Organic Farmers Can Feed the World!

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:

“Try organic food… or as your grandparents called it, food!”

Have you ever seen this magnet or eCard online? It’s true, what we now call organic food is what our grandparents and their grandparents before them and every person consumed since the beginning of time.

Chemicals didn’t become so widely accepted until the 1940s. “In the late 1940s, DDT became the “safe” chemical to use on the food we consume.  DDT, by the way, does the same thing that crop rotation and getting the correct microorganisms and pH levels into your soil does…..without the harmful side effects.  We’ve just forgotten this over time because we are used to buying a chemical that we can spray to eradicate these problems.  It’s easier and requires less work.” (Rodale’s Organic Life)

Until there were chemicals, a potato was a potato. A tomato was a tomato.  But now that chemicals are so widely accepted, the government requires farmers to label potatoes and tomatoes grown without chemicals as “organic.”  For a farmer to be able to carry an organic label, an operation must put multiple organic practices into place and pay fees.  All of the costs add up resulting in higher prices for organic products.  Some of these costs include a requirement to build barriers in order to prevent pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides from coming into contact with our chemical-free produce.  Additionally, water runoff from chemical farming operations is an issue which can also result in a costly expense.

Before chemical use became the norm, organic food was the only option on grocery store shelves. Now we must pay premium dollar for organic foods if we want to rid our diets from chemicals.  Food that isn’t really food or has no nutritional value is inexpensive and readily available.  But having food that is pure, without chemicals and full of nutritional value is difficult to find in our area and it is expensive.  The entire system seems a little backwards.  Why should we have to pay more for the food we really should be consuming?

So how do we get back on track….get back to our roots? Organic farmer Mary Jane Butters has it figured out.  “I think we need to take back our language.  I want to call my organic carrots ‘carrots’ and let other farmers call theirs a chemical carrot.  The other farmers can list all of the ingredients that they used instead of me having to be certified.  The burden is on us to prove something.  Let them prove that they used only 30 chemicals instead of 50 to produce an apple.”  Here at #CleanAcresLLC we say right on!

In order to “take back our language” we will need to go up against big corporations that have deep pockets. Leading a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be motivated by money or politics or be a social or ethical debate.  Unfortunately that is the backwards way our current food system works.  We can turn it around with one simple decision.  Be informed, be educated, and make a stand to buy organic or chemical-free as often as you can.

Anyone who doesn’t buy organic believes they can’t afford it. But is it really that expensive when you take everything else into consideration?  There are so many hidden costs when it comes to purchasing and consuming processed/chemically-laden foods.  One major cost is the lack of nutritional value of processed foods.  Our health is increasingly at risk due to the way in which foods are packaged since chemicals used in packaging materials can leech into food.  Furthermore, the mechanization of processed foods means more handling and shipping causing greater risk for contaminated foods.

There are hidden medical costs associated with consuming non-organic and processed foods. It’s been documented that heart disease, diabetes, cancer, metabolic disorders, asthma, learning disabilities, neurological disorders and obesity cases have significantly increased over time.  “Google it” and you will find that many respected agencies have reported on links between chemicals in our foods to poor health.

Not only are chemicals negatively affecting our health, they are detrimental to the environment. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization conducted a study in 2007 and noted that 1.6 billion tons (approximately 40%) of food is wasted contributing to an equivalent of 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.  Food waste sitting in landfills also “break down anaerobically and produces methane; methane is 21 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.” (Environmental Protection Agency)  Other environmental concerns are loss of biodiversity, excessive use of water, and reduction of soil fertility.

There is strength in numbers and power in money. Join the movement in going back to our roots.  Government and industry is driven by consumer demand.  Together we can drive the price of organic down simply by applying the economic principle of supply and demand.  Be prudent in your food purchases.  Your own health and the health of your family, friends, and loved ones all depend on your decision to buy or grow chemical free and organic.

Submitted by Tabitha Elder Tabitha is a Central Illinois resident and co-owner 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 www.cleanacresproduce.org, www.facebook.com/cleanacresproduce or @CleanAcres.