Soil Degradation - A Design Challenge

[DesignStudent/FarmersSon]

Hello,

I am a design student in my final year of design as well as a farmer's son that has been lucky enough to grow up on an organic dairy and beef farm.
One of our assignments for this year is a RSA Student Design Awards brief (https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/images/sda-18/sda-19/sda1819_harvestinghealth.pdf).
The brief is very broad: Design a product, system or service which uses sustainable food and farming to help improve people's health or wellbeing.
I believe that when it comes sustainability it is all about being able to survive in such a way that doesn't impact the ability of future generations to also be able to survive.

Therefore, I believe a huge issue is the degradation of our soil due to outdated farming methods, which may inhibit future generations of farmers to produce food sustainable.


I want to start a conversation with you so that I can really understand soil degradation from a farmers point of view. I am looking to gain your thoughts on:
What makes it harder for you to look after your soil?
What would make it easier?
Which methods are you using that are improving soil conditions? What more do you think can be done - wacky ideas welcome.
Do you think the government's 2015 soil protection standards are too soft?
What should be done to increase the carbon and other nutrient levels in the soil?
These are just some examples of the sort of questions I want to discuss.

Any thoughts and opinions on tackling soil degradation are welcome,

And thank you for your comments - they will really help me understand how to tackle the issue.

Thanks.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

Hello,

I am a design student in my final year of design as well as a farmer's son that has been lucky enough to grow up on an organic dairy and beef farm.
One of our assignments for this year is a RSA Student Design Awards brief (https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/images/sda-18/sda-19/sda1819_harvestinghealth.pdf).
The brief is very broad: Design a product, system or service which uses sustainable food and farming to help improve people's health or wellbeing.
I believe that when it comes sustainability it is all about being able to survive in such a way that doesn't impact the ability of future generations to also be able to survive.

Therefore, I believe a huge issue is the degradation of our soil due to outdated farming methods, which may inhibit future generations of farmers to produce food sustainable.


I want to start a conversation with you so that I can really understand soil degradation from a farmers point of view. I am looking to gain your thoughts on:
What makes it harder for you to look after your soil?
What would make it easier?
Which methods are you using that are improving soil conditions? What more do you think can be done - wacky ideas welcome.
Do you think the government's 2015 soil protection standards are too soft?
What should be done to increase the carbon and other nutrient levels in the soil?
These are just some examples of the sort of questions I want to discuss.

Any thoughts and opinions on tackling soil degradation are welcome,

And thank you for your comments - they will really help me understand how to tackle the issue.

Thanks.

Not an arable farmer myself (outdoor pigs) but observing from the sidelines, combineable crop production is heading in the right direction with no-till, conservation agriculture etc, there is loads on that on this forum.
The challenge with respect to soil degradation is root vegetable production, especially the practice of destoning. There appears to me to be little appetite within veg growers to address this.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

@Kiwi Pete

 

[James Hughes]

Consumer trends will force change ultimately, and rightly so. See link from today's press:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-per-cent-less-likely-to-get-cancer-gpdbl82sp

 

[DesignStudent/FarmersSon]

Not an arable farmer myself (outdoor pigs) but observing from the sidelines, combineable crop production is heading in the right direction with no-till, conservation agriculture etc, there is loads on that on this forum.
The challenge with respect to soil degradation is root vegetable production, especially the practice of destoning. There appears to me to be little appetite within veg growers to address this.

I don't know much about outdoor pig farming, so these may be stupid questions: Being outdoors in all weather conditions, surely the pigs create a large amount of damage to the soil and its structure with large amounts of erosion? Do you feed the pigs standing crops? From what my dad has told me this would mean they trample in half of the crop which is great for the soil, or are you bringing in alternative feeds?

I also know nothing about destoning, what are the issues with destoning? What are the alternatives?

Thanks for your comments

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I don't know much about outdoor pig farming, so these may be stupid questions: Being outdoors in all weather conditions, surely the pigs create a large amount of damage to the soil and its structure with large amounts of erosion? Do you feed the pigs standing crops? From what my dad has told me this would mean they trample in half of the crop which is great for the soil, or are you bringing in alternative feeds?

I also know nothing about destoning, what are the issues with destoning? What are the alternatives?

Thanks for your comments

I’m fortunate to be on very light land. We occupy two years of someone else’s six year crop rotation.
As the land is very sandy soil damage isn’t too great and we add a lot of manure. We stock at about 25 sows per hectare and buy in all feed (1.5 t per sow per year) as a compound.
We are seen as the good guy in the rotation of pigs-pigs-sugarbeet-potatoes-onions-maize.
In an ideal world, we’d not go on to bare ground but grass and nose ring to minimise rooting. But beggars can’t be choosers.

In no till circles, ploughing is seen as bad for a lot of reasons- disruption of soil fungi, mineralisation of organic matter, killing of worms among several.
Destoning, as a very intensive sieving of the soil, must be much worse than ploughing. It certainly ruins soil structure.
Landlords put up with it because of the substantial rent that root vegetable growers pay.