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Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
Include this spotlight on NOFA Summer Conference Keynote, Bill McKibben.
Add a brief calendar event listing about the 2007 NOFA Summer Conference to your publication.
Include the 2007 NOFA Summer Conference press release in your publication.
BARRY ESTABROOK
POLITICS OF THE PLATE: GREENS OF WRATH
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2008
We all want safe spinach. But the measures now being adopted may destroy the land without solving the problem.
All that now remains of a windbreak in California’s Salinas County.
On the morning of August 14, 2006, a truck set out from Paicines Ranch—a bucolic place in California’s San Benito Valley, all dun-colored pastures, twisting rivers, and green thickets—with a load of baby spinach. What no one knew was that the greens were contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7. An hour or so later, the truck backed up to a processing plant owned by Natural Selection Foods, known for its Earthbound Farm organic products. The spinach was washed, mixed with leaves from three other farms, and packed into six-ounce bags. Fewer than 48 hours after being picked, 15,660 pounds of spinach were distributed across the country. In the weeks that followed, the spinach left at least 205 consumers in 26 states and one Canadian province sickened. Of those, 103 had to go to the hospital, where 31 were treated for a condition that put them at risk for acute kidney failure. Twenty-eight recovered, but three were not so lucky. Two elderly women, one from Wisconsin and one from Nebraska, and a two-year-old boy from Idaho died.
Related links
. Read more by Barry Estabrook on gourmet.com
. A glowing decision: The FDA approves irradiated greens
. Catch up on the latest food politics news in Politics of the Plate
Scientists were unsure—and still are to this day—how the spinach became contaminated. Despite this, however, the huge industry that is built on fresh-cut, bagged greens reacted with unprecedented speed. Within a month, 60 packers agreed to draw up a list of preventive measures. Five months later, the new coalition, which sells more than 99 percent of the Golden State’s leafy greens, formally released the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement, a 54-page set of rules. While some of the hastily implemented regulations were based on scientifically valid research, other standards were simply borrowed from those applied to other crops or arrived at through consensus. The agreement covers every aspect of farming. Many of its strictures are quite sensible (workers with diarrhea can’t handle fresh produce). Others introduce new layers of governmental oversight (four unannounced visits by inspectors each year). Sometimes the rules can seem contradictory. Cattle, known to be a primary source of E. coli, can graze within 30 feet of crops, but a compost pile containing cow manure must be 400 feet away. Often, guidelines are couched in vague language: Farmers should “consider” fencing and other measures that might reduce intrusions of wild animals that may carry pathogens. Seasonal lakes and ponds may attract wild animals and “should be considered as part of any land use evaluation.”
But good intentions have gone badly awry. In the name of food safety, farmers have reshaped the landscape in ways that, according to critics, have reversed two decades’ worth of environmental conservation. If the new policies are adopted by the federal government—and some say that it is only a matter of time—they will have profound ramifications for small, sustainable growers in postage-stamp fields thousands of miles from California. And there is scant evidence that the standards have actually addressed the real problem.
Until the outbreak, bagged greens were one of the marvels of industrialized agriculture, available in every grocery store from Anchorage to Miami, 365 days a year. A harried parent with a toddler in tow or a single person sitting down to a quick meal could grab a bag of salad fixings and dump them in a bowl. No need to cut or clean. Almost unknown 20 years ago, precut greens have tripled their market share in the past decade and now account for 67 percent of all sales of fresh-cut vegetables.
At least some of this phenomenal growth is due to Earthbound Farm. In 1996, the company, which operates in the heart of California, adopted a new technology—“breathable” plastic bags that permit greens to take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide without losing moisture, thus allowing them to remain “fresh” for 17 days. The original two-and-a-half-acre garden has grown to more than 40,000 acres, some owned by Earthbound, others by farmers who sell to the company. Earthbound’s rising-sun logo can now be found in 80 percent of the grocery stores in the United States and Canada, and its facility in San Juan Bautista can pack and ship 700,000 containers a day—more than 2.5 million pounds per week.
To step into an Earthbound Farm spinach field is to be overwhelmed by the incomprehensible vastness of it all. It looks identical to hundreds of operations that stretch across the valley floor, stopping only at the base of the faraway, hazy mountains. An area big enough to accommodate a dozen football fields is carpeted with symmetrical strips of tiny, perfect baby spinach plants with just enough space between the rows to allow for the passage of a mechanical harvester. A dozen Latino laborers wearing aprons, rubber gloves, and hairnets tend the mechanical beast as it creeps along. Two workers scramble in front of it, removing any damaged plants. Ahead of a ten-foot-wide band-saw blade, a series of wires called “ticklers” protrude down to rustle leaves and rouse any snoozing insects, which are whisked away by fans. The blade, inches off the ground, sends a green river of spinach up a conveyor belt and over an air gap that eliminates sticks, clumps of dirt, and heavy objects. The greens flow through a trough filled with chlorinated water and spew into white plastic containers. Moving as fast as they can, the field hands stack one crate after another on a trailer behind the harvester. In less than 90 minutes, the crew and the contraption pick 6,000 pounds of spinach, which is immediately loaded into a refrigerated truck beside the field.
Once full, the truck trundles to Earthbound’s San Juan Bautista plant, where bacterial contamination clearly has been declared public enemy number one. When I visit, I am asked to remove my watch and jewelry. After slipping on a hairnet, I slosh through a shoe bath of disinfectant with my hands held over little troughs equipped with miniature showerheads. Inside, I shiver in the 36-degree breeze. Workers in lab coats and white caps pluck samples from pallets with tweezers to test them for pathogens. The greens are warehoused for 12 hours until they receive a clean bill of health. Only then are they released into the processing area to be washed in a chlorine and citric-acid bath and dried in what look like giant salad spinners. Automatically measured into plastic bags or “clamshells,” the greens are tested a second time. If they pass muster again, they are loaded into refrigerated trucks for journeys of one to five days, depending on their destination.
In the two years following the outbreak, Earthbound’s inspectors caught 90 contaminated loads of greens at the first test stage. They intercepted another two at the secondary inspection. And there have been no further E. coli outbreaks caused by greens. Earthbound’s solution—concentrate on conditions inside the packing plant and abide by the marketing agreement in its fields—seems to be working. But other producers have adopted a more extreme view of the new regulations and initiated what amounts to a scorched-earth policy. In the name of food safety, they have scraped 30-foot-wide borders of bare dirt around the edges of fields, set up poison-bait stations for ground squirrels and mice, installed eight-foot-high fences to exclude deer and other wildlife, ripped vegetation from creeks and ditches, and drained ponds and lakes or treated them with chemicals that kill every living thing in them. Creeks flowing into the Salinas River run brown with silty water polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. Piles of bleached, bonelike tree trunks and roots have replaced wooded groves.
Noting that Earthbound has achieved its success without resorting to such devastating measures, or anything close to them, Will Daniels, the company’s vice president of quality, food safety, and organic integrity, is of the opinion that some growers are overreacting. “Removal of wildlife habitat runs counter to the tenets of organic farming,” he says.
Unfortunately, despite its size, Earthbound is a small player in the $2.6 billion fresh-cut salad business, accounting for less than 5 percent of total sales. A survey released by the Resource Conservation District of Monterey County showed that 89 percent of the Central Coast growers responding to the survey had taken at least one measure to discourage or eliminate wildlife from their cropped areas.
Some concerned Californians are trying to stop the rampant destruction. Foremost among them is Jo Ann Baumgartner, the head of a conservation group called the Wild Farm Alliance. I first met her one morning last May, at the Watsonville Airport. With long, straight, gray-blond hair, Baumgartner still looks a bit like the hippie farmer she once was. But there’s nothing laid-back about her campaign to preserve the Salinas Valley and its environs. A few weeks earlier, while driving along a freeway, Baumgartner had seen a bulldozer working near a small lake ten miles south of Salinas. Concerned, she asked pilot Saul Chaikin (of Lighthawk, a volunteer environmental aviation organization) to fly down with me and snap a few aerial pictures.
From the air, the Salinas Valley, divided into perfect rectangles of brown and green, looks as though it has been laid out by a geometrician. In the aerial photographs Baumgartner had given us before our flight, the lake was bordered by an unmistakable claw-shaped fringe of trees. It should have stood out as a rare insult to uniformity. But on the first pass, we couldn’t find it. Chaikin banked and dropped a little lower. Then we saw it: a dark brown pattern against the sand-colored earth of a newly plowed field. The lake—a refuge for waterfowl, deer, squirrels, and, possibly, threatened California red-legged frogs; a sight so rare and aesthetically striking that local artists set up their easels on the freeway’s edge—was gone. Plowed under.
Early the next morning, Baumgartner called to say that she had persuaded a farmer who insisted on anonymity to talk to me about the pressure he was getting from packers. I met Baumgartner in a Denny’s parking lot on the outskirts of Salinas, and we drove south along secondary roads. The circuitous journey ensured that I could never retrace the route.
“I’m afraid of retaliation from the large buyers that I have to sell to,” said the farmer, a forty-something dark-haired man, looking at me nervously. “There are plenty of growers who are ready and willing to clear away everything.” He nodded toward a neighbor’s field, where an earthen ditch had eroded away one side of an access road. “Buyers don’t come right out and order you to do this or that. It’s more subtle: ‘We can’t buy crops that are grown within so many feet of that weedy waterway.’ And because the handler sells to a number of retailers, you have to conform to the strictest common denominator.”
So far, this farmer, who works several hundred acres, has resisted. His drainage ditches are full of native plants. “One auditor suggested I spray them with herbicides—and he was an organic auditor.” He pointed to a hip-high, black rubber fence between his field and a ditch. “They call it a food safety barrier. I call it a frog fence. Frogs don’t carry E. coli.” Even with the barrier, his buyer refused to take greens grown within 50 feet of the vegetated areas, so a border of perfectly good spinach was left standing. “The idea of the organic farming movement is to farm in harmony with nature. If that’s not happening, then the consumers are being misled,” he said.
Baumgartner and I drove south for 20 minutes to a grill in King City for lunch with Bob Martin, general manager of Rio Farms, a 6,000-acre operation. There is nothing reticent about Martin, a strapping, crew-cut man. “I’m so outspoken that I’ve come close to losing my job,” he said. Rio Farms has spent $500,000 to comply with buyers’ food-safety demands, which Martin dismisses as “window dressing.” He has ripped out riverbank wildlife habitats and erected ten miles of eight-foot-tall fencing to keep deer off his company’s land. “There’s not a scrap of scientific research that shows deer carry E. coli in California,” he said. “Where will they draw the line? Birds? Bugs?”
Hoping that hard scientific proof will allow him to tear down that fence, Martin has been working in cooperation with Dr. Andy Gordus, a staff scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game. Last fall, Gordus examined the colons of 27 deer shot by hunters in Monterey County. All tested negative for E. coli. He plans to examine more deer this autumn and the next. “The science isn’t there to prove that deer are a factor, but farmers are being required to moonscape the habitat around their fields in the name of food safety,” he says. “That’s amputating a person’s leg because they have a hangnail.”
One evening, just around dinnertime, I visited Phil Foster, who operates a 250-acre organic farm based in San Juan Bautista. Beginning a decade ago, Foster built his own local distribution network to wean himself off selling to the processors. It’s a decision for which he is grateful, he said, as he and his pack of four assorted mongrels set out to walk me through fields containing more than 20 crops: apples, cherries, chard, fennel, bell peppers, peas, strawberries, walnuts, broccoli. He is proud of the hedge of wild buckwheat, lilac, coyote brush, and elderberry he planted along the edge of his fields. Far from being a “food-safety issue,” the hedge of native plants provides a vital habitat for birds and beneficial insects that feed on bugs that would otherwise devour his crops. I poked my head through the hedge. A 25-foot moat of cracked, barren earth stood between Foster’s land and his neighbor’s uniform rows of greens.
Dinner, which was prepared by Foster’s wife, Katherine, began with zucchini blossoms, lightly battered and stuffed with feta, parmesan, and provolone. They were followed by a salad of mixed greens topped with walnuts and slivers of golden beet and a bowl of simple sautéed snap peas. Then came pasta with a sauce of oven-dried tomatoes and Swiss chard, and fresh strawberries for dessert. Everything except the cheese and the pasta was grown on Foster’s farm. Asked what he would do if the regulations became mandatory, Foster sipped his wine and said, “This is a good way to farm. I would fight for as long as I could.”
He has an ally in Judith Redmond, the co-owner of Full Belly Farm, northwest of Sacramento, and also the president of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). Ever since the one-size-fits-all rules were first unveiled, she has feared they would become mandatory for all greens growers. “The people who are going to have the most difficult time are those who have small, diverse farms that produce multiple crops for the local market,” Redmond said. Such growers can’t pay auditors to inspect their fields for compliance. They lack the staff to record every instance of a wild animal setting foot on their property, and if one does, they can’t afford to hire a trained expert to assess the problem. Nor do they have time to maintain the long, involved paper trails that the big buyers demand. “I’m not sure raising the bar so high makes sense,” she said, “particularly if you’re raising it in the wrong place. A lot of small farms would go out of business.”
Redmond and the CAFF have made some big enemies by pointing out one indisputable fact that the big packers would rather ignore: Of the 12 recorded E. coli outbreaks attributed to California leafy greens since 1999, 10 have been traced to mechanically harvested greens bagged in large production facilities. The source of two outbreaks has yet to be determined. None have been linked to small farms selling to local markets.
“There is a clear difference between farms that machine-harvest three hundred acres of one crop in a single day and ship to a processing plant that produces bags of greens that can last sixteen days on the grocery store shelf, and farms with thirty acres and thirty different crops that are hand-harvested and sold at a farmers market or a CSA a day, or at most two, later,” Redmond says. “It’s the industrial food system that created this problem. We didn’t.”
The corporate processors vehemently dispute that assertion, saying that pathogens do not discriminate between small plots and monocrop acreages. But after all the efforts in the fields and in the processing facilities, no one knows what really caused the outbreak at Paicines, and there is no hard evidence that the draconian measures have fixed it, despite the optimistic observation that “it hasn’t happened again.”
Charles Benbrook, the chief scientist at The Organic Center, in Boulder, Colorado, which supports research into the benefits of organic food and farming, thinks he knows what went wrong in the Paicines field. The culprit, he claims, was most likely E. coli–laden dust that blew over the spinach from a cow pasture. Exposed to 100-degree heat and daily irrigation from sprinklers, the dust hardened to create a ceramic-like biofilm on leaf surfaces that was impervious to the washing processes in the packing plant. Once chilled and bagged, the E. coli went dormant and stayed that way as long as the temperature inside the bag remained low. So maybe a shipment sat outside too long on a loading dock. Maybe a store’s produce display was too warm. A shopper may have left the spinach in the back of the car for a couple of hours while running errands. Somehow, the bags warmed and became perfect little incubators for E. coli 0157:H7. According to this scenario, the outbreak had nothing to do with deer, ground squirrels, or frogs. “E. coli 0157 bacteria shed into the environment in the United States all originate from the back end of a cow,” he says. “Requiring growers to take out grass in waterways and trees and shrubs along the edge of their fields could, in the final analysis, prove counterproductive. If areas around fields were covered with grass and shrubs, there wouldn’t be any dust in the first place.”
Cows and greens have coexisted in agricultural areas since day one, but industrial agriculture and the modern plastics industry have put them together with consequences no one could have foreseen. A food-poisoning tragedy has led to an environmental disaster. And if Benbrook is correct, somewhere in California’s fields or processing plants, waiting for the right conditions, is another potentially fatal outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7.
Salad Speak
Like many other subspecialties, the world of mass-produced greens has its own rather bizarre language. Here are some key terms. Biosolids: human fecal material in sewerage sludge. Clean: refers to a field surrounded by bare dirt. Food safety barrier: a low fence designed to keep small mammals and reptiles out of fields (also known as a frog fence). Foreign object complaints: consumer complaints about twigs, stones, insects, weeds, bits of metal—anything that is not supposed to be in their bags of salad. Four-legged food safety concern: a farm dog. Harborage: native vegetation that provides habitat for small mammals, reptiles, and beneficial insects. Kill step: cooking. Nonsynthetic crop treatments: manure. Product degradation: rot. Reentry interval: time that must elapse between when a crop is sprayed with a pesticide and when farm laborers can safely return to work.
Think Outside the Bag
· Cooking is the only way to kill bacteria in greens for certain, but there are some less drastic steps you can take to protect yourself.
· You’ve heard it a thousand times: Buy local; buy small. Packaged produce in the supermarket can be more than two weeks old. Produce from a CSA or farmers market packed in ordinary, unsealed plastic bags is most likely picked a day or two before you buy it.
· Buy whole heads or bunches of intact plants; precut edges provide a particularly easy point of entry for bacteria.
· Washing won’t get all the bugs out of contaminated bagged greens, but it can remove some surface bacteria.
· If you do buy prewashed, factory-bagged produce, look at the “use before” date. If it’s getting close, avoid the product. The longer it has been in the bag, the more opportunities for pathogens to grow.
· Never, ever eat uncooked greens from bags whose expiration date has passed, no matter how fresh they appear.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT ANGER
keywords barry estabrook, politics of the plate , food policy, agriculture,farming
Food Safety Concerns Are Leading to Solutions
That Won’t Work for Small and Diversified Farms
by Russell Libby
Executive Director
Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association
May 9, 2007
Our cultural picture of a sustainable farm includes a mix of animals and crops, with hayfields and pasture and, often, intensively managed vegetables. However, if regulators continue down their current path, this won’t be an option for farmers for much longer.
This document is MOFGA’s attempt to summarize the current situation surrounding “Good Agricultural Practices” and related issues, and some principles that need to be considered as we move forward. Because the situation changes rapidly, we will try to update this document regularly.
In their efforts to keep bacteria out of the food supply, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and various other agencies, large food processors, and food buyers are on the verge of creating a system that would essentially prevent farmers from raising both livestock and crops for human consumption on the same farm, or in the same neighborhood.
In the fall of 2006 several deaths and many illnesses were traced to California spinach contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7. E. coli 0157:H7 is primarily associated with beef cows that are raised on grain instead of grass and grown in feedlots. It can also be transported, through direct contact or water or other mechanisms, and can show up on crops. In last year’s outbreak, the spinach was grown on a farm that was in transition to organic production, on land leased from a ranch that also had a beef feedlot several miles away. The irrigation water used on the spinach had the bacteria, manure from the feedlot had the bacteria, and so did wild pigs moving among the fields.
And what is the solution, according to FDA and USDA? It’s not to eliminate the bacteria from the system, because that would mean challenging the notion of feedlots and grain-fed beef. Instead, their idea is to isolate vegetable production from livestock production to eliminate cross-contamination.
Good Agricultural Practices
USDA’s effort to deal with these issues is called “Good Agricultural Practices,” or GAP. Under the current approach, in conjunction with FDA, every food processing plant will have an approved Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP, commonly pronounced “hass-up”) plan. For example, the McCain’s french fry plant in Easton will have a HACCP plan that includes handling practices, how the potatoes are handled all the way from the door to the package, and how temperatures are monitored and maintained all the way to the customer. Any point where product quality is at risk becomes a “critical control point.” Most large processing facilities have had versions of HACCP plans in place for the past decade.
What’s changing now is a push down the supply chain to the farmers who supply processing plants. Essentially, processors are requiring their farmer-suppliers to become certified on food safety practices. These are, under the current language, “Good Agricultural Practices.” This year, all the farmers who supply McCain’s have to be GAP-certified.
The first section of GAP certification is just common sense. People who work on farms need to follow basic standards of cleanliness, such as washing their hands before going into a field to harvest produce and after using the bathroom. These are practices that should be used in every place that handles food. The difference is that farmers will have to post signs, provide a training program for their employees, and maintain a paper trail to document that they have done all these things.
The issues become more complex in the next section, the farm assessment. To be GAP-certified, you have to score at least 80% in each area of the program. The farming practices section will be very challenging for many farms that either include both livestock and crops for human consumption, or bring manure or manure-based compost onto the farm. Some requirements, such as documenting that wild or domestic animals can’t get into the production area, are nearly impossible to comply with.
The critical questions revolve around livestock. By the USDA standard, the presence of livestock near (within 2 miles) or adjacent to (within a half mile) the farm is a major problem, and may result in a 15-point deduction. Manure management on the farm with livestock is also subject to review. Notice—all of these issues are neutral about which farm has the livestock. If your neighbor, 2 miles away, had animals and a minimally managed manure pile, your farm score would be affected. Or, if you had animals in fields that were completely segregated from your crop production rotation, you would get a deduction.
GAP requires 120 day waiting periods between manure application and crop harvest. It regulates compost much more tightly, and assesses water quality as well.
A rational assessment process would consider each of these issues and evaluate which practices are potentially risky. Under the current yes-no scoring system, it will be very difficult for farms that include both crops and livestock to pass a review. The farming practices section totals 165 points. To pass, the farmer must have at least 132 points.
Here’s an example of how this system plays out:
. Start with 165 points.
. You or your neighbors have crop production areas near or adjacent to your livestock or poultry production areas. Minus 15 points. Now you have 150.
. You don’t have a monitoring system to prevent wildlife from entering your crop production areas. Minus 5 points. Now you have 145.
. Your compost is not tested for nutrients. Minus 5 points. Now you have 140.
. Your neighbor’s manure pile isn’t contained properly. (Remember, up to 2 miles away!) Minus 10 points. Now you have 130.
. Even if you pass all the other questions, you have failed your inspection.
The guidelines have only one question about pesticide use, asking whether applicators are properly licensed. There are no questions about the amount, type, or frequency of pesticide or synthetic fertilizer applications. The FDA and USDA’s alleged “Good Agricultural Practices” are completely focused on microbial contamination to the exclusion of any other potential food safety issue, or any practice that might be considered improper or excessive.
Currently USDA is proposing that its Food Safety and Inspection Service be responsible for farm inspections. This is the unit that grades potatoes, apples, and vegetables for uniformity and cosmetic standards. USDA charges farmers $75 per hour for the inspections, and expects to visit the farm at several points during the year to see the farms at all stages of the production cycle.
The Complexity of These Changes
Why should farmers be concerned? Isn’t this certification program optional?
Yes, the program is optional, but only if you are not supplying major markets. The USDA has decided that all suppliers of the national school lunch program will have to meet HACCP standards, and that all the farmers who supply inputs for processed foods will have to meet GAP. The Department of Defense, which is the largest institutional buyer of produce in the country and the produce supplier for the school lunch program in many states, is also requiring farms to meet GAP.
Other buyers are requiring similar certification procedures. In addition, produce growers in California are enacting standards through a marketing agreement that may be even stricter than the Good Agricultural Practices strategy being used by USDA.
Some commodities have already moved forward with other parallel certification programs, such as European Good Agricultural Practices (EuroGAP), independently of USDA. The GAP program is still in its early stages. Only 122 farms in 18 states are currently certified for GAP in their farm operations, and one California-based company operates 20 of those. Farmers who have been certified under other protocols, such as the New England Good Agricultural Practices, established between 2000 and 2004, may have to change to reflect new, more restrictive standards.
Farmers as Processors
One side issue that may become more important is the question of when, by FDA standards, a farm becomes a processor, and therefore has to have a HACCP plan that covers all its processing activities. The latest FDA guidelines, issued March 12, 2007, suggest that any activity that involves cutting of leafy greens is included within their “Final Guidance For Safe Production of Fresh-Cut Fruits And Vegetables.” This means any business preparing fresh-cut greens for market would be subject to FDA oversight. The FDA estimates that only 250 businesses nationwide would be subject to the regulations. MOFGA believes that at least that many farms in Maine are harvesting leafy greens and supplying them to consumers, and that most of those farms would be subject to a strict interpretation of the Guidelines.
MOFGA’s Position
MOFGA and its farmers support appropriate food safety guidelines and practices. However, the process of establishing these guidelines and turning them into standards that must be met to enter certain markets has been a purely technical one, and has not included organic or diversified farms as part of the discussion.
Neither the FDA nor the USDA uses these guidelines or the certification process to address root causes of this specific E. coli problem. The bacteria E. coli 0157:H7 is most often traced to contamination from manure produced in large feedlots. Additionally, the program asks only whether farmers have a license to spray pesticides, not about what kinds of pesticides farmers are spraying or how often.
If we’re going to have a food safety certification program, we should have one that addresses all aspects of the problem, not just one.
At its April 2007 meeting, the MOFGA Board of Directors voted unanimously to oppose any version of USDA’s Good Agricultural Practices Guidelines that does not integrate crop and livestock agriculture or maintain the viability of small farms within the agricultural system.
Next Steps
The Maine Department of Agriculture plans to use its Quality Assurance staff to inspect farmers for compliance with the current USDA GAP standards. University of Maine Cooperative Extension is working with potato farmers who supply McCain’s to help them prepare for GAP inspections this summer.
MOFGA intends to work actively with its farmer members to be sure they are both aware of the standards and able to meet appropriate food safety practices. MOFGA will send a series of updates on these issues to all of its constituents and will communicate with government agencies at all levels about our concerns with current interpretations of both the guidelines and what constitute “Good Agricultural Practices.”
At the national level, organic farmers need to be aware of this issue and engage in the discussions about what constitute “Good Agriculture Practices.”
For more information, please contact Russell Libby at MOFGA: by email at rlibby@mofga.org; by phone at 207-568-4142; or by post at PO Box 170, Unity, ME 04988.
Resources
1. USDA’s implementation of FDA’s guidelines
http://www.ams.usda.gov/fv/fpbgapghp.htm
This section includes all the ratings sheets USDA inspectors use to assess farmers for compliance with Good Agricultural Practices.
2. FDA Issues Final Guidance For Safe Production of Fresh-Cut Fruits And Vegetables, 03.12.07
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01584.html
3. [Federal Register: March 13, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 48)]
[Notices] [Page 11364-11368]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr13mr07-60]
————————————————————————————-
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket No. 2006D-0079]
Draft Final Guidance for Industry: Guide to Minimize Food Safety Hazards for Fresh-Cut Fruits and Vegetables; Availability; Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review; Comment Request
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/E7-4446.htm
4. FDA Food Safety Fact Sheet, 03.12.07
http://www.fda.gov/oc/factsheets/foodsafety2007.html
5. The California Market Order Proposal/Western Growers’ Proposal
http://www2.wga.com/popups/bestpracticesdraft.html
6. The Organic Center’s Response to the Western Growers’ Proposal, March 2007
http://www.organic-center.org/science.comment.php?action=view&report_id=89
7. California Certified Organic Farmers on this issue
http://ccof.org/pr012207.php
8. The Organic Center’s latest summary on E. coli 0157 and its relationship to livestock feeding practices
http://ccof.org/pr012207.php
9. University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s guidance for farmers on how to comply with USDA’s Good Agricultural Practices (ref. 1):
http://www.umaine.edu/umext/potatoprogram/gap_good_agricultural_practices.htm
This article is provided by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), PO Box 170, Unity, ME 04988; 207-568-4142; mofga@mofga.org; www.mofga.org. Joining MOFGA helps support and promote organic farming and gardening in Maine and helps Maine consumers enjoy more healthful, Maine-grown food. Copyright 2007 by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
Docket Clerk, Marketing Order
Administration Branch, Fruit and
Vegetable Programs, AMS, USDA, 1400
Independence Avenue SW., STOP 0237
Docket No. AMS-FV-07-0090; FV-07-962-1 ANPR
Handling Regulations for Leafy Greens Under the Agriculture Marketing Act of 1937
On behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT), thank you for the opportunity to comment on the above cited docket.
NOFA-VT is one of the oldest organic farming associations in the nation with over 1000 members, including 133 Certified Organic vegetable producers who market a large fraction of their produce directly to consumers and to community retail establishments. Vermont has more commercial organic vegetable farms, as a percentage of total number of vegetable farms, than any other state in the nation. Organic vegetable production is a rapidly growing and increasingly important to our state’s agricultural economy.
The Federal Register’s ANPR notice states that “members of the leafy greens industry” have requested that the AMS develop a voluntary or mandatory nationwide marketing agreement program, modeled after a California program, that would serve to “minimize the risk of pathogenic contamination” of leafy green vegetables during production, handling and marketing to consumers. A variety of management standards, audits, water and soil amendment testing protocols, compliance inspections and certification schemes are contemplated.
NOFA-VT is opposed to the development and implementation of a nationwide marketing agreement as proposed. Whether voluntary or mandatory, the agreement would disproportionately favor large-scale producers in the marketplace, who possess the technical and financial resources to comply with its numerous requirements. Under a mandatory program, many thousands of family-scale producers would be forced out of business. Under a voluntary program, leafy vegetables marketed without the relevant certification label would be unfairly judged by consumers as “less safe”.
The recent cases of pathogen contamination of leafy greens with resulting widespread illness were associated with large-scale production and widespread distribution of pre-cut, pre-washed, pre-packaged lettuce and spinach mixes marketed by a very few large “members of the leafy greens industry”. A nationwide marketing agreement of the sort proposed is an inappropriate response to this problem. The most appropriate, most effective and least burdensome regulatory response is one that addresses the specific circumstances, practices and products that have been shown to pose significant risks to the public.
At the same time, NOFA-VT strongly supports the development and adoption of geographically appropriate and scale-specific production, handling and marketing practices that will reduce risks associated with the production and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. We believe that the most effective and efficient means of accomplishing this is through well-funded, ongoing education programs, designed and implemented at the regional or state level, which draw on the experience, resources and expertise of local producers, organizations and government agencies. Federal funding of these programs would, in our view, be required to insure their successful implementation.
The overwhelming majority of fruit and vegetable farmers in Vermont and nationwide are proud and responsible producers of safe and nutritious food. They are professionals who are interested in new ideas and information that will enable them to make improvements in their businesses and products.
For these reasons, we regard the proposed marketing agreement as one that would be needlessly intrusive, expensive, unfair and less effective in addressing food safety concerns than well-conceived and implemented education programs.
David L. Rogers, Policy Advisor
NOFA-VT
Richmond, Vermont 05477
A letter from NOFA/Mass to Commissioner Petersen, November 26, 2007.
The Massachusetts Chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA/Mass) works with raw milk farmers as they navigate rules and regulations, find markets for their product, and strive to produce a healthy food for their customers. In early 2009, in an effort to get a clear picture of the industry in Massachusetts, NOFA/Mass’ Raw Milk Network conducted a survey of all of the raw milk farmers in this state approved by state authorities to sell raw milk.
Massachusetts raw milk farmers play an integral role in the state’s agricultural landscape, contributing to the economy, using sustainable farming methods that contribute to environmental preservation, educating their customers about the value of fresh, local food, and producing a healthy product for all to enjoy.
Massachusetts leads the nation with direct farm-to-consumer sales. As consumers’ interest in buying local foods has increased in recent years, people have built relationships with nearby farmers and are not only enjoying these products but also contributing to the sustainability of the farms in ways that traditional food systems do not.
With food safety on everyone’s mind as well, many are coming to understand that small scale producers and distributors of food have an advantage over large scale processors that mix huge quantities of products from different sources, thus risking massive contamination even if just a single ingredient was improperly handled or contaminated.
The concept of “raw milk” itself is relatively new in this era of food convenience. The advent of pasteurization coincided with the growth of urban dairies and confinement operations, where animal illness, contamination and mishandling of products often caused problems. On farms where cows are allowed to roam on pasture, milked using the proper techniques, and where the milk is handled and stored properly, the resulting product is indeed safe and healthy, and customers can discover the incredible taste of milk that was, quite literally, grass, often just 24 hours earlier.
Massachusetts is one of 28 states with laws and regulations allowing the sale of raw milk. Massachusetts regulations require that the milk must be sold directly to consumers and may only be sold on the farm where it was produced. The facility and the milk must undergo regular inspections and testing, more rigorous than that of conventional dairy farms and milk intended for pasteurization. Violations of rules regarding cleanliness, proper storage and handling of the milk, and other safety issues result in revocation of the farm’s right to sell raw milk until the rules and standards are again met.
Massachusetts Raw Milk Farmers
At the time of this survey (February 2009), Massachusetts had 25 active raw milk dairies certified by the state to sell raw milk directly to consumers on the farm, 23 of them selling cow’s milk and two selling goat’s milk. These farmers manage a total of nearly 1,000 cows, and sold more than 80,000 gallons of milk to consumers in 2008. From the smallest dairy, milking only three cows, to the largest, with 200 head to manage, each of them relies on raw milk to sustain their farming business.
Economics
When asked why they chose to sell raw milk, survey respondents overwhelmingly cited market demand and the premium consumers are willing to pay for the product. Prices for bottled raw cow’s milk in Massachusetts range from $3.00 to $9.00 per gallon, with an average of six dollars per gallon. Raw goat’s milk sells for significantly more than cow’s milk – up to $12.50 per gallon. The price varies depending upon a range of factors, including location, farm size, and management practices.
Total sales of raw milk direct to consumers in 2008 in Massachusetts amounted to more than $600,000, with some farmers reporting that their sales of raw milk comprised approximately one percent of their farm income while others reported raw milk sales were 100% of their farm income. Twelve of the 25 dairy farmers reported that raw milk sales were vital to their farm’s survival, reporting that more than 20% of their farm income came from the sale of raw milk directly to consumers.
It is worth noting that the money earned from the sale of raw milk, like all local products, has a lasting effect in the communities where it is sold. These farmers employ their neighbors, purchase products from their local stores, and contribute to the tax base of their towns. Some farmers also report that consumers who purchase raw milk from farmers build on that habit by purchasing other products from nearby farms, thus further stimulating the local farm economy. Milk trucked away from farms by processors to other towns and states results in a complex web of payments and credits that are spread more distantly. While some of the money spent on milk purchased in stores does represent an eventual payment to a farmer, the amount taken first by large processors, retail overhead, trucking companies, and other intermediaries, accounts for a significantly larger portion of the sale price.
One key issue cited by a number of dairy farmers surveyed was the fact that their sales of raw milk were crucial to offsetting the expenses of their organic management practices – which tend to be more costly than conventional practices. These farmers have chosen organic management because of consumer demand, because they are committed to practices that benefit the environment and consumers’ health, and because their product can command a higher price. In most areas of the U.S., organic dairy producers are paid a premium for their milk by organic processors such as Organic Valley, Horizon and Hood’s organic line. Organic processors do not adequately service Massachusetts, however, leaving organic producers who ship their milk off-farm receiving conventional prices for their premium product. Selling some or all of their raw milk directly to the consumer allows them to make up some of the difference between cost of production and the price paid by processors.
Raw milk: $6 to farmer
Pasteurized milk: $1 to farmer
In 2008 Massachusetts raw milk farmers received an average of $6 per gallon of milk they sold, versus less than $1 paid for every dollar of milk that went into the federal milk pool to be pasteurized.
Conventional milk prices in the United States are controlled by the Federal government, and fluctuate widely. Between 2007 and 2009, for example, prices ranged from as high as nearly $22 per hundredweight ($1.76 per gallon) to less than $10 per hundredweight (less than 80 cents per gallon). At the time of this survey, prices were at the lowest end of this range, far less than the average cost to produce a gallon of milk. As a result, dairy farmers are struggling to remain in business, having to pay more to produce their product than the Federal government allows processors to pay for it. Many farms are closing down altogether – the number of dairy farms in Massachusetts dropped from 829 in 1980 to 189 in 2007, according to the Massachusetts Association of Dairy Farmers. Particularly vulnerable to these variable prices are the smaller farms, while large dairies with thousands of cows fed conventional grain capture more and more of the share of the nation’s milk industry, and are often eligible for federal subsidies not made available to smaller farms.In contrast, the number of raw milk farms in Massachusetts has more than doubled in just the last three years. Raw milk farmers sell their product at a price that reflects what it costs them to produce it. By selling directly to the consumer a dairy farm can be more financially sustainable—dairy farmers who sell raw milk can control the price for their product and can make long-term business decisions accordingly. “Selling raw milk is the only way a farmer with limited resources has any chance of running a profitable dairy,” wrote one dairy farmer.
Raw milk farmers in Massachusetts are also at a competitive disadvantage with their counterparts in neighboring states. In Connecticut and Maine, for example, raw milk may be sold in retail stores. New Hampshire raw milk farmers are permitted to deliver milk to their customers’ homes. More than half of the respondents indicated that they would like to sell more raw milk than they are currently selling, citing the inability to sell off-farm as the main factor limiting sales. That sentiment was not universal, however, with more than one respondent stressing the value of farmer-consumer relationships in educating consumers about the product.
Environment and Health
Raw milk dairy farmers steward more than 3,500 acres of Massachusetts farmland, keeping that land open and in active agricultural use. At a time when Massachusetts is losing farmland at a rapid pace, these farmers play a critical role in maintaining one of the state’s treasured resources, and in protecting the environment from accelerated development and pollution. Raw milk farmers range in tenure, from some who farm land that has been in their family for generations, to new farmers who are restoring farmland that had gone fallow with disuse.
Many of the dairy farmers that sell raw milk in Massachusetts use organic or sustainable management methods, including minimal chemical inputs into the environment, and grazing their animals, thereby reducing dependence on grains and other feeds that require a great deal of energy inputs for processing and shipping. At the same time, the cows fertilize the soil, reducing the need for artificial inputs to keep the soil and pasture grasses healthy. When cows graze on pasture, less energy is needed to mow, bale and move hay and other grains for feed, reducing fossil fuel use and cutting the carbon impact of producing a valuable food.
In addition, since the supply chain for raw milk is so direct – from the farmer to the consumer in a single step – the carbon footprint for each bottle of milk sold is less than that of conventional milk, which is carried by tanker truck from farm to processing plant, then to a distribution warehouse, and finally to retail locations. When groups of households join together to form buying clubs and share responsibility for picking up each others’ milk from the farm, the environmental impact of raw milk distribution is further lessened.
Raw milk farmers not only cite their concern for the environment as a whole, but also their concern for the health of their animals as a reason for grazing. Cows raised on pasture tend to be healthier than their confinement-raised counterparts, and since raw milk farmers avoid the use of antibiotics and hormones on their animals they rely on natural methods of maintaining their animals’ health.
In turn, the cows produce a product that the farmers are proud to stand behind and promote. Many raw milk farmers see themselves as educators, teaching their customers about the benefits of the product. Unpasteurized milk contains beneficial nutrients, enzymes and amino acids that are destroyed in pasteurization, according to studies cited by raw milk farmers.
Regulations and Inspections
Massachusetts raw milk farmers are committed to selling only safe, healthy milk to their customers. They recognize that there are hazards inherent in the production of any food product, and they participate in a rigorous state-mandated testing regimen. Raw milk to be sold to consumers is tested for bacteria, coliform and somatic cells. Allowable levels for these contaminants are far lower than those allowed for milk slated for pasteurization. In addition, raw milk sold directly to consumers in Massachusetts, is dated for sale within five days after bottling, and is bottled no more than two days after being milked. Some of the farmers go beyond the state-required tests and pay for more frequent tests themselves to ensure that their milk is of the highest quality. In response to the survey, some farmers even expressed a willingness to submit to additional testing, as a way of demonstrating their commitment to producing high-quality, safe milk.
The testing and monitoring by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Resources is clearly working – no illnesses due to raw milk have been reported in Massachusetts in more than ten years.
While many of the farmers surveyed indicated that they value the farmer-consumer relationships that are built through on-farm sales, far more responded that they would like to see Massachusetts regulations changed to allow for retail sales in off-farm stores and at farmers markets. “Cigarettes are more accessible than our milk,” noted one respondent. Many farmers also indicated that they would like to be able to sell products made with raw milk on farm – in particular minimally processed products such as cream and butter – in the same way that they are allowed to sell their milk. “They’ve figured out how to regulate fish so that it can be sold and eaten raw from stores,” said one farmer. “Why can’t they do the same with milk?”
Conclusion
As interest in raw milk has increased, farmers in Massachusetts have stepped up to provide the product to consumers. In doing so, they have built an industry that is helping to sustain dairy farms at a time when many are failing. At the same time, they are contributing to the environmental health of the state. As both demand and supply continue to grow, open discussion needs to continue between consumers, regulators and farmers about how best to continue to provide raw milk safely and efficiently.
For more information on raw milk in Massachusetts, please see the following web pages:
NOFA/Mass is a community including farmers, gardeners, landscapers and consumers working to educate members and the general public about the benefits of local organic systems based on complete cycles, natural materials, and minimal waste for the health of individual beings, communities and the living planet. For more information, please see www.nofamass.org.
This is a map of the towns in Massachusetts that have passed resolutions against genetic engineering between 2002 and 2006.
This is the letter that the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural resources sent to farmers in November 2007. The letter was dated October 30, 2007, but many farmers received the letter on or after November 17, over two weeks after the letter was dated.
This is the most recently updated 1-page registration form to exhibit, advertise, sponsor or display for the 2007 NOFA Summer Conference.
This is the updated version of the 1-page poster for the 2007 NOFA Summer Conference. Simply print this out and post in your community.
Label-Y, Liability-Y, Moratorium-Y
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- Passed
Label-Passed, Liability-Referred to the AgComm, Moratorium-Referred to the AgComm
Label and Moratorium-Y not split
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- Passed(90 – 81)
Label-Y(voice)
Label- Passed, Liability- Passed, Moratorium- Defeated
Label and Liability+LocalMor- Passed (vast majority of over 80)
Label- Passed(28-5), Liability- Passed(25-5), Moratorium- Passed(27-5)
Label and Moratorium-Y not split
2003: Liability-Y(unanimous)
Label- Passed, Liability- Passed, Moratorium- Passed
2002: Label and Moratorium-Y *not split
2003: Liability-Y
Label-Passed, Liability-Passed, Moratorium- Passed
Label and Moratorium-Y *not split
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- Passed(56 – 16)
Label- Passed(28-4), Liability- Passed(33-9), Moratorium- Passed(18-12)
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- Passed, (45-5)
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- passed
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- Passed almost unanimously
Label, Liability, and Moratorium- passed unanimously
Label- passed, Liability- Passed (55 “ 44), Moratorium- Defeated
Label and Moratorium-Y+LocalMor+noGMOs served in schools not split
Label- passed(voice), Moratorium- passed(74-24)
Label and Moratorium-passed (26-19)
Label and Moratorium-Passed
Label- Passed, Liability- PassedY, Moratorium- Passed
Help us get these PSAs read aloud on the radio. There are 60sec, 30sec, and 15sec versions available.
Advanced Seminar on Soil Mineral Nutrition:
Techniques for Raising Yield and Quality
by Ben Grosscup with gratitude to Dan Kittredge
On February 5-7, 2009, NOFA/Mass will host a three-day seminar in Barre on advanced biological farming techniques that can improve yields, decrease disease and insect pressure, and improve the taste and nutritional content of crops. The presenter, Arden Andersen – an agronomist, osteopathic physician, and international leader in the field of biological farming – says big changes are coming in agriculture: Quality standards like nutrient density will gain in importance alongside process standards, such as organic.
To learn how this approach works and what growers might gain from the seminar, I spoke with Dan Kittredge, a leading practitioner of biological farming in Massachusetts and an alumnus of Andersen's seminars. I was happy to learn that the basic science behind this approach is not mysterious, and growers can begin to implement it in the short-term.
Kittredge says that the approach of biological farming is managing the soil to create an optimal environment for soil life. To maximize yield and nutrition, crop plants require soil with sufficient biologically available minerals in ratios appropriate for feeding the fungal, bacterial and other soil life communities that have symbiotic relationships with crop plants. By understanding what environmental conditions are optimal for what we're growing, we can make informed management decisions about what we need to add to the soil. Kittredge says the approach involves a few basic steps.
Step 1: Testing the Soil
First, we need to understand what is going on in the soil, biologically. Typical university soil tests use a strong acid to dissolve and then analyze the mineral components of soil. However, these tests don't tell us how much of the minerals are biologically available, because they don't reproduce the plant's acidic conditions. To determine what mineral and biological amendments are needed, we need a soil test that uses an acid with similar intensity to that of the exudates from plant roots, fungi, and bacteria.
Step 2: Amending the Soil with Minerals
By weight and volume, the most deficient minerals in Northeast soils tend to be calcium and phosphorus. These basic deficiencies can be remedied by adding calcium carbonate (limestone), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and soft rock phosphate to the soil. Once these macro minerals are in place we can begin remedying trace mineral deficiencies such as manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, boron, and selenium.
Step 3: Providing Biological Companions with the Minerals
These minerals need to be accompanied with an appropriate microbiological regimen, because plants cannot directly digest crystaline mineral compounds such as calcium carbonate; they require microbiological organisms to do it for them. Microbiological soil communities involve both bacteria and fungi. Bacterial predominance tends to favor weeds, and fungal predominance (especially mycorrhizae) favors crop plants, so inoculating with mycorrhizael spores is almost always beneficial.
Step 4: Feeding the Microbiological Companions
Once the mineral and biological components are physically present in the soil, the next step is to facilitate the reintroduction of the minerals into the biological system. This is done by ensuring that the microbiological organisms can access sufficient energy to digest the minerals, thereby making them available to the crops as nutrition. This process requires energy, similarly to human digestion. To illustrate this, a person may feel tired after a large meal due to the energy the digestive system expends.
In fields where the symbiotic relationship between mineral-digesting microbes and crops is compromised, we need to add materials that provide readily available energy for microbes such as fish emulsion, molasses, and/or kelp. Without this “feeding,” adding otherwise beneficial minerals can actually decrease crop growth in the short-term, because the microbes begin expending energy to digest minerals into a biologically available form without enough energy to complete the process. The soil eventually absorbs the minerals and becomes healthier, but waiting is unnecessary.
Step 5: Monitoring your Progress
Over-applying or under-applying any components to the soil can pose certain problems. Finding the happy middle is the real art of this approach. To inform these decisions, Kittredge suggests monitoring both soils and crops with a variety of diagnostic tools, each revealing different parts of the picture.
In addition to the pH test, the refractometer is a key tool in the biological farmer's toolbox. This simple device measures dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, and minerals) in the sap of plants. This measurement, known as brix, correlates with the crop's nutrient quality and vitality.
Another important tool is the electrical conductivity meter. By measuring the electrical conductivity of the soil, we can perceive the availability of energy to the microbiological organisms, so necessary for soil health. By taking pH, brix, and conductivity readings, we can gain a sophisticated understanding in real time of what mineral and biological deficiencies are present and amend our fields accordingly. These tools are no alternative to regular visual, tactile, olfactory and taste monitoring of crops, but can enhance our ability to discern what our crops need.
Why does it work?
These techniques work by creating environments that are highly conducive for the expression of crop DNA and inhospitable for weeds, insects, and diseases. By applying the relevant scientific understandings of each species' preferred environmental conditions, we can skew the forces at work in our fields to favor crops.
The appeal of a plant to pest insects depends much on whether it is undergoing protein synthesis or not. A plant that is, produces complete proteins, non-reducing sugars and complex carbohydrates – all of which constitute nutritious food for mammals. But insects can't digest these same molecules. Farmers who successfully implement biological methods report insects do not eat their crops, even while infestations ravage neighboring fields. When a plant is not in protein synthesis, it is in proteolysis, meaning that the plant is degraded at the cellular level – a condition that correlates with low-brix. This is caused by environmental stresses such as nutrient deficiencies, drought, and chemical fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. Pest insects sense degraded plants, whose proteins they can digest, and feed on them.
The success of weeds in our fields indicates nutritionally imbalanced soil for our crops, and particular weeds provide clues about which nutrients are not available enough. For instance, broad leaf weeds grow where the potassium to phosphorus ratio is out of balance, sour grass weeds grow where the calcium to magnesium ratio is off, and succulent weeds grow where biologically available carbon is deficient.
Soil compaction – another factor undermining crop health – occurs in large part due to excessive ratios of magnesium to calcium in the soil. Adequate biologically available calcium flocculates the soil, whereas excessive magnesium compacts it – with or without heavy tractors riding over it.
What's at Stake?
Arden Andersen writes on his blog, “USDA and UK Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that food grown today has 30-70% percent less nutritional value than the same foods grown 50 years ago. Eating all the right foods today still leaves us short of needed nutrition.” Industrialized agriculture denudes soils of biological diversity and essential minerals, generating foods whose nutritional deficiencies cause health problems for those surviving on them.
With degraded nutrition comes degraded taste. Japan has begun demanding high-brix kiwis from New Zealand, because the higher nutrient quality corresponds to improved taste. The mealy, flavorless, low-brix kiwis are segregated and sent to the United States, because quality standards have dropped so low.
Finally, the same practices that produce healthy food regenerate our environment. Recent Midwest floods would not have been so devastating had biological methods been widely used on cropland. Sufficient calcium and biological activity expands the water retention capacity of soil, preventing run-off that ruins both crops and low-lying town centers, while replenishing much depleted aquifers. Moreover, growing plants in protein synthesis sequester atmospheric carbon by incorporating it into the biological system.
The February Seminar
Complex soil science underlies the basic principles of biological farming, but putting it to work in the field doesn't require academic expertise. It does, however, require understanding soil components and their importance. The 3-day seminar gives farmers a unique chance to become conversant with these exciting and eminently practical conceptual tools.
Arden Andersen has contributed enormously to the field of biological farming by compiling and interpreting the work of some of the 20th Century's brightest soil scientists, including Dr. Carey Reams, Dr. Dan Skow, Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Phil Callahan, and others. For decades, these researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of biological techniques through hard science.
The organic movement, despite its many innovations, remains heir to some misguided legacies -- such as managing pests with implements that kill rather than on managing soil with implements that provide nutrition. The potential of biological farming for completing what the organic movement has begun are truly exciting.
NOFA/Mass is actively seeking funding to provide on-the-farm technical assistance for farmers adopting these methods, so that after this seminar they will have access to trained knowledgeable help to implement their biological crop nutrition program. Registration for the seminar is $195. With both the NOFA member discount and the early-bird discount (must sign-up before January 17), it is $165. Find information about registration at www.nofamass.org. NOFA members who sign up by December 20 get priority registration. Afterwards, registration is open and first come, first served. Direct questions to: Ben Grosscup, Event Coordinator, <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>, 413-658-5374.
The single sheet word documents on this page contain maps of Massachusetts Senate and House Districts where towns have passed resolutions against genetic engineering, as well as links to the exact text of each town resolution.