Green Lightening Future
THE BUSINESS OF FARMING THE FARMER – ARE WE NEARING THE END
This was the latest chart I could find that compared net income earned by farmers to the net income of the input supply companies. Maybe current information is difficult to find because powerful entities do not want anyone to see that understands the message and has the ability to do something about it.
Input companies, which are for the most part either mines or pharmaceutical giants; know they need to change their products and their role in the food and feed production chain because they are the same companies doing the research, advocating for and selling farmers a few of the depleted and in some cases totally absent soil organisms that their legacy products continue to kill.
Lets leave the “Icide” so called “crop protection” products aside and talk about the nutrient side for a moment.
We learned during and after the 2nd World War the benefits to crop yield when we added mined nutrient salts to the soil. Yields went up sharply in response to high applications, most especially in soils that had been poorly managed, managed by monoculture producers and did not include livestock and hay in their operations. Well managed or not, we did not understand that these salts were killing or sidelining soil life.
The big kicker was nitrogen. Nitrogen fertilizers most especially anhydrous ammonia gave a huge boost to crop yield. Many large-scale farmers today rely heavily on nitrogen to force higher yields out of the ground. These farmers are usually the ones that rent the majority of their crop land. They are regarded by some of their peers as the more – on farmers who simply add more chemical fertilizer when they want or need higher yield.
There may be some light at the end of that tunnel or should I say lightening at the end of the tunnel. There is a process already in limited use on farms across Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia. A natural process that is shocking atmospheric nitrogen out of the air and storing it in distilled water. The latest lightening technology is able to capture and store just under 1000 ppm of total dissolved nitrate nitrogen.
In the early tests the evidence shows that the lightening created nitrogen solution, composed of all natural ingredients; is able to replace a significant portion of cost of supplemental nitrogen. There is a lot more work to be done but so far, the results are showing equal to or better response at a much lower cost. You can manufacture this yourself right on the farm and of course you would be able to provide power with renewable energy sources.
Yield considerations aside this home-made nitrogen most certainly puts the input investment back in the crop producer’s pocket with significant soil health and environmental benefits
Below a civil servant opinion on cutting research budgets to agriculture and our environment.
https://www.greenlightning.ag/ https://www.nytro.ca/
You need to understand the caption. There is a debate ongoing in Canada between our government budget wranglers and our agricultural and environmental research institutions. The technologies that are coming our way and finding rapid adoption are a new paradigm that will play a major role in environmental benefits, economic benefits and social benefits. Better nutrition results in lower health care costs. When we combine drones, field robots, imaging, data management and robots, everyone wins from soil life to every living being above the surface. Politicians are considering reducing or cutting in some cases research budgets. This is being considered at a time when should be going all in and doubling down. Failing to take advantage of all the new developments will result in continued degradation of our water supplies, continued declines in soil health and our health. We must change the way we produce food and feed or watch the loss of community as farmers add acres to stay in business when what they really need is more profit per acre not more acres.
Agriculture can only go in two ways from here. We can support our traditional, owned and operated family farms. Farmers that value family, community and practice regenerative farming methods producing highly nutritional food and feed at a fair price. Farmers who are capable and eager to adopt new technologies that help them be environmentally regenerative and profitable. OR we can be complacent and allow the mines, and big pharmaceuticals do the research and the product sales education. In this scenario they get to dictate the data and information that ensures corporate success through farming the farmer. Do you want multinational corporation’s dictating your family’s food and feed quality? Do you want a business, not located in your country, determining food diversity while ignoring the negative environmental impact of the factory farming model? If yes, then do nothing!
