It just takes a little time and organization. The key is to pay attention to your soil and ensure it is getting the nutrients, care and treatment that it needs. When you can do this, you create an ecosystem that will allow for easier work in the fields and higher yields.
It is true that current farming techniques lead to high yields, but we have to question at what cost. Our farmer friends stated after last year’s harvest they saw the best numbers in the history of farming; the same statement they made the year before thinking they couldn’t top those numbers. Piatt County has been the leader in the state for corn and soybean yields for many years. In 1994, Illinois average corn yields per acre were 156 bushels. Last year the average was 220.5 bushels. (www.nass.usda.gov) With this kind of data, it’s no wonder we can’t understand how organic farming can replace current farming techniques in order to feed the world.
Let’s take a look at Punjab, India who struggled to feed its people after a devastating drought in the 1960s. A new variety of wheat producing high yields was introduced to them and their people no longer had the threat of starvation. According to an article titled “The Global Food Crisis” (2009) written by Joel K Bourne (National Geographic) after the introduction of the new technique, “They could produce grain like no other wheat ever seen—as long as there was plenty of water and synthetic fertilizer and little competition from weeds or insects. To that end, the Indian government subsidized canals, fertilizer, and the drilling of tube wells for irrigation and gave farmers free electricity to pump the water. The new wheat varieties quickly spread throughout Asia, changing the traditional farming practices of millions of farmers, and were soon followed by new strains of “miracle” rice. The new crops matured faster and enabled farmers to grow two crops a year instead of one. Today a double crop of wheat, rice, or cotton is the norm in Punjab, which, with neighboring Haryana, recently supplied more than 90 percent of the wheat needed by grain-deficient states in India.” All good, right? Unfortunately, today yield growth has flattened, over-irrigation has led to a steep decline in their water source, and thousands of acres of land have been ruined and left nutrient deficient. Not only are they not able to farm their land anymore, their people are dying from pesticide use and are in debt due to the high costs associated with mechanized farming.
You may recall from a previous blog what Farmer Dave of PrariErth Farms in rural Atlanta, Illinois shared with us during our visit. He showed us one field that was flooded by a nearby creek during heavy rains last summer. Even though his crops were under water, they survived. He attributed it to organic farming practices and paying close attention to replenishing nutrients in his soils. If you take care of your soil, it will continue to provide for years and years to come and will be able to tolerate drought or flood.
We took that advice and have been busy applying it at Clean Acres. This past month we’ve added a spring cover crop of a hairy vetch, pea and oat mix to an acre of land. This fall we will mow it under and plant a fall cover crop of hairy vetch on top and let it overwinter. The cover crops will add up to 8,000 pounds of organic matter to our soil, will out-compete weeds and will fix nitrogen in the soil. According to cropnutrition.com, “Nitrogen is so vital because it is a major component of chlorophyll, the compound by which plants use sunlight energy to produce sugars from water and carbon dioxide (i.e., photosynthesis). It is also a major component of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Without proteins, plants wither and die. Some proteins act as structural units in plant cells while others act as enzymes, making possible many of the biochemical reactions on which life is based. Nitrogen is a component of energy-transfer compounds, such as ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP allows cells to conserve and use the energy released in metabolism. Finally, nitrogen is a significant component of nucleic acids such as DNA, the genetic material that allows cells (and eventually whole plants) to grow and reproduce. Without nitrogen, there would be no life as we know it.”
We’ve also been adding fish emulsion to our soils. Fish emulsion is an organic farming method that has been around since civilizations have been farming. It is a non-burning fertilization method and will help replenish and rebuild the soil.
After we found some cucumber beetles and grubs, we decided to apply beneficial nematodes. Beneficial nematodes are a worm that naturally lives in soils, but organic gardeners can add them directly and increase their population when a problem occurs. Beneficial nematodes kill up to 230 pests. While it takes 2-3 weeks for them to take effect, we’ve already seen a decline in the number of cucumber beetles and the zucchini have doubled in size in the last week and half in appreciation of it!
Just by paying attention to the microscopic and macroscopic life of the soil, we will be able to create an ecosystem that will be sustainable.
In such a small operation, it’s vital for us to put the time and labor into making our soils work for us now so that our job can be easier in the future.
In addition to paying attention to our soil, we are now managing over 5,000 plants and have been keeping busy succession planting, weeding, harvesting, and supplying for our investors each week. To give you an idea of time, this area alone took us 20 hours to weed and is about 1/10th of the ground we are managing. We are looking forward to future years when the weed wars will become less tedious and our soil will be a sustainable, nutrient filled ecosystem!
Submitted by Tabitha Elder
Farmers Brianne Santoli and Tabitha Elder are Central Illinois residents and managers of Clean Acres Produce. Follow their journey of starting a Community Supported Agriculture program in the chemical free fresh food desert of rural Piatt County at http://www.cleanacresproduce.org, http://www.facebook.com/cleanacresproduce or @CleanAcres.
Before and after pictures: 20 hours of weeding:
Clean Acres Blog 