Just What is Sustainable Farming?
When you have a chance, drive around our area and take a look at the newly-planted fields of corn and soybeans on our family farms.…
When you have a chance, drive around our area and take a look at the newly-planted fields of corn and soybeans on our family farms. Many of these are big fields, compared to 40 or 50 years ago. Then consider that these fields are part of the sustainable agricultural production practiced by area farmers that is getting so much publicity.
Sustainable farming seems to mean different things to different groups. One thing is certain; to be sustainable, farming must be profitable for the farmer. If it isn’t, that farmer will go out of business.
Other aspects of being sustainable include being helpful to the environment and being “socially acceptable.” What that really means is the farmer is doing the kind of job that the local community likes to see.
Look around at the fields in our area and think about the efficiency that goes with the larger fields that we are seeing. They are easier to till with fewer turns needed and easier to apply fertilizer and get planted.
At harvest, it takes less time to get the corn or beans harvested because again fewer turns are needed. Larger fields overall are easier to farm and adapt to larger, more efficient farm machinery.
With today’s larger fields, the use of no or minimum till and higher yielding crop varieties, local farmers are contributing to the environment. They are using less fuel to get the crop planted. New GMO seed varieties with the built-in resistance to certain destructive insects and diseases require fewer pesticides and also have increased yields.
All these practices the past 15 or 20 years have made our farmers more environmentally friendly.
It is an interesting sight when the seed in newly planted fields germinate and the corn or soybeans peek their heads through the soil. Look down across those fields and think about the care, and cost, that farmer put into those plants. He or she is gambling that good, warm rains, plenty of sunshine and a decent fall will provide him with a good crop.
Then he or she has to subtract all those costs of working up the field, buying the lime and fertilizer, the seed that is expensive, the fuel to plant and harvest, the expenses that go with buying and maintaining the tractor, planter and other equipment and labor to see if there is some left over for a reasonable family living.
Lots of challenges face a farmer before the crop can be harvested. In a cool, wet spring some insects, such as slugs, can be a problem. With no-till cultivation, more organic matter is on top of the field and slugs like the cover.
Summer thunderstorms that may provide hail and old fashioned “gully washers” are not good. Hail will shred stalks of corn and greatly reduce yields
Fruit growers don’t like hail either. It can ruin a crop of apples or peaches in a hurry.
Weeds have to be controlled, either by herbicides or cultivation. If they aren’t, they will gobble up needed moisture and plant nutrients resulting in a lower yield.
Whenever we talk about sustainable farming, we need to include good production and making a profit along with reduced environmental impact. Without them, our environment will suffer, along with the food supply area farmers produce for our dinner tables.
Keep in mind also that we are talking about farms owned and operated by families. Very few of them are owned by corporations.
So take a little drive and enjoy some of those newly planted fields!
Parker is an independent agricultural writer.
