Foodlust
  • Home
  • The Food Chronicles
  • About
  • Contact

When In Drought...Feed the Soil

7/20/2012

4 Comments

 
Picture
Our first corn!
As I inspected our small crop of corn in the growing dome today, I found one lone ear infested with aphids. The crop is almost ready to harvest so I thought I would take a peak and make sure the little buggers hadn't damaged the corn. As I slowly peeled back the husk to reveal the ear, I felt a little like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory unwrapping to find the golden ticket. Would my hard work be rewarded with a healthy ear of corn??

Lucky for me, it was stellar! I'm a little biased but it was the most beautiful ear of corn I've ever seen. I felt a little guilty as I revered this work of art thinking of my comrades in the Midwest suffering from the drought and entire corn crop failures.

Conventional farmers with "big ag" contracts are protected with crop insurance. The same can't be said for small specialty-crop farms especially organic farms. They aren't eligible for these benefits leaving them to take the hit. For CSA farmers, they can at least lean on their members for a type of "crop insurance." In these desperate times, CSA members are learning firsthand what it means to share the risk with the men and women who grow their food.

As I've been following the drought, I couldn't help but wonder, "how are the organic farms holding up?" Are they doing better? And are conventional growers starting to see the pitfalls of their farming methods which deplete the soil making them more vulnerable to drought? I haven't been able to find a report documenting this just yet but I did find an article by one of my favorite food & farming writers, Tom Philpott. I was glad to see he was asking the same questions. And while the results aren't in for 2012, studies have been done which prove that organic crops have higher yields than conventional crops during times of drought and heavy rain. Why?

Organics fields are high in organic matter. The organic matter is a result of regular composting, diverse crop rotations and cover crops. It feeds the soil and in the process stores atmospheric carbon. Carbon rich soil is able to retain moisture helping soil to be more resilient during drought years. During heavy rains, carbon high soil can manage water better so it can filter through the soil versus not being able to penetrate hard, nutrient deficient soil which leads to flooded fields.

It isn't surprising then to learn that organically managed soil is a great way to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change. When carbon is in the soil it is not in the atmosphere. Conventional crops can't say the same. The soil food web which creates the environment to sequester this carbon is destroyed when treated with synthetic chemicals.

My hope is that the 2012 drought will be taken into consideration during the final stages of the 2012 Farm Bill creating incentives to help conventional farms transition to organic and in the process transfer some of the crop insurance over to the farms making the switch in order to protect  their efforts.

4 Comments
terry allen
7/24/2012 12:29:05 pm

Very interesting comment on carbon sequestering. I had not known about this.

Reply
Jaden link
1/26/2013 12:14:14 am

I must say your blog is totally amazing. I'm totaly amazed to visit your blog.

Reply
bored central link
3/17/2013 04:31:09 pm

After the 2012 drought ,The farm bill has modified and incentives are issued for helping the conventional farms transition to organic development.Lets hope that this venture will meet success and helps in the increased production of crops.

Reply
Missouri Indian Gay Dating link
11/19/2022 06:25:48 pm

Great post thaankyou

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Follow SusieSutphin on Twitter

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    4 Season Growing
    Agrarianism
    Agritourism
    Agroecology
    Agtivist
    Animals
    Aquaponics
    Biodiversity
    Book Blog Vol. 2
    Book Blog Vol. 3
    Book Blog Vol. 4
    Book Blog Vol. 5
    Book Blog Vol. I
    Climate Change
    Coffee
    Community
    Compost
    Conventional Farming
    Cost Of Food
    Crafts
    Crop Rotation
    Csas4713f5b38e
    Dairy
    Education
    Energy
    Equity
    Fair Trade
    Farm Bill
    Farm Incubator
    Farming
    Farm Stories
    Feed The World
    Food Access
    Food Hub
    Food Labels
    Food Miles
    Food Policy
    Food Security
    Foodshed
    Food Sovereignty
    Food Stories
    Food Waste
    Forestry
    Fracking
    Gardens To Hospitals
    Gmo
    Green Jobs
    Growing Dome
    Happy Cows
    History
    Kids
    Land Use
    Localized Economies
    Markets
    Nutrition
    Occupy Movement
    Organic
    Permaculture
    Pest Management
    Recipes
    Regional Food Systems
    Reruns: The Best Of
    Restaurants
    Rodale Articles
    Seasonality
    Slow Food
    Social Movement
    Soil
    Strawberries
    Sustainability
    This I Believe
    Vegetables
    Vermiculture
    Volunteering

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.