Incentives for increasing soil organic matter

[Ffermer Bach]

I understand that erosion is a natural process, but does that justify increased soil erosion?

There was an Australian soil engineer call P A Yeomans who did a lot of work on fragile soils, increasing soil organic matter, and reducing erosion, and keyline planning for collection of water into dams. I think he developed a subsoiler, to increase organic matter too, I believe it was somewhat akin to the grassland shakerator.

 

[Deereone]

@Moose When I first purchased the land on which I have now established my farm, There was hardly an earthworm to be seen. After years of ploughing in huge quantities of manure, the soil is now full of worms, and riddled with moles. the mole hills contaminate my silage and introduce listeria to my stock. So for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What would you do?

 

[Chemical nick]

Put it simply. If we increased organic matter of all our soils by 1% there would be no need for expensive stewardship schemes to help wildlife and rivers etc. The reason being that the soil improvement practices have an indirect benefit to the environment far more than prescriptive wildlife margins dreamt up by civil servants and ngo's.
Conservation agriculture promoting zero till, mob grazing, cover crops etc should be the new entry level scheme. However how you make the rules and police it fills me with dread. Anyway just my thoughts from a peasant arable farmer.

 

[spin cycle]

stewardship schemes must do the same, reducing UK food production at the expense of wildlife, which increases food production elsewhere at the expense of their wildlife

thats good....eg whats the point of importing beef from south america thats been reared on cleared rainforest whilst closing our beef industry down

Put it simply. If we increased organic matter of all our soils by 1% there would be no need for expensive stewardship schemes to help wildlife and rivers etc. The reason being that the soil improvement practices have an indirect benefit to the environment far more than prescriptive wildlife margins dreamt up by civil servants and ngo's.
Conservation agriculture promoting zero till, mob grazing, cover crops etc should be the new entry level scheme. However how you make the rules and police it fills me with dread. Anyway just my thoughts from a peasant arable farmer.

could you zero till without glyphosate?......cover crops are just a fad...an excuse saying 'using this technique we can solve the problems'.....five yrs on it'll be a memory and some other new fad will be promising the same....carrying on the same charade

IME els works for wildlife....bringing back straw burning would lessen chemical use and mixed farming is best....but the latter is not really practical due high labour costs

 

[lazy farmer]

blimey arable farmers are a bit touchy aren't they.One could be lead to think they protest too much.

Having more organic matter would lead to less reliance on big chemical companies of what ever type people prefer. more organic matter would mean less diesel having been burned/will be burned in the future meaning less hours/depreciation on that shinny fendt.
cover crops would lead to less compaction and therefore less run off and more O/M
yes the above leads to lower yields but also I would suggest lower costs and higher margins.giving you some spare money to pay sheep farmers to come and produce some more O/M on your land over the winter period.

But then then that might mean you miss a days shooting when they get out.

I know I'm just a ignorant/ peasant livestock farmer but the need/usefulness of good levels of O/m is blindingly obvious and as such should not need a subsidy.

 

[neilo]

Some interesting thoughts there Moose.
I have often thought that if the true cost of chemical farming, including NVZs, and the threat of Phosphate VZs, and the associated cost of removing N from drinking water, that has to be done in some areas, was added to the cost of industrial farmed foods, then they would cost as much as organic.

Thank you for the education. I never realised NVZ's, and their associated costs, where down to 'chemical farming'. I would suggest that most nitrate leaching is caused by spreading organic manures/slurry in the wrong conditions and/or at excessive rates. That is just pure bad practice, and nothing to do with orgasmic or conventional in your farming methods.

 

[lazy farmer]

does that mean you can't ever apply inorganic N in the wrong conditions?

 

[neilo]

does that mean you can't ever apply inorganic N in the wrong conditions?

Of course it doesn't, but to suggest that 'chemical' farming is somehow responsible for NVZs is just madness, even amongst the other daft claims put out by organic bodies.

 

[lazy farmer]

I really don't know the answer to this but it would be interesting to know nitrate levels before the 1950s before making that assumption.

 

[neilo]

I really don't know the answer to this but it would be interesting to know nitrate levels before the 1950s before making that assumption.

What would that tell you? That nobody applied much of anything to the ground over winter before 4wd tractors were about? That dairy herds were a fraction of the size?

 

[Thick Farmer]

@Moose When I first purchased the land on which I have now established my farm, There was hardly an earthworm to be seen. After years of ploughing in huge quantities of manure, the soil is now full of worms, and riddled with moles. the mole hills contaminate my silage and introduce listeria to my stock. So for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What would you do?

I would catch to moles.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

thats good....eg whats the point of importing beef from south america thats been reared on cleared rainforest whilst closing our beef industry down



could you zero till without glyphosate?......cover crops are just a fad...an excuse saying 'using this technique we can solve the problems'.....five yrs on it'll be a memory and some other new fad will be promising the same....carrying on the same charade

IME els works for wildlife....bringing back straw burning would lessen chemical use and mixed farming is best....but the latter is not really practical due high labour costs

Can definitely zero till or min till without glyphosate. Just not all rotations are suitable, and how much value do you place on not using glyphosate and herbicides.
Without going all hippy on it, there's plenty of ways of establishing new crops or better pastures without having to follow the "leaders"- but herbicide is faster and easier for most.
Conservation agriculture is the way ahead.

The import / export point you made is also worth discussing, some parts of the world lend themselves hugely to growing one thing or another, much as the ideal of being self sufficient is a good one, increased trading could be an answer to many of the issues regarding feeding the world in the future- more populated parts of the planet could adopt the less damaging forms of agriculture and less populated or flatter drier areas could grow the foods which require more environmental impact.
Not much leaching in the US grain belt, being a prime example..
The fact remains that transporting lots of food around the globe has its own costs, both real and hidden (food miles)
"Carbon footprint"s and all that palaver.
Solar powered ships perhaps?
One thing is for sure, fossil fuels and water will be increasingly limiting in the future.

 

[DrWazzock]

I really don't know the answer to this but it would be interesting to know nitrate levels before the 1950s before making that assumption.

I don't know when clover leys were first introduced but probably 1800's.

They can fix up to 250kgN/ha per annum. Good old organic farming. Putting more on naturally then we have ever put on out the bag.

 

[lazy farmer]

I don't know when clover leys were first introduced but probably 1800's.

They can fix up to 250kgN/ha per annum. Good old organic farming. Putting more on naturally then we have ever put on out the bag.

exactly it would give a base line at ;east to compare with the effects of "modern" farming

 

[Dave645]

There is nothing wrong with encouraging farming to change, to encourage OM but if your going to use a carrot or stick to do it, you need science behind you and methadolagy to show how to do it while protecting the farmers bottom line, if it needs investment in machinery that means it will cost, if it means even short term yield reductions it means it will cost, if it means adding non productive break crops or over winter crops that too involves cost, don't forget nitrogen fixing only occurred above set temperatures, so how much benefit are over winter beans.....like anything in a business setting it has to show a return not erode them, farmers would need to see the cost benifits are worth any short term pain that implementing them may bring.

As for the main question using subs as a carrot and stick is most likely the best way to invoke large scale changes. Cross compliance has been the govermants environmental tool of choice for awhile now. It's blunt but makes changes. But any change that has a effect for even a single year on farm profits will be hard to swallow by lots of farmers, as direct drills are not cheap......and yield, and profit, drops are even harder...... to except.

 

[spin cycle]

I don't know when clover leys were first introduced but probably 1800's.

They can fix up to 250kgN/ha per annum. Good old organic farming. Putting more on naturally then we have ever put on out the bag.

but those leys leach n into water over winter.....my point is 'the powers that be' have got us chasing rainbows

 

[neilo]

I don't know when clover leys were first introduced but probably 1800's.

They can fix up to 250kgN/ha per annum. Good old organic farming. Putting more on naturally then we have ever put on out the bag.

Not that old chestnut again. Conventional farmers are allowed to grow clover too, and plenty of us do. As much as the organic bodies try to lay claim to it, they don't have sole rights to the plant.

As @spin cycle posted above, those leys leach nitrates in the winter, as the clover roots nodules break down and the companion grasses have slowed down and aren't mopping up that N. I would expect that effect to be more prevalent in high clover content leys that have no ryegrass, which at least grows/mops up nutrients, at colder temps than a lot of the 'diverse' mixes being touted these days.

 

[Deereone]

I would catch to moles.

Yes, you are right of course, It never seems a priority till it's too late.

 

[lazy farmer]

There is nothing wrong with encouraging farming to change, to encourage OM but if your going to use a carrot or stick to do it, you need science behind you and methadolagy to show how to do it while protecting the farmers bottom line, if it needs investment in machinery that means it will cost, if it means even short term yield reductions it means it will cost, if it means adding non productive break crops or over winter crops that too involves cost, don't forget nitrogen fixing only occurred above set temperatures, so how much benefit are over winter beans.....like anything in a business setting it has to show a return not erode them, farmers would need to see the cost benifits are worth any short term pain that implementing them may bring.

As for the main question using subs as a carrot and stick is most likely the best way to invoke large scale changes. Cross compliance has been the govermants environmental tool of choice for awhile now. It's blunt but makes changes. But any change that has a effect for even a single year on farm profits will be hard to swallow by lots of farmers, as direct drills are not cheap......and yield, and profit, drops are even harder...... to except.

I have no idea about your farm and farming methods but it does appear on many arable units(please correct me if I'm wrong) but under conventional arable management O/M levels have fallen to levels that mean without increasing levels of chemical help yields are either stagnant or falling. How is that sustainable? and if there were options that mean whilst you received a lower yield your input costs fall further why wouldn't you do it ? your system becomes more robust you are less relient on outside influences and maybe over time the price you receive may rise?
I am very much a one trick pony in equating lower yielding dairy and the living it gives us to arable but the parallels to me are obvious.

 

[Dave645]

I have no idea about your farm and farming methods but it does appear on many arable units(please correct me if I'm wrong) but under conventional arable management O/M levels have fallen to levels that mean without increasing levels of chemical help yields are either stagnant or falling. How is that sustainable? and if there were options that mean whilst you received a lower yield your input costs fall further why wouldn't you do it ? your system becomes more robust you are less relient on outside influences and maybe over time the price you receive may rise?
I am very much a one trick pony in equating lower yielding dairy and the living it gives us to arable but the parallels to me are obvious.

If I was honest, I would doubt it even registers with most arable men what effect O/M has we have no farm yard manure currently to deploy but we do chop our straw from time to time, but we plough every year, for 3 years now we have moved our strong land over to spring crops which has helped in some areas and lowered costs of establishment where it's now often only a 2 pass system plough then combination drill, I have seen the benifits of O/M after we replace some grass lays, how it ploughs and works drops off after the second year out of grass, and I am trying to encourage an increase in incorporating straw but, it's doubtful we will ever incorporate it all, on the machinery front we just could not direct drill with the equipment we have, and on land close to ours we have seen it's had mixed results that's not to say it a bad system or it cannot be done on our land, but I would need it proven to me it can create better returns, before I used or meagre profits to buy new equipment.
When you say increased chemicals I assume you are talking about fertilisers as other sprays are only used on a case by case basis. If so then yes we understand removing straw increase our use, but what's less clear is by not ploughing we could also reduce our inputs and I have no clue as by how much, if it could be shown then your right money will talk, the only reason subs and cross compliance is the easy way to do it as it makes financial sense without proof........you get directly to B without proving A is true. After farmers have experienced B for a while they will see if it's true or not.