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Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

montanafreepress.org

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Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#131

Post by nradov »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #110
mathgladiator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key criticism is that it yields less, so it doesn't scale. Furthermore, it generally lacks uniformity, so you can't automate either.

Crops can be integrated and still planted and harvested mechanically. Planting differing height crops or same height crops with different seed sizes you can still use machines and harvest multiple crops from the same time/land. Yield for some crops is actually more after the ~3 year transition period. However, for all crops quality is greatly improved. Better quality means you need to eat less to be satiated.

Better quality only helps if customers are willing to pay more. A lot of crops are sold through middlemen as undifferentiated commodities.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#132

Post by artificialLimbs »

kaycebasques wrote: post #2

Has anyone here undergone a soil restoration project (big or small)? Did you happen to blog about the progress? There's so much I don't know, like how you even determine that your soil is degraded, or how you measure progress.

My wife and I have been heavily influenced by Sepp Holzer, Elaine Ingham, Fukuoka Masanobu, and others in the permaculture/regen ag scene.

We bought a plot of land here in Arkansas a year and a half ago and have been working it, and plan to continue doing so with the aim of creating a self sustaining food forest and garden, one outcome of which will necessarily require healthy and strong soil. The ground is rocky and the rain runs off fast. We have been planting trees, bringing in leaf mulch, and leaving the cut grass when we mow.

There are a shockingly large number of techniques and things to know about this kind of work. Join some groups on Facebook or IRL, visit with farmers at your local farmers market, and search around and you will be able to get your hands on more info than you can handle.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#133

Post by kickout »

asimpletune wrote: post #105
kickout wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replies to your questions are good. I'd say the yield downside is the most glaring. Farmers really can't afford a have a self-imposed 'bad' year while they try to adopt new practices. Bankers and lenders (which farmers rely on for operating loans might not even approve--IDK). It absolutely takes some trial and error as no 2 farms are the same. This also hurts testing things out in a smaller scale on your farm. You ne…

What if the measurement wasn’t yield but total nutrition?

It should be, but isn't for many crops. Commodity crops are incentivized for quantity. Many fruits and vegetables are bred for storage and transportability, not nutritional value or taste.

As i've said in other threads we have many misaligned incentives in agriculture that we're seeing play out. if you click my bio, I post blogs about these topics and more

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#134

Post by songzme »

If you are still buying groceries from supermarkets, it is in your best interest to change that habit and buy organic only. Food co-ops usually tend to store organic only so they are great places to buy your groceries.

Organic ensures that the soil where your food came from had no prohibited substances (most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides) applied for three years. Chances are, if you are buying food from supermarkets without the organic label, your food probably came from a farm that uses unhealthy synthetic fertilizers that may attribute to health issues later down the road.

Unless you know your restaurant is cooking with organic food, they are probably not so it is best to eat out sparingly and learn to cook with your own delicious food with your organic ingredients.

If you want to step up your game, you could also buy organic clothes (aka clothes that came from plants / animal) that came from soil without prohibited substances. Your body is covered most of the day so it's better to be on the healthier side.

Obviously, the label "organic" doesn't mean you are getting the best because there is still alot of room for improvement. Organic still allows some form of pesticides and fertilizers and has next to nothing about the organic matter in your soil (which determine how nutritious your food would be).

The article mentions regenerative organic certification, which addresses the shortcomings for organic labels. If we, as consumers, demand for the highest quality food, it turns out to be good for the soil and the long term health of the earth too!

Hands down, if you have a space for your own garden or even pots at home, you could easily grow food that are more nutritious than any food you can find in a grocery store. Optimize for organic matter in your soil. The higher the organic matter, the more nutritious your food is. Most of the agricultural soil that grows food has about 3-6% organic matter, you can easily get it above 10% at home. So if you have time on your hands, you should try growing the food you eat most regularly at home.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#135

Post by tastyfreeze »

gruez wrote: post #36
CuriouslyC wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most agricultural chemical products are profitable in the way a loan is profitable. You get higher yields now, but you're disrupting the environment and making it more vulnerable to pests, drought and erosion in the long run. As these problems start to become apparent, your only solution to maintain yields is to use more and more products, until the land is so marginal it collapses.

>until the land is so marginal it collapses. Where has this happened?

Dave Montgomery posits that soil degradation has determined the lifespan of past civilizations. At the rate that plowing erodes soil it takes about 1000 years to deplete the resource to the point of desertification.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQACN-XiqHU

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#136

Post by zachware »

kickout wrote: post #101
zachware wrote: post #80

Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops can be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag in particular is significantly better for soil longevity. That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some material % of crops can move to more intelli…

Sweet, there is only approximately 300 million acres of cropland in the United States alone. Sun == free, rain == free How does indoor ag plan on scaling up for anything other than super high margin vegetables and spices when their competitor (outdoor ag) has no cost associated with sun or rain? Not even to mention soil. edit: I like indoor/vertical ag a lot (when applied correctly) When people try to propose produci…

I actually agree with you. It's purely a math problem. Where can predictable yield be profitable (including loss calculations) and where can it not.

Vertical as it is today is an excellent nursery solution to feed growable plants into float ponds with little to no loss. As an independent production method, vertical isn't mathematically sustainable.

40% of fresh food is lost before it makes it to the end user (USDA data). The loss comes from a combo of unpredictable weather, timing issues where market prices dip below production costs at harvest time, and supply chain issues.

So it's a complicated math problem but it's important to consider in the suite of food security tools we look to.

Absent regen, we're likely to decimate soils over generations. If we flip totally to regen, we won't have enough land.

So a host of solutions is required.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#137

Post by tastyfreeze »

louis___ wrote: post #62
durkie wrote: post #46

Is there an economic argument to be made for increasing the amount of money spent in the local economy? I often hear it cited as a benefit in situations like this, and it has a certain feel-good quality to it, but instinctively it feels like it means people pay higher prices: if you're buying seed from the local seed & feed, it's almost certainly more expensive than if you buy it from XYZ megacorp.

There is often an array of benefits. Following on your example, if you buy seed from the local seed & feed, you : - build resilience, for example if a global pandemic prevents far-reaching import-export - are less subject to geopolitics - money invested have a higher chance to stay in the local economy : the owner of the local seed & feed may buy its vegetables from you - create local jobs : this seed & feed owner ma…

If the seed is grown locally you can add "has adaptations to local environment" to that list.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#138

Post by pbk1 »

songzme wrote: post #134

If you are still buying groceries from supermarkets, it is in your best interest to change that habit and buy organic only. Food co-ops usually tend to store organic only so they are great places to buy your groceries. Organic ensures that the soil where your food came from had no prohibited substances (most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides) applied for three years. Chances are, if you are buying food from superm…

Setting aside the environmental concerns (which are important, and indirectly health-adjacent), are there material health reasons to eat organic? This Mayo Clinic article [0] points to pretty minor improvements, would love if someone could point me to evidence substantiating OP's claim, or maybe which products in particular are materially healthier if produced organically.

[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#139

Post by samatman »

driverdan wrote: post #59
coldcode wrote: post #5

Like everything there are costs and benefits; sometimes people only focus on the benefits of "modern" practices and forget the costs associated with them, like stripping the soil, and the expense and side effects of chemicals. Finding a better approach means taking risks and trying new ideas. This applies to programming as well as growing food.

> the expense and side effects of chemicals What does that mean? Everything is made of chemicals.

Yes, words are contextual and don't always mean the same things every time they're used.

I had zero difficulty understanding the post you're replying to— and neither did you. It doesn't even annoy me any more, probably because, as a chemist, I got it out of my system years ago.

The time one of my second cousins responded to my telling her my major by making a face and saying "I don't like chemicals" does kind of stand out...

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#140

Post by songzme »

blevin wrote: post #56
songzme wrote: post #33

There's a guy in Montana called Paul Wheaton who spent the last 6 years building soil rich in organic matter using no chemicals (pesticides & biocides) in his 200 acre plot of land. There were giant hugelkultur beds 15 ft high it was a crazy sight. He believes that in a decade the soil will be so rich in organic matter with healthy microbial activity (with no chemical history) could produce food that cures cancer. I…

January in MT is no joke. Were the activities in that part of the year more on the theory end? Did you have to wait long between your reservation and getting a spot?

I registered in November and was able to get a spot for January. The winter was a really good time because there weren't there many people (because of weather) and I got to ask all the questions I wanted. We mainly worked on a greenhouse that keeps water from freezing in Montana winters using the earth's thermal energy and no electricity: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/greenhouse-...
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