’re getting beat up in the press, beat up in the wallet and farming has one of the highest suicide rates by occupation.

Why would we want to sustain a degraded resource like this on into the indefinite future and pass it on that way to our children?

Why not aim to regenerate our soil resource? 

We know it’s possible to grow our soils. 

It’s an ecological reality – rock parent material is transformed by microbes into topsoil and we farm the topsoil that is created or grown. 

For at least 60 years we’ve assumed we could only minimise the effects of erosion while continuing to lose soil carbon through farming. 

We now have widespread proof it is not only possible but also profitable to farm so as to increase soil carbon levels. 

Expanding the soil carbon sponge increases rain infiltration, water-holding capacity and the nutrient density of what we grow while reducing synthetic inputs. Soil carbon or organic matter levels are the strongest predictor of farm profit. 

To those agricultural product suppliers who maintain we can’t farm without their inputs we say look more closely at what is happening overseas. To the academics or policy folks who assert New Zealand soils can only continue to lose carbon based on what they’re observing, we say where are you looking? 

If you’re looking at urea and superphosphate driven farms then you will see soil organic matter being burned up and soils collapsing, eroding and becoming water repellent.

But where farmers create diverse, integrated, ecosystems based on soil microbe communities and observe principles of healthy soils you will see greater profitability, more friable, productive soils and greater farmer satisfaction and pride.

Regenerating soil function is largely about giving soil microbes good living conditions so they can get on with their complex soil construction and plant-feeding jobs.

What do they need for that?

Pretty much the same things as us – oxygen, water, food and comfort.

We’re mostly falling down in the comfort department.

We stress microbes when we slice and dice their communities with tillage. 

We stress them chemically when we apply insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics and herbicides.

We stress them when we create compacted soils with low oxygen conditions. 

We outright starve many of them when we allow bare ground without plant roots to feed the microbes.

Our premium markets are now additionally signalling they want ethical food grown by well-treated workers. 

We support that and assert many of our challenges as producers will diminish if we all focus on treating our microbial workforce better as well, since everything successful on the farm – drought tolerance, low pest pressure, flavour, good animal health and pasture quality – depends on them.

We’re aiming too low with sustainable farming. 

If we truly want to be world leaders in agriculture and get the premium associated with that we’re going to need to regenerate our soil capital asset.

Consumers are savvy. 

The internet has provided them with screeds of information on farming practices and food quality. 

With the intense interest in the human microbiome they’ll pretty soon figure out that quality food for their  gut microbes absolutely depends on healthy, diverse soil microbes on our farms. 

Then they’ll come asking about our soil microbe working conditions and we’ll have to prove we’re doing an exemplary job of that basic task. 

There will soon be apps that give instant readings on pesticide residues and mineral content from simply pointing your phone at something edible. 

There will be nowhere to hide. 

We have to move now to be able to deliver true food quality to meet that disruptive technology. 

We  assert that we’re coasting on our laurels in much of NZ farming. 

We need to aim higher to meet the market and ultimately be proud of our results while being generously compensated for the important, complex jobs we do. 

Vision for a decade

Aim: Regenerative farming is the norm and we lead the world in soil carbon sequestration.

Desired outcome: A two-year programme to create a rapid shift in public and farmer perception from soil-sickening agri-chemical farming  to understanding the crucial importance of soil health for climate change reversal, environmental integrity and human health.

Action: A two-year series of events and training to enliven the public for lasting pressure on government and commercial interests to deliver soil health. At the same time farmers get universal access to ecologically sound, product-independent education on farming approaches that regenerate the soil carbon sponge.

Most New Zealanders will understand:

* Soil is the earth’s living, microbial mantle on which all of our ecosystem functions and agricultural production and human health depend;

* We endanger soils at our own peril; 

* We can and must regenerate our soils to reverse climate change and the human health decline;

* Regenerative agriculture and farming as an ecosystem become common phrases and mindsets for NZ farmers, consumers and the Primary Industries Ministry and agri-chemical pesticides becomes a sunset industry in NZ within five years;

* Bare soil is frowned upon and continuous cover crop cocktails are considered best practice by FAR and Hort NZ;

* It is socially unacceptable to do other than follow holistic management principles of planned grazing within a purposefully diverse landscape;

* All water is swimmable within 15 years and;

* We have the lowest childhood cancer rate in the developed world.

The United States Agriculture Department’s five soil health principles should form the basis for farming in NZ.

They are to:

* Minimise chronic soil disturbance – tillage, biocides and other stressors.

* Maximise biodiversity, embrace complexity and practice biomimicry in all farming and urban development.

* Keep a living root in the soil at all times with multi-species pastures and cover crops.  

* Keep armour on the soil through cover crops or surface litter meaning no bare soil, ever.

* Include animal impact in all ag systems because we need those cow poop bugs for profitable production.

All these principles must be applied sensitively in each farm ecosystem and its context.

They are principles, not best practice mandates.

Let’s raise the bar, raise our profits and raise our pride as well.

Farming can be fun again.

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