Tag Archive for: Soil Health

How Wolfe’s Neck Farm Is Combating Climate Change

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It’s all in the dirt.

Author: Mary Pols | Published: October 29, 2017

This month, Wolfe’s Neck Farm got a new name, the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, and officially became part of an internationally trending agricultural movement that aims to fight climate change from the ground up.

Beyond some signs referring to a TransFARMation, the changes aren’t obvious. That’s because a big part of the rebranding has to do with a mission happening underfoot. Literally. This transformation is about using the soil on this centuries-old 626-acre farm on the shores of Casco Bay to combat climate change.

As to be expected with the ever-evolving world of agriculture, there’s a buzzword for the new approach: regenerative agriculture. But it’s not yet in widespread use, and Wolfe’s Neck’s executive director David Herring finds himself defining it a lot.

“I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘What is this thing about regenerative agriculture? What is that?’ ” Herring said. He smiles the smile of a man who knows that it is a select audience who wants to hear the nitty gritty of dirt. “And so our ability to explain it succinctly has been tested.”

Start with soil health. Richer soil, more dense with organic material, is the obvious path to stronger plants and better yields. That’s what compost is all about. Every farmer engaged in sustainable agriculture is already working toward this.

“These are not brand-new things,” Herring said. “None of these things are.” But there’s a growing consciousness – Herring even uses the word “revolution” – of the potential agricultural soils high in organic material have to trap more carbon, enough potential to halt or even roll back climate change.

TRAPPING CARBON

Improving soil will build a higher level of resilience; organic matter in soil absorbs and retains more water, making farms more drought and flood resistant. But the major premise behind the burgeoning regenerative agriculture movement is that improving soil health is also the ideal means to get excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and into the soil. Soil already sequesters carbon. It has potential to sequester a lot more, if it has human help to increase its capacity to hold carbon. And those humans need some help figuring out the recipe to healthier soil – meaning richer in organic material that can trap the carbon. Based on the speed at which the climate is changing, the recipe needs to be developed quickly.

Which is where Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment comes in. It will continue to be the place to go for a hayride in the fall, seashore camping in the summer or a field trip to gawk at new calves and squeal at the cuteness of baby goats. It’s also still the home of a burgeoning organic dairy program designed to train the next generation of dairy farmers, thus bolstering a struggling sector of agriculture.

But it has a new role as an observatory for how known methods of enriching soil naturally are working and – this is key, given how climate change is already affecting us – a laboratory for figuring out how to improve soils rapidly.

Agriculture has to be part of the solution, Herring said, because it is a major contributor to climate change.

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Monsanto in Trouble

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Author: Karin Heinze | Published: October 24, 2017

Over 1.3 million EU citizens say: ban glyphosate 

The US seed-& pesticide corporation Monsanto is in trouble. There are many reasons. Among others, the authorization of Monsanto’s flagship the weedkiller Roundup and its ingredient glyphosate is expiring in the EU by the end of this year. Plus more and more weeds are resistant to the pesticide. Monsanto’s ‘solution’ to this problem, another very toxic herbicide called Dicamba, turns out to be a complete failure. The Monsanto Tribunal last fall in The Hague and court cases have been exposing the way Monsanto works. The legal opinion of the Monsanto Tribunal has been spread to all corners of the world by social and official media, inspiring victims of pesticide use and more consumers to show the true cost of Monsanto’s business.

What happened after the Tribunal throughout 2017? Glyphosate, active ingredient of Roundup, has created a huge discussion. Over 1.3 million EU citizens have signed an official request to ban glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use. Also the Monsanto Bayer merger is under investigation. There has been a lot of public pressure on the merger authorities to prevent the Bayer – Monsanto merger. Too much power, bad for farmers and consumers is the general opinion. But the EU Commission has now launched an in-depth investigation.

Food: 53% contain glyphosate residues

According to Monsanto Tribunal, the French organisation Générations Futures conducted tests on food products found in supermarkets. They found out that 53% of them contained glyphosate residues. Such results show the pervasive nature of glyphosate-containing herbicides. Combined with the important work of health and environmental organizations, they should carry weight on the debates over glyphosate re-authorization in the EU.  Consumers’ groups have been conducting a series of tests with food products in the U.S. Glyphosate was found in many of them, including the famous ‘all natural’ Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, from the company Unilever. The Organic Consumers Association is now pushing the brand to go organic.

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Farmers Sequestering Carbon for Better Soil Health

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Author: Brian Todd | Published: October 23, 2017

Where do you keep your carbon?

If you’re Jon Luhman, you’re trying to sock some away in the ground. Preferably for a rainy day.

Luhman and his son, Jared Luhman, raise beef cows, black beans and corn, plus forage for the cattle — all of it organic — on a little more than 700 acres at Dry Creek Red Angus farm, northwest of Goodhue.

In the process, Luhman is putting carbon back into the soil, a process he said helps his farm in a multitude of ways.

“The number one reason is for fertility,” he said. “Its a big benefit for production. It absorbs more moisture. So there’s more water infiltration, more organic matter and less tillage.”

In fact, a pound of organic matter — which consists of 58 percent carbon — can hold as much as six pounds of water in the soil, according to University of Minnesota Extension. In sandy soil, organic matter and the water it holds can make the difference between a successful crop and crop failure in a dry year.

All of this, he said, leads to his motto: “Leave the soil in a better state than when we started.”

Promoting benefits

That’s the message Shona Snater said she hopes other farmers hear when they attend field days organized by the Land Stewardship Project. Snater, a member of the LSP’s soil health team, said that while the benefits of adding carbon to the soil — essentially a form of carbon sequestration — has a positive effect in the battle against climate change, it is important to let farmers understand the economic and agricultural benefits of the practice.

 

“We want to promote the positive benefits,” she said. “Maybe not just for climate change, but for their own profitability.”

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Soils Aren’t Dirt – Local Scientist Urges Priority for Healthly Land Use

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Author: Petre Williams-Raynor | Published: October 19, 2017

With soils the second largest carbon store after oceans, one local scientist is insisting they must be given their due as Jamaica boosts efforts to minimise the threats of a changing climate.

“I think that any discussion surrounding climate change mitigation and adaptation should involve soils, at least to some extent,” said Dr Adrian Spence, research fellow at the International Centre for the Environment and Nuclear Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

The emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are fuel for a changing climate that manifests in not only warmer global temperatures, but also increased sea surface temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather events, the likes of which were recently felt with the passage of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Jose.

“Soils contain huge amounts of carbon and this can either be a source or a sink. We have almost 30 per cent of the CO2 in the atmosphere coming from the soil. Because of this huge amount of carbon, even small changes, perturbations of that could significantly increase CO2 concentration in the atmosphere,” added the biogeochemist.

LAND USE CHALLENGE

Among the things that can bring that about, Spence explained, are changes in land use and certain other agricultural practices.

“Land use and land use changes is the second leading cause of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, second to CO2 from fossil combustion (electricity, motor vehicle emissions, etc),” he noted.

The caution to value soils is also reflected in information out of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), in a 2015 article titled ‘Soils help to combat and adapt to climate change’.

“When managed sustainably, soils can play an important role in climate change mitigation by storing carbon (carbon sequestration) and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere,” reads the article published in the year that was designated ‘International Year of Soils’ by the UN.

“Conversely, if soils are managed poorly or cultivated through unsustainable agricultural practices, soil carbon can be released into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 which can contribute to climate change,” it added.

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Biochar Market: Agriculture Sector and Waste Management Leading Application Segments

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Author: Hiren Samani | Published: October 11, 2017

Biomass, the carbon-rich product produced from the pyrolytic treatment of biomass or greenwaste, can be used to improve the environment and agriculture in a number of ways. The high level of persistence of the substance in soil combined with its nutrient-retention properties make it an ideal solution for soil amendment and a way of improving crop yields. Moreover, the substance is used as an ideal way of carbon sequestration, providing significant implications for the mitigation of environmental degradation owing to the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In a recent report, Transparency Market Research estimates that the global biochar market will chart an impressive CAGR of 14.5% from 2017 to 2025, incrementing to an opportunity of US$14,751.8 thousand by 2025 from its estimated valuation of US$444.2 thousand in 2016.

In this blog post, TMR analysts answer questions related to some of the most crucial aspects of the Global Biochar Market:

Which feedstock is most prominently used for the production of biochar?

A variety of feedstock is used for the production of biochar, including animal manure, woody biomass, agricultural waste, and produces such as sugarcane, coconut, rice, bamboo, and cereals. Of these, the segment of woody biomass accounted for nearly 50% of the overall market in 2016. The high quality of biochar produced from woody biomass finds vast usage in the field of soil amendment. The improvement of quality of soil achieved with the use of biochar is highly valued in areas such as agriculture, forestry, and gardening. In the near future as well, woody biomass will continue to remain the most used feedstock for the production of biochar, accounting for a significant share of the global biochar market in the near future.

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Cornell University Study Shows Glyphosate Damages Soil-Friendly Bacteria

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Published: October 7, 2017

As farmers battle in their above-ground war on weeds using glyphosate-based herbicides, they may inadvertently create underground casualties – unintentionally attacking the beneficial bacteria that help crops guard against enemy fungus.

“Beneficial Pseudomonas in the soil can help crops thrive. They can produce plant-stimulating hormones to promote plant growth and antifungals to defeat problematic fungi – such as Pythium and Fusarium – found in agricultural soil, but previous studies reported that the abundance of beneficial bacteria decreased when the herbicide glyphosate seeps underground,” said Ludmilla Aristilde, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering. “Our study seeks to understand why this happens.”

Soil bacteria require their proteins – composed of amino acids – and their metabolism to support cellular growth and the production of important metabolites to sustain their underground fight. But glyphosate applied to crops can drain into the soil and disrupt the molecular factories in the bacterial cells in some species, interfering with their metabolic and amino acid machinery.

The new findings show that glyphosate does not target the amino acid production and metabolic gadgetry equally among the Pseudomonas species. For example, when Pseudomonas protegens, a bacteria used as a biocontrol agent for cereal crops, and Pseudomonas fluorescens, used as a fungus biocontrol for fruit trees, were exposed to varying glyphosate concentrations, the researchers noted no ill effects. However, in two species of Pseudomonas putida, used in soil fungus control for corn and other crops, the bacteria had notably stunted growth, said Aristilde, who is a faculty fellow at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

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Soil Holds Potential to Slow Global Warming, Stanford Researchers Find

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Author: Rob Jordan | Published: October 5, 2017

If you want to do something about global warming, look under your feet. Managed well, soil’s ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated, according to Stanford researchers who claim the resource could “significantly” offset increasing global emissions. They call for a reversal of federal cutbacks to related research programs to learn more about this valuable resource.

The work, published in two overlapping papers Oct. 5 in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics and Global Change Biology, emphasizes the need for more research into how soil – if managed well – could mitigate a rapidly changing climate.

“Dirt is not exciting to most people,” said Earth system science professor Rob Jackson, lead author of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics article and co-author of the Global Change Biology paper. “But it is a no-risk climate solution with big co-benefits. Fostering soil health protects food security and builds resilience to droughts, floods and urbanization.”

Humble, yet mighty

Organic matter in soil, such as decomposing plant and animal residues, stores more carbon than do plants and the atmosphere combined. Unfortunately, the carbon in soil has been widely lost or degraded through land use changes and unsustainable forest and agricultural practices, fires, nitrogen deposition and other human activities. The greatest near-term threat comes from thawing permafrost in Earth’s northern reaches, which could release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Despite these risks, there is also great promise, according to Jackson and Jennifer Harden, a visiting scholar in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and lead author of the Global Change Biology paper.

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Soil and Land Initiatives Seek to Spur Action Across SDGs

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Author: Wangu Mwangi | Published: September 28, 2017

Recent research and initiatives undertaken by UN agencies, governments and NGOs highlight the links between soil health and the achievement of development goals and priorities related to climate change, agriculture, gender, biodiversity and poverty. Among them, the Land Portal Foundation, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) launched a weekly blog series promoting land monitoring and information sharing for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the auspices of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), regional and country-level activities are underway to boost soil monitoring capacities and data sharing for sustainable soil management.

In the first featured post under the new blog series titled, ‘Land and the Sustainable Development Goals,’ Jeffrey Sachs, SDSN Director, describes land use as “the most important bridge between the SDGs,” noting that land is at the heart of poverty eradication, food security, gender equality, water management, decent work, sustainable cities, ending climate change, and protecting biodiversity. Calling for new approaches to land-use planning, he highlights the launch of a study known as FABLE (Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land Use, and Energy), which aims to enhance interactions among agronomists, foresters, conservationists, hydrologists, and climate scientists, as well as with the communities whose lives they impact. [Land and the SDGs Blog]

This theme is taken up in a Working Paper published by the FAO’s Land and Water Division, which explores current and emerging needs in land resource planning (LRP) for food security, sustainable livelihoods, integrated landscape management, and restoration. The paper argues that the juxtaposed challenges of population growth, demands on limited resources by diverse actors, land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change require the rational use of resources to sustain and enhance productivity and maintain resilient ecosystems. Noting the need for an updated set of integrated landscape management tools and approaches, the paper presents the results of a survey of LRP tools and approaches that led to the establishment of the FAO’s Land Resources Planning Toolbox to help decision-makers and land users put sustainable land management into practice. [Publication: Land Resource Planning for Sustainable Land Management]

During the 4th Regular Meeting of the South American Soil Partnership, held in Montevideo, Uruguay, in August 2017, seven countries launched a project to measure the organic carbon contained in their soils as part of a regional climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. One of the main objectives of the project, which is being undertaken in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay, is to release national soil organic carbon maps and work on a harmonized regional soil map by the end of 2017. By supporting countries to build their national soil information systems, the project aims to contribute to improved local decision making and to advise farmers and land users on how to restore degraded soil, tackle environmental challenges, increase yields and raise agricultural productivity. The project also seeks to strengthen the Latin American Soils Information System (SISLAC), as a decision making and policy development tool for the agricultural and rural development sector. [FAO-GSP Press Release on National Soil Information Systems in Latin America]

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Soil Holds Potential to Slow Global Warming, Researchers Find

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Published: October 5, 2017

If you want to do something about global warming, look under your feet. Managed well, soil’s ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated, according to Stanford researchers who claim the resource could “significantly” offset increasing global emissions. They call for a reversal of federal cutbacks to related research programs to learn more about this valuable resource.

The work, published in two overlapping studies Oct. 5 in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics and Global Change Biology, emphasizes the need for more research into how soil – if managed well – could mitigate a rapidly changing climate.

“Dirt is not exciting to most people,” said earth system science professor Rob Jackson, lead author of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics article and coauthor of the Global Change Biology paper. “But it is a no-risk climate solution with big cobenefits. Fostering soil health protects food security and builds resilience to droughts, floods and urbanization.”

Humble, yet mighty

Organic matter in soil, such as decomposing plant and animal residues, stores more carbon than do plants and the atmosphere combined. Unfortunately, the carbon in soil has been widely lost or degraded through land use changes and unsustainable forest and agricultural practices, fires, nitrogen deposition and other human activities. The greatest near-term threat comes from thawing permafrost in Earth’s northern reaches, which could release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Despite these risks, there is also great promise, according to Jackson and Jennifer Harden, a visiting scholar in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and lead author of the Global Change Biology paper.

Improving how the land is managed could increase soil’s carbon storage enough to offset future carbon emissions from thawing permafrost, the researchers find. Among the possible approaches: reduced tillage, year-round livestock forage and compost application. Planting more perennial crops, instead of annuals, could store more carbon and to reduce erosion by allowing roots to reach deeper into the ground.

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Getting Carbon-Negative with Education

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Author: Living Soils Symposium | Published: October 1, 2017

Gabrielle Bastien is the Director of the Living Soils Symposium Montréal(unrelated, but equally as awesome organization) and Regeneration Canada. As she wrapped up her Master’s from Harvard Extension School, her sights set onto something big: reversing climate change and playing an integral role in that process.

She wasted no time. Spending four months interning at Whole Systems Design under the guidance of Ben Falk, she thrust herself into the thick of sustainable agriculture for her thesis without any prior experience growing foods. It was during that stint in Vermont that she realized that she could contribute more with a thesis in her home province of Québec with the farms surrounding Montréal.

Her findings were unexpected, and reassured small-scale permaculture farmers and farmers-to-be of the potential economic viability of their businesses. In true permaculture fashion, she found that systems design had the largest impact on a farm’s potential profitability. In fact, over 78% of permaculture farms in the region were economically viable, beating the 2006 nationwide average of 55% for farms in general. She didn’t stop contributing to her community there.

Gabrielle, with a group of other community members just as passionate about living soils, has been working tirelessly to launch the first annual Living Soils Symposium Montréal. #LSSMTL has been designed to create a multidisciplinary interaction facilitating cross-pollination between different schools of thought, fields of study, and areas of work. Leaders from all walks of life will be there: food producers, researchers, agronomists, entrepreneurs, and policy makers.

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