Low Input Agriculture
Farmers and growers are going to be called upon to do something extraordinary as the reality of peak oil begins to bite. They are going to need to manage without the chemical inputs on which farming has come to rely, and yet they are going to need to maintain high yields, and also ensure that those yields are resilient in the face of unexpected extreme weather events, pests, diseases and other unforeseen circumstances.
Why will farmers need to use less chemical inputs?
- Because the main feedstocks for many of those inputs are running out. Nitrate fertiliser is made mainly from natural gas, and prices have risen alongside the price of gas, which also tracks the price of oil. Thus the price of nitrate increased by 80% between 2006 and 2007, and there are rumours of a further 100% increase to 2008. The other main macronutrients, phosphate and potassium, are made from rock which has to be mined. Almost all of these come from 2-3 mines in the world, and as these are now struggling to keep up with demand, prices are rising rapidly. Lastly, many pesticides are made from oil, and again are becoming more expensive as the oil price rises.
- Because nitrate fertiliser in particular is a significant contributor to climate change. Nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, is emitted during manufacture and even more once the fertiliser has been applied to the field. Nitrous oxide is by far the largest contribution to climate change made by the food and farming system.
- Because many of these fertilisers and pesticides need to be made by large industrial companies, which may or may not survive the turmoil in the financial system which is accompanying the oil peak. A farming system that does not depend on external inputs is obviously much more resilient in the face of unexpected external events.
At the same time yields need to be maintained if the UK is to be able to be self-sufficient in staple foods, let alone be able to export some to less fortunate countries.
A huge amount still needs to be discovered, and subsequently communicated to farmers and growers, about how to achieve these two outcomes simultaneously. The following are just a few pointers to the directions that probably need to be pursued:
- Organic principles are the baseline where we need to start. Organic agriculture is about building the fertility of the soil, particularly by incorporating plenty of organic matter into it. This helps to hold water in the soil (reducing both flooding and drought), and to hold nutrients in the soil, making them available to plants. Soil organic matter also provides a way of sequestering carbon - the mass of organic matter in the soil ought to be several times the mass of trees and other plants growing above the soil, meaning that much more carbon is sequestered. This focus on soil fertility is the opposite of modern commercial farming which tends to treat the soil as an inert, mechanical device for holding plants upright, while the farmer adds water and nutrients as the plant needs them.
- Nutrient recycling is a key issue, discussed on its own page.
- Agroforestry takes organic agriculture to the next level. By growing arable crops between alleys of trees, an additional crop (of wood, nuts, fruit etc) can be produced without a big negative impact on crop yields. The trees help to bring micronutrients up from deep in the ground, depositing them onto the growing area in the autumn leaf fall. Agroforestry takes the notion of crop diversity to its natural conclusion. A vast monocultures of a single crop provides the ideal opportunity for pests and diseases to spread rapidly; the more mixed the farming, the more pests and diseases face natural obstacles to spreading, and also natural predators that will tend to keep them in check. EAFL board member Professor Martin Wolfe is undertaking leading-edge research into agroforestry through his work with the Organic Research Centre.
- Another area of research being pursued by Professor Wolfe is the development of Composite Cross-Populations of wheat. Rather than having a field of genetically identical individuals, this is an experiment to deliberately allow different varieties to cross-fertilise. Research is indicating that, while yields remain similar to those of high-performing varieties, resilience to changes in weather etc is much greater.
Far more research is needed into these and similar approaches and techniques. The UK appears to be far behind other countries in this regard - a lot of good research is being done in other countries into ecological farming techniques that are consistent with small-scale production and relatively low-tech capital equipment. Part of the challenge is to tap into the knowledge that already exists around the world.
This approach is also the antithesis of the Genetic engineering lobby. While it might be foolhardy to say that GM can never provide a more resilient crop or a higher yield, it is even more foolhardy to assume that only GM can do these things. Yet far more money is being spent on GM research than research into more low-tech approaches (even though the former involves significant risks to our future food security and the latter does not). The reason is obvious: GM encapsulates the intellectual property in the seed, and thus creates an income stream for the seed companies (while putting small growers at their mercy). The techniques described here, on the other hand, are democratic, actually empowering small farmers to reduce their costs and to take control of their farming operation (including by seed-saving from one year to the next). It focuses less on the seed itself and more on the context in which the seed is used - composite cross-populations, agroforestry, fertile soils, nutrient recycling. There is no room in those approaches for seed companies to own the intellectual property. For exactly these reasons there is a strong case for government to fund much more research into these ecological farming techniques.