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Therefore, I believe a huge issue is the degradation of our soil due to outdated farming methods, which may inhibit future generations of farmers to produce food sustainable.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

 

[Grass And Grain]

Call me a negative grumpy old so and so, but I think lack of profitability and narrow margins have forced farm businesses to expand the acres farmer to provide the same total annual profit.

This means using bigger tractors and working longer through the autumn to get drilling done. So maybe not always working in ideal conditions with heavier machinery. Said farmer will have a bigger and heavier combine and grain trailers.

He might be selling his straw for a cash sale and might not have livestock because by the time he's paid the stock a his wage there is no profit left from the livestock enterprise, therefore no fym going back to the land.

He wants to chop his straw and incorporate, but can't afford to lose the short term straw sale even though he might get a long term benefit.

He grows carrots, spuds and sugar beet to increase his gross margins. This destroys his soil structure.

Climate change makes the situation worse.

He's got blackgrass so drills later in the autumn, into wetter soils. He used to be able to drill earlier in the autumn and control the blackgrass reasonably well, but the eu and UK government banned most of the herbicides that were helping.

Government won't let him cut his hedges in July or August whilst the soil was dry. 1st of September comes and it rains and rains. Hedgecutting contractor now has so much to do in September and October that he can't stop cutting just because it is raining. Farmer ends up with ruts around the inside of each field from the hedge cutting tractor, which used to be a Leyland weighing 3 tonnes, now it's a huge tractor weighing 7 tonnes to balance the bigger mower that the contractor now needs.

He would like some sheep which would be good for the land, but dare not risk owning any, because one slight irregularity with the paperwork and RPA will knock 5% off his subsidy payment from 5,000 acres, even though the sheep were only grazing a 30 acre field.

He does have a neighbour who brings him slurry and fym to a patch of land. OM levels have risen 0.5% over past 8 years, but spreading in winter caused ruts and waterlogging. Nvz rules then came into force. He jad left a field heap rotting for 11 months to kill any blackgrass seeds and wad just about to spread it when it was a wet autumn, so he couldnt spread. Nvz rules said he couldn't leave the field heap in same place for more than 12 months, so he had to push it 6 yards to the right onto fresh ground (it was now like a mud bath in that wet autumn near that fym heap).

All tongue in cheek, but a bit of truth in some of it I think.

How about a semi permanent fencing system that is quick to put up, can be rolled up, then reused so that sheep and cattle can easily be integrated into an arable farm.

 

[steveR]

I would say that G&G has hit the nail on the head in a lot of the areas that effect farmers, even with a modest amount of "tongue in cheek"!

In my case, I could not/would pay out the big capital spend to go Farm Assured on my modest acreage so I jumped into bed with a contract farming agreement. This works well in many ways, but most of the points that G&G raises, are the areas that concern me most. ie bigger and bigger machines working in an ever tighter window.

The livestock enterprise remains in my hands for what it's worth, more of a hobby I suspect in reality and a constant worry with regard to cross compliance and TB etc...

If the Govt wants to go back to a "Golden Age", then it needs to support genuine (small sub 200 acre??? farms that are inefficient by modern standards, but can more readily meet the Govt rerquirements

 

[Bury the Trash]

On our mixed farm.with relatively small fields the soil in hedge banks gets kicked out by stock,(and rabbits ) those hedges are good at keeping soil in place along contours / banks. and for simple paddock system and healthy rotation for good soil health.

We find permanent fencing is in the long term is the most cost effective , to protect those hedges need to fenced on both sides to properly preserve them..


Please, please someone do a study on better Wood preservatives

and perhaps a studyon how to control the rabbit the epidemic .....those bar stewards cause soil erosion a degradation, .ime.

 

[DrWazzock]

I have often wondered how large a helium balloon it would need to make my sprayer/combine/beet harvester weightless.

It's all about compaction but sometimes the crop grows better where it has been compacted. It's all about getting the right level of compaction, err sorry, consolidation. They call it consolidation when they are selling you a machine to cause compaction.

I bulldozed a hole in the hedge the other day and thought the soil under it was of the driest poorest looking sand I had ever seen so I am not convinced that nature builds fertility and OM without management,

In the first place, can we measure compaction/consolidation. If we can't measure if we can't manage it. And does it matter if it's at depth? Under here we have solid pure blue marine clay. We would never loosen that however much we tried. Does it matter? Probably not.

I don't think it's an open and shut case that compaction is bad, decompaction is good. Structure is what matters. Soils can be hard but well structured and healthy, or loose, poorly structured, prone to slumping and unhealthy.

But sometimes you plough to buy yourself a bit of drainage time delay.

 

[Grass And Grain]

How about a set of wheels that you can retrofit to a trailer to give lower ground pressure. Tyres between existing trailer wheels that you can lift and lower as you leave the field.

 

[GeorgeK]

No such thing as 'sustainable farming' at the moment, organic or otherwise IMO. Surely use of fossil fuels, or food leaving the farm and the nutrients contained within not coming back isn't sustainable. Cultivation of any sort isn't sustainable as it erodes soil faster than it is replaced.
Hopefully on a more helpful note, I would like to see cash crops bred and rated for soil improving qualities, not just yield and disease resistance

 

[icanshootwell]

I think in the next 20 years we will see lots of little mf 135,s going up and down the fields, these will be controlled by robots and go under the new name as Fendtbot. These will be able to run 24 hours per day without any tea breaks. Compaction or consolidation will be a thing of the past, we can go on holiday in August and when we come home all the harvest will be done, as long as the Fendtbots behave themselves. The little fergi plough will make a come back because it only ploughs a few inches deep, therefore protecting the soil structure, blackgrass becomes a distant memory, Yields jump a massive 250 kgs per acre. £ 1,000,000 price tag for the fendtbot leaves the farmer with a cash flow problem.

 

[DesignStudent/FarmersSon]

Thank you to everyone for posting your thoughts, I really really appreciate it.
Some great points for me to think about. I understand now why my dad spends so much time on here...

Please keep discussing anything that you feel is relevant, after all you are my experts and your opinions are what will drive my project.
I would like to throw a few questions into the mix (but any comments on any topics are welcome)
What can the government do to help you improve and care for your soil?
Do you feel you can access enough biological fertilisers to make improvements to you soil carbon levels?
Does your understanding of your soil structure and nutrient levels affect your management of them?

Thanks and please share with anyone that you think might have some interesting thoughts.

 

[DrWazzock]

Trailers are bit old hat really. I am surprised there aren't more "self propelled" trailers about nowadays with say 6 LGP tyres or even on rubber tracks. They do exist but are generally used in the construction industry and don't have a big Ag body.

We are still influenced by the horse in that the tractor is just a replacement for the horse and we yoke stuff to the back end of it. Not really most efficient though in terms of weight distribution.

The other concept I like is the three wheeler tractor, favoured by the Dutch. It spreads the consolidation evenly across the width when power harrowing or drilling rather than having two horrible wheelings with pluff (puffy ploughed soil) in between. It's ideas like that that need looking at.

 

[Brisel]

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.

"Outdated methods?" You'd get told to fudge off by me I were in a less good mood this morning! Methods that perhaps need a review as to how appropriate for each situation but you imply that because they are old, they are no good. Actually, you can fudge off if you think that we know nothing about soil management. Keep an open mind.

Luckily, I think you're asking some good questions later on in your post. Here goes:

• What makes it harder for you to look after your soil? Economics, weather, less availability of other pest control methods. Mainly economics i.e. the need to make a living from the land. There's lots of things I'd like to do and try but I need to pay the rent and bills first. Yes, better soil health would make me more profitable and less reliant on expensive inputs but I can't afford a transient yield drop as we go from one system to another. It's a fear of change itself that leads us to resist change, especially when it is spouted by spotty youth with a degree from the University of the Inner Ring Road (nothing personal) who thinks we know bugger all and they know it all.
  ​
• What would make it easier? Lots more R&D. Training, knowledge transfer, including peer to peer (also known as TFF!). Farmers are more likely to listen to other farmers than said spotty youth. Consumer awareness - create a market for more "sustainable" food and we will supply that need. Most consumers buy on price alone so there is little incentive to break out of this cycle of growing bland commodities cheaply
  ​
• Which methods are you using that are improving soil conditions? What more do you think can be done - wacky ideas welcome. Direct drilling and a move towards Conservation Agriculture. I'm aiming for a more balanced system that worked with nature more instead of manipulating it with the aid of a machine, can or bag of something artificial sold to us by powerful agribusinesses.
  ​
• Do you think the government's 2015 soil protection standards are too soft? Yep. It's a step in the right direction though. You'll see increased resistance to government interference and regulation by those who don't know their subject matter very well.
  ​
• What should be done to increase the carbon and other nutrient levels in the soil? Good management, an enquiring nature of those prepared to improve their systems of production and acceptance of the need to change rather than just being told to change. Shift the attitude and what currently seems to be a vicious circle into a virtuous one. Ultimately farmers are used to being given incentives to farm in a certain way, so why not target that as a source of motivation to do it properly? "Public Goods" is just a political catchphrase designed to further Michael Gove's career but the idea is sound, but ultimately the market will determine what we supply. Make the consumer aware of sustainable and ethical practices and we will respond to the changing demand. At the moment they take food for granted because we've successfully ensured that their bellies have been full for so long thanks to the Common Agricultural Policy.​

I know I've mentioned it before, but having reread your brief, the issue of sustainability in UK Ag plc needs to stem from the consumer upwards. There is good work raising awareness of plastics in the environment. If these kind of stories could shift attitudes to food then we would all respond.​

 

[steveR]

I would like to throw a few questions into the mix (but any comments on any topics are welcome)
What can the government do to help you improve and care for your soil?
Do you feel you can access enough biological fertilisers to make improvements to you soil carbon levels?
Does your understanding of your soil structure and nutrient levels affect your management of them?

As Brisel say's Govt has to provide the necessary carrot using sensible financial incentives if they want Farmers as a whole change their farming systems to something deemed to be "improving soils, et al" or whatever the latest fad or concern might be. Fallows may yet come back into fashion...?

By "Biological fertiliser", I guess you mean good old FYM. In the absence of livestock in the area, then it becomes difficult, and you then see chicken muck and sewerage sludge travelling big distances on the roads. Regular chopping of straw will I guess, improve matters over time and from experience several years ago, an application of sludge onto chopped straw was a great lead-in to a subsequent crop. BUT, sludge brings with it all sorts of issues from heavy metals in industrial areas where separation between domestic and industrial sewage is poor....

Makes sense to complete the Nitrogen cycle with human waste though!

 

[Grass And Grain]

We import a lot of meat. Bacon form Holland and Denmark, beef from Ireland and Poland, chicken from Thailand, lamb from new Zealand.

If government had policies to encourage UK livestock production and discourage importation, then we would have more grass leys in the arable rotation and more manures. In my opinion we have an imbalance between livestock and crop production in many areas of the country. We often export grain to feed livestock in other countries and then leave the fym in those countries.

A single shift in policy that increases livestock self sufficiency could really improve the uk's soils.

 

[icanshootwell]

I am thinking of going organic, just waiting to see what Gove come,s up with 1st before i take the plunge, would,t want to miss out on any tasty incentives. On a 50 to 60 % grass split rotation, i think it would work well, if managed correctly.

 

[GeorgeK]

What can the government do to improve soil? Driving farms to bankruptcy with cheap and/or subsidised imports won't help, farmers will be forced to take more out the soil to survive. Environment schemes are good for soil, I've put down 100 acres down to nectar/pollen for 5 years... but will I actually get paid for the work? On time?? It's a huge risk and it shouldn't be

 

[melted welly]

What can the government do to improve soil? Driving farms to bankruptcy with cheap and/or subsidised imports won't help, farmers will be forced to take more out the soil to survive. Environment schemes are good for soil, I've put down 100 acres down to nectar/pollen for 5 years... but will I actually get paid for the work? On time?? It's a huge risk and it shouldn't be

Carbon credits.

Put a value on carbon sequestration to soil, farmers build up the carbon levels in their soil thru increasing org matter. We are then paid from the carbon fund.

I believe it's almost got off the ground a few times....

Makes more sense to me than building white elephants.

 

[steveR]

Carbon credits.

Put a value on carbon sequestration to soil, farmers build up the carbon levels in their soil thru increasing org matter. We are then paid from the carbon fund.
.

How would this be assessed??

And who by???

 

[Old John]

I have often wondered how large a helium balloon it would need to make my sprayer/combine/beet harvester weightless.

It's all about compaction but sometimes the crop grows better where it has been compacted. It's all about getting the right level of compaction, err sorry, consolidation. They call it consolidation when they are selling you a machine to cause compaction.

I bulldozed a hole in the hedge the other day and thought the soil under it was of the driest poorest looking sand I had ever seen so I am not convinced that nature builds fertility and OM without management,

In the first place, can we measure compaction/consolidation. If we can't measure if we can't manage it. And does it matter if it's at depth? Under here we have solid pure blue marine clay. We would never loosen that however much we tried. Does it matter? Probably not.

I don't think it's an open and shut case that compaction is bad, decompaction is good. Structure is what matters. Soils can be hard but well structured and healthy, or loose, poorly structured, prone to slumping and unhealthy.

But sometimes you plough to buy yourself a bit of drainage time delay.

I agree that nature is not a fertility builder, we have some land that’s been under some environmental sceme for ages now. It is always wetter than the direct drilled stuff beside it. Without some nitrogen, the grass, is not thirsty enough to use all the rainfall, and we’re in the dryer east of the country.
We’ve been no till/scratch till for almost twenty years now. The land is as hard as hell, but is dry and full of wormholes and rotting roots etc, and can carry so much more weight now than it used to when cultivated.yet suffers from drought less.
We’ve also got a couple of inches of almost black organic matter on the top of some really quite nasty clay soils.

 

[icanshootwell]

Carbon credits.

Put a value on carbon sequestration to soil, farmers build up the carbon levels in their soil thru increasing org matter. We are then paid from the carbon fund.

I believe it's almost got off the ground a few times....

Makes more sense to me than building white elephants.

I wonder who DEFRA will send round to do that test. Will they soil test the whole farm or just the best fields, or maybe the red tractor boffs can do it on there inspections, at least then they might get there wellys dirty then.

 

[melted welly]

How would this be assessed??

And who by???

Measure organic matter level in the soil, more organic matter, more carbon.

As to the how and who implements it, I'm not sure. What sounds simple would no doubt, in practice be made overly complicated and outsourced to some bellends, like everything else.

I just think that given the pressure around carbon levels it's obvious, we have are all sitting on massive potential carbon sponges. It makes more sense than burning soaking wet draff (alongside imported timber) to tick the green credentials box for distilleries, or pumping co2 out under the North Sea into old oil wells.

The U.K. carbon fund already exists.