The sustainability of our farmland over the past 50-80 years can be summed up in a simple strategy: Our success is based on following the same practices over and over again hoping things won’t change.
Like the frog in a slowly heating pot, many of us have not recognized how things have been heating up across our farm fields. Over decades, with the support and research from industry, universities and government crop protection payments, we have seen yields climb impressively. Through the years we have accepted a steady rise in the price of seeds and fertilizers. Every few years we add more “crop protection” products needed to get a crop. We tolerate the staggering investment in cropping and harvesting equipment. Now look at the labor struggles we face on farms. The extremes we see in weather seems highlighted this year with wildfires and drought. Here we are. The water feels close to the boiling point.
Data from Canada in the chart below mimics what is happening in the US. Profit margins decline as input costs per acre climb. The solution has been to crop more acres to cover the thinner margins.
The ‘paradox’ in farming says we walk back from the very practices we have followed for decades in order to keep our operations. In order to sustain the future of our farms, we accept that the model we have depended on is now the basis for our own undoing.
Sustainability is crop farming at the next level. It is not a call to go hug a tree. Instead, sustainability is about turning dirt into soil. Soil, when cared for with plant diversity, water holding potential and not deadened with tillage and “crop protection” will feed and protect your crops. We struggle to believe sustainability because it goes against everything we have been taught and followed for generations.
You won’t get there without support and guidance from a team. An advisory team that is looking out for the future of your farm. Imagine a financial advisor who studies profit per acre and the numbers behind sustainable practices and doesn’t simply push around those familiar numbers that require you to use the most advanced technology to increase yields.
Is your nutritionist leading the discussions around diet formulations that are based on nutrient density and soil building forage mixes that reduce the need for purchased commodities?
Does your agronomist suggest taking soil tests that look at microbial balance and total nutrient digestion along with NPK side dress needs? Your agronomist must breathe life back into your soils and coach you and your operation down the difficult path away from the labor and capital intense monocropping you depend on today.
We have spent 70 years ignoring soil structure and have killed much of the life in it to produce a crop. Luckily the land is forgiving and will rebound in time if we are willing to look at and accept the paradox of farming sustainably.
