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Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

montanafreepress.org

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Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#11

Post by t-3 »

rmason wrote: post #9
emilywolfe wrote: post #2

Hey HN! This is Part 2 of my regenerative/organic agriculture series, Common Ground. You all had such an interesting, in-depth conversation about Part 1 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279 ), that I wanted to see what you think about the next installment. It's a combo of solutions journalism and a profile (always trying to break things over here), in which I explored the 40-year career of pioneering organ…

While it's great this guy has the money to run his own research farm it's a bit unusual. In the Midwest where I live it's far more common for universities to do this task. Coupled with cooperative extension agents to spread adoption at a county level when they find something that works. Universities do basic science very well. When something's brand new like no-till was in the eighties and precision ag in the ninetie…

Just a nitpick: Plowman's Folly was published in the 1940's, so no-till was definitely not brand-new in the eighties.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#12

Post by emilywolfe »

t-3 wrote: post #11
rmason wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's great this guy has the money to run his own research farm it's a bit unusual. In the Midwest where I live it's far more common for universities to do this task. Coupled with cooperative extension agents to spread adoption at a county level when they find something that works. Universities do basic science very well. When something's brand new like no-till was in the eighties and precision ag in the ninetie…

Just a nitpick: Plowman's Folly was published in the 1940's, so no-till was definitely not brand-new in the eighties.

I think no-till became more common in the 80s, because that's when Roundup became more widely available, at least in Montana.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#13

Post by emilywolfe »

dccoolgai wrote: post #7
emilywolfe wrote: post #2

Hey HN! This is Part 2 of my regenerative/organic agriculture series, Common Ground. You all had such an interesting, in-depth conversation about Part 1 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279 ), that I wanted to see what you think about the next installment. It's a combo of solutions journalism and a profile (always trying to break things over here), in which I explored the 40-year career of pioneering organ…

Great reporting and great work! I'm really interested in some of the "less-cultivated" plants mentioned in the article (like Kernza). It seems so weird that of all the plants that exist, we grow like 10. Seems like there's a lot of room for that "fail-fast" mindset to locate new plants we could grow that suit a particular need (or are really delicious and we had no idea!).

Thank you! And this is a good idea. My third (and last) installment in the series will be about policy. I'd be interested to see if there are any that encourage that kind of experimentation.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#14

Post by emilywolfe »

mceoin wrote: post #3

Slightly off topic, but where is the best place to get a decent feed of regenerative-ag, rewilding, reforestation, conservation, land trust, indigenous land-rights, creative-land-use news? (HN for the pragmatic eco-conscious futurists.) Great post by teh way

There's some good stuff on the regenerative ag Subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/RegenerativeAg/. Land Core is a leader in the space, as is the Soil Health Institute.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#15

Post by emilywolfe »

colechristensen wrote: post #8
Causality1 wrote: post #4

So how much more effectively could you regeneratively farm without being chained to the limits of organic farming? Just as a baseline, crops engineered towards this end instead of toward pure profit would likely be much better at it than anything organic.

While I skimmed, I didn’t see anything about “regenerative” besides a casual mention of cover crops which you wouldn’t do anything in particular to already (no pesticides or fertilizer or genetic engineering). The other bit was about being very local about picking where and how to grow nontraditional crops (think farmers market faire) in difficult locations that would otherwise grow nothing. Transgenic watermelons ar…

You're right, this one was focused largely on the work of one organic farmer, although I would argue that much of what he does is actually regenerative in the sense of regenerating local commerce and economies. And he was one of the first to grow his own soil nutrients by planting dryland alfalfa as a cover crop, and rotating his cover crops.

I would also say that while you're right about progressives moving to Montana, this is not one of them. Bob is a third-generation Big Sandy farmer. In the book Liz Carlisle co-authored with him, she said he was a republican.

My idea was to show how through organic, he'd added value to his own farm, to many others, and to rural communities. And that meant creating infrastructure and new markets. Regenerative, now 40 years later, can learn from that as IT aims to create new markets.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#16

Post by chubot »

Great topic! I will be reading part 1 as well. I just watched "Kiss the Ground" on Netflix, a 2020 documentary about regenerative agriculture.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81321999

Lots of smart people interviewed there. The side-by-sides of the industrial farm and regenerative farm were striking.

And the demo of the egg might convince a few people.

During the pandemic I tried to get about 50% of my calories from the farmer's market, and I'm hoping to keep that up after moving.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#18

Post by toper-centage »

dccoolgai wrote: post #7
emilywolfe wrote: post #2

Hey HN! This is Part 2 of my regenerative/organic agriculture series, Common Ground. You all had such an interesting, in-depth conversation about Part 1 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279 ), that I wanted to see what you think about the next installment. It's a combo of solutions journalism and a profile (always trying to break things over here), in which I explored the 40-year career of pioneering organ…

Great reporting and great work! I'm really interested in some of the "less-cultivated" plants mentioned in the article (like Kernza). It seems so weird that of all the plants that exist, we grow like 10. Seems like there's a lot of room for that "fail-fast" mindset to locate new plants we could grow that suit a particular need (or are really delicious and we had no idea!).

There was a picture going around o reddit of 50 totally different varieties of potatoes grown in Peru. How many varieties do we grow that are significantly distinct? This is probably caused by the optimization of industrial farming selecting for best yield (kg) with very little regard for looks, taste, or even nutricion. It's also harder to stock supermarkets with 50 different types of potatoes, carrots, lettuces, and dozens of other vegetables. Maybe a solution could be that not all supermarkets sell everything, instead of all of them selling exactly the same selection of products. But this would be too inconvenient and would never be tolerated.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#19

Post by KennyBlanken »

Causality1 wrote: post #4

So how much more effectively could you regeneratively farm without being chained to the limits of organic farming? Just as a baseline, crops engineered towards this end instead of toward pure profit would likely be much better at it than anything organic.

European farmers out-produce American farmers per acre and do so with less pesticide and fertilizer use.

American farmers aren't very productive because they don't have to be. They get $85 billion a year in all manner of federal programs, and that doesn't even start to cover protectionist trade policies.

We pay farmers to not grow anything to artificially inflate the cost of produce. We did that because the old system generated outrage - namely, the federal government buying produce that it would ship to a warehouse (which of course the government didn't own or operate itself, so we paid for that as well) and then just let it rot. Bad optics, you see.

So now we just pay them to not do anything at all, because that's more efficient. Except we still have the federal govnerment buying up billions in food and letting it spoil.

Meanwhile, we have millions of kids who go to school hungry. And whenever anyone suggests more federal spending to fix that, guess who stands up and shouts about it the loudest? That's right, the congressional reps from midwestern states where they believe in capitalism and none of that commie handout shit.

Re: Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana

#20

Post by quixoticelixer- »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #19
Causality1 wrote: post #4

So how much more effectively could you regeneratively farm without being chained to the limits of organic farming? Just as a baseline, crops engineered towards this end instead of toward pure profit would likely be much better at it than anything organic.

European farmers out-produce American farmers per acre and do so with less pesticide and fertilizer use. American farmers aren't very productive because they don't have to be . They get $85 billion a year in all manner of federal programs, and that doesn't even start to cover protectionist trade policies. We pay farmers to not grow anything to artificially inflate the cost of produce. We did that because the old syst…

European farmers also get massive subsides and are also not very productive.
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