August 4, 2009
Feeding the world isn't for sissies like Michael Pollan: The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectualsFarmers have reasons for their actions, and society should listen to them as we embark upon this reappraisal of our agricultural system. I use chemicals and diesel fuel to accomplish the tasks my grandfather used to do with sweat, and I use a computer instead of a lined notebook and a pencil, but I'm still farming the same land he did 80 years ago, and the fund of knowledge that our family has accumulated about our small part of Missouri is valuable. And everything I know and I have learned tells me this: we have to farm "industrially" to feed the world, and by using those "industrial" tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task and leave my grandchildren a prosperous and productive farm, while protecting the land, water, and air around us.
Pollen's other grand idea is mandatory household composting, with the compost delivered to farmers free of charge. Why not? Compost is a valuable soil amendment, and if somebody else is paying to deliver it to my farm, then bring it on. But it will not do much to solve the nitrogen problem. Household compost has somewhere between 1 and 5 percent nitrogen, and not all that nitrogen is available to crops the first year. Presently, we are applying about 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre to corn, and crediting about 40 pounds per acre from the preceding years soybean crop. Let's assume a 5 percent nitrogen rate, or about 100 pounds of nitrogen per ton of compost. That would require 3,000 pounds of compost per acre. Or about 150,000 tons for the corn raised in our county. The average truck carries about 20 tons. Picture 7,500 trucks traveling from New York City to our small county here in the Midwest, delivering compost. Five million truckloads to fertilize the country's corn crop. Now, that would be a carbon footprint!
Posted by Vanderleun at August 4, 2009 9:43 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Why do we have to feed the world? Why cannot the world feed itself?
What point is there in producing massive quantities of food and shipping it massive distances when the localities to which it is being sent can produce their own food more economically and sustainably?
On an industrual scale we draw fertility from the soil to produce food, we ship it to the cities and we then ship the compost back? Great idea! Us country folk would just love to have our fertility back. Unfortunately, we cannot get our fertility back because city "compost" contains so much manufactured drugs that it is unfit for use. For instance, the level of female hormones from birth control pills are so high in some city sewer systems they cannot even discharge it back into the water ways they took it from. No thanks.
Gerard might enjoy reading Wendell Berry.
Posted by: Straight at August 5, 2009 7:00 AM