Prairie Wanderings: Ecologically sustainable agriculture
By PAUL G. JANTZEN
Contributing writer
In the mid-1950s, farmers in Kansas' Pawnee County organized a community coyote hunt to reduce the coyote population, thereby reducing predation on sheep and poultry. The editor of the local newspaper, "The Tiller and Toiler," questioned the wisdom of their action.
That same season, when Elaine and I would return to our home in Pawnee County from occasional out-of-town meetings, we would entertain ourselves during the nighttime drive by counting the jack rabbits that crossed the road ahead of us.
In the mornings, on my way to work at Radium High School, I noticed that the lush, green wheat in the fields was diminishing from one day to the next. Something was eating the wheat.
The editor had heard local farmers complain that jack rabbits were eating their wheat. He wondered whether the coyotes being killed in the hunt might have provided a service to the farmers by reducing the rabbit population.
In a Nebraska community, red-winged blackbirds were killed off because of their appetite for grain. The following year grasshoppers, no longer held in check by the redwings, multiplied in such enormous numbers that grain crops were a complete failure.
Catherine Badgley, a research scientists and organic farmer, says that there are "five ecological reasons why it is so important for farmers to be conservationists and for conservationists to be deeply concerned about farming."
"First, agriculture involves fundamental ecological processes: energy flow, nutrient cycling, pollution, seed dispersal, climatic moderation, and flood control." Industrial agriculture has developed shortcuts or substitutes for some of these processes such as synthetic fertilizers and biocides. These shortcuts often disrupt ecosystems, resulting in soil erosion or the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone. Farmers depend upon the service provided by diverse organisms from soil fungi to bird and mammal predators.
"Second, agroecosystems with multiple species, thereby more similar to natural ecosystems, tend to sponsor more of their own fertility and have fewer biological disruptions than do monocultures." The legumes in a mixture may provide nitrates for another species that utilizes water from a different soil depth than does the legume. Or, "one plant may host the beneficial predators for another plant's pests."
Third, "the sheer amount of land involved in farming and grazing is so great that the fate of many species and ecosystems depends on farming practices." Sixty-five percent of the area in the 48 contiguous United States is agricultural land, including public lands where grazing is allowed. The quality and management of these lands is critical to the well being of the ecosystems in the remaining 35 percent of the land.
Fourth, reserves themselves are too small and isolated from each other to protect all of a region's biodiversity. Small populations are vulnerable to extinction by random events.
And fifth, "agriculture is the major threat to most endangered and threatened species and ecosystems." The habitat degradation inherent in industrial agriculture is considered the leading cause of the endangerment of plant and animal species in the United States. Additional threats to biodiversity are pollution, overkill, and diseases, some of which also result from agriculture.
Badgley has a vision of ecologically sustainable agriculture. She sees farmers "trained not only in farming but also in ecology and natural history." And that they use their knowledge of local biological diversity and ecosystems in their farm planning. That "the quality of life of all species is respected." That "farmers acquire detailed knowledge of their fields and pastures by walking and working them rather than using precision-agriculture machines." That farmers preserve areas of native habitats and are rewarded for their preservation.
Of course, "such a system would be viable only if farmers receive a fair price for their products and if their communities value farmland and natural habitats enough to safeguard them from urban development."
Farmers and consumers would interact through farmers' markets, and food stores and restaurants would feature locally grown food. Consumers would rely heavily on locally grown food.
This is an ambitious vision. But each idea, plus others she included, is based on examples already in progress in the United States and elsewhere.
An ecologically sustainable agriculture might well develop if farmers, conservationists, and the public decide to work together with our natural environment to find solutions from which we could all benefit.
