crop rotations for soil health

©2008 Rodale institute

RODALE INSTITUTE

A Journey Into Our Food System:Looking Beyond Short-Term YieldsTo A Regenerative/Organic System

Jeff MoyerExecutive Director


Organic Farming May 1942

“Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People”

J.I.Rodale


US Nuclear Submarines can stay submerged for only as long as they have food


Farming on Rodale Land 8000 Years Ago

Farming TodayFarming in the Future

SOIL


THE REAL BROWN FIELDS OF AMERICA


US Erosion in the Gulf of Mexico

2008 Soil From Iowa in the Gulf of Mexico

Over 2 million acres lost 20 tons or more of top soil


• Former Gov. Robert Ray said "For every bushel of corn produced [in Iowa], we lose two bushels of soil." The pre-settlement topsoil is believed to have averaged about 14" deep in Iowa, but today the topsoil averages only about 7" deep.


Our Broken Food SystemWhen Only Yields Are Considered

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherearthnews.com%2Fhomesteading-and-livestock%2Fraising-homegrown-chickens-zm0z13djzmar.aspx&ei=wH34VI6AKZHbggS7kYKwDg&bvm=bv.87519884,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNF3E-as7G2Vna1ypHxREAbqKpqIBg&ust=1425657640226462

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fenvironment%2F2014%2F03%2Fhog-wild-factory-farms-are-poisoning-iowas-drinking-water&ei=A374VNHeBYmdgwSjk4HIAg&bvm=bv.87519884,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNHB8xWV8kjagyRYQ0AVxuDAggWM6w&ust=1425657720877750

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fenvironment%2F2014%2F03%2Fhog-wild-factory-farms-are-poisoning-iowas-drinking-water&ei=A374VNHeBYmdgwSjk4HIAg&bvm=bv.87519884,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNHB8xWV8kjagyRYQ0AVxuDAggWM6w&ust=1425657720877750

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oregonlive.com%2Fdining%2Findex.ssf%2F2014%2F10%2Fpig_farms_rebound_from_virus_t.html&ei=RH74VPbsC8bAggT4oYDQDA&bvm=bv.87519884,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNHB8xWV8kjagyRYQ0AVxuDAggWM6w&ust=1425657720877750

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boston.com%2Fbigpicture%2F2008%2F06%2Fmississippi_floodwaters_in_iow.html&ei=QKf4VJL5GYebNsS3hOAP&bvm=bv.87519884,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNG0j63ZOVzPS5C5srUfNS7xbHojfQ&ust=1425668185624654

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRxqFQoTCOm2i8P9nMkCFUV3PgodJPkIfA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmodernfarmer.com%2F2014%2F09%2Fheres-drought-solution-just-stop-watering-crops%2F&bvm=bv.107763241,d.cWw&psig=AFQjCNHeOgm0Waw7JQp3Op0CnFTChGDqKA&ust=1448039464351870


December 2010 by Atrazine contamination. (Source: earthactually)


As autism rates rise in Canada, doctors search for answers

The number of children with autism has increased significantly in Canada and the United States, but the cause – whether it’s environmental, genetic, or a result of better diagnostic tests – remains an elusive mystery.

The most comprehensive report on rising rates has come from the National Epidemiologic Database for the Study of Autism in Canada. Released last year, it found increases in autism diagnoses in Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and southeastern Ontario.•The increases range from 39 to 204 per cent, depending on the region and age group

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Thursday, May 2, 2013 8:16PM EDT


Pesticide exposure in pregnancy linked to autism risk in kids

Pregnant women who live within a mile of spaces where commercial pesticides are applied appear to have an increased risk of having a child with autism, a new study suggests.

Brenda Goodman HealthDay, June 23, 2014, 9:57 AM


Childhood Obesity is EpidemicHigh Yields of What?


Elizabeth Guillette, PhD; University of Florida


Effects of a Broken Food System

April 12th 2011


And Then 50 % The Food We Produce Is Wasted


We Have A Compass To Point Us In The Right Direction


Let’s Re-think the Problems


And Discover New Solutions


• What are our goals? What resources do we have access to? Tools?, Ideas?, Dollars?, Time?

• What do we want our food system to do?

• Keep people Healthy? Improve the resource base?,

• What is our starting point? Where do we want to end up?, How will we get there?

Start By Asking The Right Questions

As Farmers & Consumers


Replace Chemistry & Bio-Technology


With Biology


• .Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture

Seufert V, Ramankutty N, Foley JA• Department of Geography and Global Environmental and Climate Change Center, McGill University,

Montreal, Quebec H2T 3A3, Canada. [email protected]• Abstract• Numerous reports have emphasized the need for major changes in the global food system: agriculture must

meet the twin challenge of feeding a growing population, with rising demand for meat and high-calorie diets, while simultaneously minimizing its global environmental impacts. Organic farming—a system aimed at producing food with minimal harm to ecosystems, animals or humans—is often proposed as a solution. However, critics argue that organic agriculture may have lower yields and would therefore need more land to produce the same amount of food as conventional farms, resulting in more widespread deforestation and biodiversity loss, and thus undermining the environmental benefits of organic practices. Here we use a comprehensive meta-analysis to examine the relative yield performance of organic and conventional farming systems globally. Our analysis of available data shows that, overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields. But these yield differences are highly contextual, depending on system and site characteristics, and range from 5% lower organic yields (rain-fed legumes and perennials on weak-acidic to weak-alkaline soils), 13% lower yields (when best organic practices are used), to 34% lower yields (when the conventional and organic systems are most comparable). Under certain conditions—that is, with good management practices, particular crop types and growing conditions—organic systems can thus nearly match conventional yields, whereas under others it at present cannot. To establish organic agriculture as an important tool in sustainable food production, the factors limiting organic yields need to be more fully understood, alongside assessments of the many social, environmental and economic benefits of organic farming systems.

Nature. 2012 May 10;485(7397):229-32

Head Line Reads: “overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields. But…”


Head Line Should Have Read:

With very few research dollars, organic production nearly that of conventional !

Private Sector $3800 million

USDA Conventional $1800 million

USDA Organic $15million

(year 2000)


Head Line Reads:Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages

of Organic Meat and ProduceBy KENNETH CHANG

Published: September 3, 2012


Head Line Could Have Read:Stanford Scientists Report:• Two studies show significantly lower urinary

pesticide levels among children consuming organic versus conventional diets

• The risk for contamination with detectable pesticide residues was lower among organic than conventional produce

• The risk for isolating bacteria resistant to antibiotics was higher in conventional than in organic chicken and pork


EPA survey data available, 2006 – 2007

•U.S. pesticide amount used in both 2006 and 2007 exceeded 1.1 billion pounds annually

•U.S. pesticide expenditures totaled more than $11 billion annually in both 2006 and 2007


Same Resources…… Different Philosophy


RODALE INSTITUTE

Farming Systems Trial(FST)


Organic-manure based

Organic-legume based

Conventional-chemically based

Main cropping systems in FST

Tilled manure systemNo-till manure system (added in 2008)

Tilled legume systemNo-till legume system (added in 2008)

Tilled conventional systemNo-till conventional system (added in 2008)


• Yields

• Soil health

• Water quality and quantity

• Energy analysis

• Economics

Areas of research in FST


FST Soil Results

Soils of the organic systems have a more active soil biological community

higher levels of glomalin (a glycoprotein that acts like ‘glue’, binding organic matter to mineral particles),

greater populations of mycorrhizae (a fungus that forms a symbiotic relationship with its host plant:

the fungus receives carbohydrates from the plant, which in return gains access to water and nutrients).

This leads to improved soil structure and enhanced carbon sequestration.

organic conventionalconventionalorganic


Energy budgets for corn

This analysis was performed using the Farm Energy Analysis Tool (FEAT)3


Production budgets for corn

These production budgets were calculated using the free on-line Mississippi State Budget Generator (MSBG), developed by the Department of Agricultural Economics at Mississippi State University, (http://www.agecon.msstate.edu/what/farm/generator/). When available, input and price data were taken directly from data collected at the Rodale Institute (2008-2010), otherwise default values from the Budget Generator were used. * The 3-year average price for organic corn was $8.36/bu, for conventional corn $4.15/bu.


Energy “Required” ? Chemical Synthetic N Fertilizer

The production of 1 kg (2.2lbs) of chemical N fertilizer, using the industrial Haber-Bosch process burns the equivalent of 1 L (1.05 Qt.) of oil and 17.6 cubic feet of natural gas, releasing a great deal of carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere


How Green Is My Orange?

New York Times, Jan. 2009PEPSICO/ Tropicana


Carbon Footprint


Tap root

Root nodules housing

Rhizobia bacteria

Cover Crops – 78% of our atmosphere is Nitrogen


• Over the 30 years of the trial, yields were the same between organic and conventional systems.

• Soil organic matter and soil structure improved in the organic systems while they stayed the same in the conventional system.

• Conventional systems used 45% more energy and production efficiency was 28% higher in the organic systems.

• The organic systems emitted 40% less GHG than the conventional systems.

• The organic systems were 3-4 times more profitable than the conventional systems.

FST Summary


Tillage has it’s Drawbacks


Organic No-Till


Corn

PLOW TILL• PLOW• DISC• PACK• PLANT• ROTARY HOE• ROTARY HOE• CULTIVATE• CULTIVATE• HARVEST• (143 Bu/A)

NO-TILL• ROLL/PLANT• HARVEST

• (160 Bu/A)

A two step organic production system Plant and Harvest!


The Concept is Scale Neutral


• Not In Feed Lots

Animals Belong On Farms

Not in Feed Lots


We Need To Meet The Challenges


• So could we make do without the chemical plants? Inspired by a field trip to a nearby organic farm where the farmer reported that he raised an amazing 27 tons of vegetables on six-tenths of a hectare in a relatively short growing season, a team of scientists from the University of Michigan tried to estimate how much food could be raised following a global shift to organic farming. The team combed through the literature for any and all studies comparing crop yields on organic farms with those on nonorganic farms. Based on 293 examples, ………… they assumed that every farm regardless of location would get only the lower developed-country yields. The second applied the yield ratio for the developed world to wealthy nations and the yield ratio for the developing world to those countries.

• "We were all surprised by what we found," said Catherine Badgley, a Michigan paleoecologist who was one of the lead researchers. The first model yielded 2,641 kilocalories ("calories") per person per day, just under the world's current production of 2,786 calories but significantly higher than the average caloric requirement for a healthy person of between 2,200 and 2,500. The second model yielded 4,381 calories per person per day, 75 percent greater than current availability-and a quantity that could theoretically sustain a much larger human population than is currently supported on the world's farmland. (It also laid to rest another concern about organic agriculture; see sidebar at left.)


There Is Great Hope

Pennsylvania has 5.8 million acres of farm land

Rodale Institute’s CSA feeds 225 families on 6 acres

Pennsylvania could feed 217,500,000Families of (4)

870,000,000 people

Sources: 2007 Census of Agriculture and the 2007 National Resources Inventory


Changing The Way People Think


How We Produce Food Does Make A Difference


Turn Public Support into Public Policy


While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because

civilization itself rests upon the soil.”

Thomas Jefferson


Thank You!

Jeff Moyer

[email protected]

Do Something!