How to make farmers sustainable business leaders
I grew up on a ranch. It was a working cattle ranch with cattle rustlers, milking stalls, and unkillable 1950s Ford trucks. It wasn’t organic, sustainable, farm-to-table, or gluten-free. Even so, my family always took pride in protecting the land, keeping the water clean, and rotating alfalfa, hay, and wheat in the fields. We made sure we didn’t destroy the topsoil through erosion, and we built wind-breaks in the fields to make sure the wind didn’t destroy the good land. Now, these precautions and this kind of care seem old-fashioned. Farming has changed, and not entirely for the better.
From farm to fork, our food system should be a source of pride: one that supports farmers, makes healthy food, and protects the environment. So, can we say we’re currently proud of our food system? I would argue that many Americans are not proud of it, and that makes sense. There are a lot of problems out there.
Midwestern farm runoff has led to poisoned water in places such as Des Moines, Iowa, and to giant “dead zones” for fish in the Gulf of Mexico. And climate change will only worsen water quality and increase the frequency and severity of floods and droughts.
So what changed from my childhood until now? The major thing is the cost of farming and the way that our government funds farming.
Our current farm system encourages planting just one type of crop, usually soy or corn (over 60% of the arable land in the United States is covered by either soy or corn). This constrained farming process, called “monoculture,” encourages farmers to plant large, uninterrupted huge fields containing just one crop, with nothing (no trees, hedges, ditches, etc. Just acres of corn) to protect the land from wind or water erosion.
What does money have to do with it? Unless farmers plant these particular crops, they can’t get insurance from the government . In effect, the government is forcing farmers to grow one of these two cash crops to sustain their business. Beyond government intervention, farmers are locked into this system by expensive, hard-to-replace farm equipment (believe it or not, some tractors cost more than the farmhouses where their drivers live) and the lack of transportation options for getting different food to the market.
This year, we have an opportunity to change all of these trends. Our food system is largely shaped by something that Congress will vote on this year: the Farm Bill. This $956 billion affair affects all parts of our food system and determines what we eat. The Farm Bill has huge implications for our health, our economy, our water, and the environment.
The good news is that the Farm Bill already includes several programs that encourage good stewardship of farmland by helping farmers adopt practices that reduce soil damage, fertilizer runoff, and other undesirable impacts.
But the reason that these programs haven’t jump-started a new farming system is that the most recent version of the 2014 Farm Bill reduced conservation program funding. A USDA official told Congress:
Thousands more farmers want to protect their land through sustainable conservation methods like crop rotation — but they can’t because of lack of money.
Why would farmers be clamoring to take part in these programs? Recent analysis has shown that farm practices such as crop rotation lead to positive environmental outcomes while maintaining or increasing farmers’ yields and profits, and saving taxpayers money.
Just like my family did on our farm, other farmers and ranchers can protect their soil by planting cover crops such as alfalfa. They also can reduce fertilizer and pesticide use by rotating a mix of crops. With funding for conservation, farmers can capture excess fertilizer before it hurts the environment, add wildlife habitat by planting areas of native, perennial plants known as “prairie strips” in and around vast cornfields, and even stop farming environmentally-sensitive acreage altogether.
Farmers can become leaders of sustainable business. We can spend less money on farming, get healthier food, save our water, and use fewer chemicals on our crops.
As committed and energized as we are about moving the Farm Bill toward supporting a healthier, fairer, more sustainable food system, we know it’s going to be an uphill fight. The current system didn’t arise in a vacuum; it serves powerful interests committed to maintaining the status quo. Those interests will have no trouble making their voices heard in Congress — so we must make sure our senators and representatives hear us, too.
Tell your representative in Congress that we want a Farm Bill that serves the health and well-being of all Americans.
