Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana(montanafreepress.org)
montanafreepress.org
Building on soil in Big Sandy: Regenerative organic farming in rural Montana
https://montanafreepress.org/2021/10/14/building-on-soil-in-big-sandy-regenerative-organic-agriculture/
26 comments
Great reporting and great work! I'm really interested in some of the "less-cultivated" plants mentioned in the article (like Kernza). It seems so weird that of all the plants that exist, we grow like 10. Seems like there's a lot of room for that "fail-fast" mindset to locate new plants we could grow that suit a particular need (or are really delicious and we had no idea!).
Thank you! And this is a good idea. My third (and last) installment in the series will be about policy. I'd be interested to see if there are any that encourage that kind of experimentation.
There was a picture going around o reddit of 50 totally different varieties of potatoes grown in Peru. How many varieties do we grow that are significantly distinct? This is probably caused by the optimization of industrial farming selecting for best yield (kg) with very little regard for looks, taste, or even nutricion. It's also harder to stock supermarkets with 50 different types of potatoes, carrots, lettuces, and dozens of other vegetables. Maybe a solution could be that not all supermarkets sell everything, instead of all of them selling exactly the same selection of products. But this would be too inconvenient and would never be tolerated.
Exactly. But with like 40%ish of food completely wasted/thrown away on the consumer side "total Kg" is not the only thing to optimize for any more. It feels like there's an opportunity there to optimize for things like "better taste" and sell them into markets with more disposable income. One of my favorite Youtube channels is "weird fruit explorer" where this guy goes to all these different countries and eats fruit you never see in the U.S.
While it's great this guy has the money to run his own research farm it's a bit unusual. In the Midwest where I live it's far more common for universities to do this task. Coupled with cooperative extension agents to spread adoption at a county level when they find something that works. Universities do basic science very well.
When something's brand new like no-till was in the eighties and precision ag in the nineties farmers often get out ahead of the ag schools. No-till isn't exactly new but perhaps some of the Montana variations happen to be?
When something's brand new like no-till was in the eighties and precision ag in the nineties farmers often get out ahead of the ag schools. No-till isn't exactly new but perhaps some of the Montana variations happen to be?
So, this is just a pilot project, and he's actually trying to fund the research center. I'm pretty sure that's why he was willing to spend so much time with me on this project.
The big thing is that each farmer or region needs to be experimenting to see what works there, since every place is different (climate, land management history, culture, resources, etc), and things are always changing.
The universities mostly do the commodity crop research. You're definitely right that Quinn is ahead of that system. It seems like we need other structures to support more forward-thinking work like his, whether it's private equity, nonprofit or something else.
The big thing is that each farmer or region needs to be experimenting to see what works there, since every place is different (climate, land management history, culture, resources, etc), and things are always changing.
The universities mostly do the commodity crop research. You're definitely right that Quinn is ahead of that system. It seems like we need other structures to support more forward-thinking work like his, whether it's private equity, nonprofit or something else.
My partner is figuring a lot of the same things out through https://farmsproject.org. Farmers are taking huge risks, literally "betting the farm" on their regenerative practices because as you say the universities focus on commodity crop research.
Your note somewhere else in this thread about comparing farmers to silicon valley entrepreneurs was a cool moment of clarity; they don't get several rounds of VC financing to try their ideas, just regular loans and a lot of paperwork tied to crop insurance.
Down in eastern Colorado/western Nebraska & Kansas farmers are having a harder time being regenerative _and_ organic but a part of that is because they're also dryland farmers.
Anyway it's exciting to see your stories hit hacker news! The innovation and work of the farmers you're covering are going to have a huge positive impact on US agriculture.
Your note somewhere else in this thread about comparing farmers to silicon valley entrepreneurs was a cool moment of clarity; they don't get several rounds of VC financing to try their ideas, just regular loans and a lot of paperwork tied to crop insurance.
Down in eastern Colorado/western Nebraska & Kansas farmers are having a harder time being regenerative _and_ organic but a part of that is because they're also dryland farmers.
Anyway it's exciting to see your stories hit hacker news! The innovation and work of the farmers you're covering are going to have a huge positive impact on US agriculture.
Just a nitpick: Plowman's Folly was published in the 1940's, so no-till was definitely not brand-new in the eighties.
I think no-till became more common in the 80s, because that's when Roundup became more widely available, at least in Montana.
Yes and:
> ...farmers often get out ahead of the ag schools.
Rogers' book Diffusion of Innovations is the seminal text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
"The study of diffusion of innovations took off in the subfield of rural sociology in the midwestern United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Agriculture technology was advancing rapidly, and researchers started to examine how independent farmers were adopting hybrid seeds, equipment, and techniques. A study of the adoption of hybrid corn seed in Iowa by Ryan and Gross (1943) solidified the prior work on diffusion into a distinct paradigm that would be cited consistently in the future. Since its start in rural sociology, Diffusion of Innovations has been applied to numerous contexts..."
My introduction to "innovation" was Geoffrey Moore's pop biz book Crossing the Chasm. Derivative work that doesn't even cite Rogers' work. Moore spins "just so" stories. Rogers explains the research, concrete and actionable.
Imagine my chagrin when I stumbled onto Rogers. If it's not obvious, I'm still grumpy about Moore's omission. I don't mind that he profited from popularizing important ideas. Not acknowledging the precedents is something like theft.
> ...farmers often get out ahead of the ag schools.
Rogers' book Diffusion of Innovations is the seminal text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
"The study of diffusion of innovations took off in the subfield of rural sociology in the midwestern United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Agriculture technology was advancing rapidly, and researchers started to examine how independent farmers were adopting hybrid seeds, equipment, and techniques. A study of the adoption of hybrid corn seed in Iowa by Ryan and Gross (1943) solidified the prior work on diffusion into a distinct paradigm that would be cited consistently in the future. Since its start in rural sociology, Diffusion of Innovations has been applied to numerous contexts..."
My introduction to "innovation" was Geoffrey Moore's pop biz book Crossing the Chasm. Derivative work that doesn't even cite Rogers' work. Moore spins "just so" stories. Rogers explains the research, concrete and actionable.
Imagine my chagrin when I stumbled onto Rogers. If it's not obvious, I'm still grumpy about Moore's omission. I don't mind that he profited from popularizing important ideas. Not acknowledging the precedents is something like theft.
So how much more effectively could you regeneratively farm without being chained to the limits of organic farming? Just as a baseline, crops engineered towards this end instead of toward pure profit would likely be much better at it than anything organic.
Complex systems are bigger. If you were building a factory, you’d want the shortest supply chain you can manage because inventory is a liability. From the standpoint of avoiding the worst of climate change, you want the most complicated “supply chain” you can manage. This also works for nitrogen cycles as well. Nitrogen that spends time as protein in insects or microbes is better than metabolizing back into the air.
Petrochemical agriculture is not very sophisticated. It can solve simple problems with few moving parts. Genetic engineering has started to ask more complex questions but at the end of the day we are still just getting past surface concerns.
Where science and technology might help is with telemetry, but only if everyone prints out Goodhart’s Law and puts it over the door, on the fridge, the microwave, the coffee machine, etc.
Data filtration is another thing. We think if invasiveness as a sort of score for a plant, but that’s an average of overall behavior. They are both harder and easier to deal with than we make it sound. Each plant is vulnerable during some part of its lifecycle, and or in certain biomes. It’s much easier to “take them out” during this window. But they’re patient. If you miss the window then you have a bigger problem next year. As a human my ability to juggle all of these concerns is somewhat limited, and a little detection and scheduling would go a long way toward helping me keep these problems small.
Petrochemical agriculture is not very sophisticated. It can solve simple problems with few moving parts. Genetic engineering has started to ask more complex questions but at the end of the day we are still just getting past surface concerns.
Where science and technology might help is with telemetry, but only if everyone prints out Goodhart’s Law and puts it over the door, on the fridge, the microwave, the coffee machine, etc.
Data filtration is another thing. We think if invasiveness as a sort of score for a plant, but that’s an average of overall behavior. They are both harder and easier to deal with than we make it sound. Each plant is vulnerable during some part of its lifecycle, and or in certain biomes. It’s much easier to “take them out” during this window. But they’re patient. If you miss the window then you have a bigger problem next year. As a human my ability to juggle all of these concerns is somewhat limited, and a little detection and scheduling would go a long way toward helping me keep these problems small.
To the petrochemical comment: for example look at Paul Stamets. Among the many irons he has in the fire, he knows that certain fungal pathogen species have competitors that are in some cases benign. But fungicides are broad spectrum. They kill off many fungi that would be no problem (and the occasional human liver). The worst weeds and the worst pathogens can often spread faster than their competitors. Only by maintaining a complex ecosystem can you achieve an armistice.
While I skimmed, I didn’t see anything about “regenerative” besides a casual mention of cover crops which you wouldn’t do anything in particular to already (no pesticides or fertilizer or genetic engineering). The other bit was about being very local about picking where and how to grow nontraditional crops (think farmers market faire) in difficult locations that would otherwise grow nothing.
Transgenic watermelons aren’t a thing and the markets for these like organic.
Basically a bunch of progressive kinds of people are moving to Montana to grow fancy food and like to get pieces written to show off their virtue. They’re not entirely wrong but also… eh it’s all a little overdone.
Transgenic watermelons aren’t a thing and the markets for these like organic.
Basically a bunch of progressive kinds of people are moving to Montana to grow fancy food and like to get pieces written to show off their virtue. They’re not entirely wrong but also… eh it’s all a little overdone.
You're right, this one was focused largely on the work of one organic farmer, although I would argue that much of what he does is actually regenerative in the sense of regenerating local commerce and economies. And he was one of the first to grow his own soil nutrients by planting dryland alfalfa as a cover crop, and rotating his cover crops.
I would also say that while you're right about progressives moving to Montana, this is not one of them. Bob is a third-generation Big Sandy farmer. In the book Liz Carlisle co-authored with him, she said he was a republican.
My idea was to show how through organic, he'd added value to his own farm, to many others, and to rural communities. And that meant creating infrastructure and new markets. Regenerative, now 40 years later, can learn from that as IT aims to create new markets.
I would also say that while you're right about progressives moving to Montana, this is not one of them. Bob is a third-generation Big Sandy farmer. In the book Liz Carlisle co-authored with him, she said he was a republican.
My idea was to show how through organic, he'd added value to his own farm, to many others, and to rural communities. And that meant creating infrastructure and new markets. Regenerative, now 40 years later, can learn from that as IT aims to create new markets.
regenerative in the sense of regenerating local commerce and economies.
That is wildly outside the definition of "regenerative farming" given by the article.
That is wildly outside the definition of "regenerative farming" given by the article.
It is. I use the definition that most farmers in the state use in the article--working on soil health through a suite of techniques, while also still spraying in a limited capacity when needed.
There are a million ways to define regenerative agriculture. That's one of the main issues right now, and it's something I covered in part 1 of this series. It's covered in incredible depth here: https://thecounter.org/regenerative-agriculture-racial-equit...
That article also leads to the same point I was trying to make in the above comment. If agriculture is going to be truly regenerative, it needs to support communities. I did not get into that explicitly in the story, but it informs the entire framing of it.
There are a million ways to define regenerative agriculture. That's one of the main issues right now, and it's something I covered in part 1 of this series. It's covered in incredible depth here: https://thecounter.org/regenerative-agriculture-racial-equit...
That article also leads to the same point I was trying to make in the above comment. If agriculture is going to be truly regenerative, it needs to support communities. I did not get into that explicitly in the story, but it informs the entire framing of it.
European farmers out-produce American farmers per acre and do so with less pesticide and fertilizer use.
American farmers aren't very productive because they don't have to be. They get $85 billion a year in all manner of federal programs, and that doesn't even start to cover protectionist trade policies.
We pay farmers to not grow anything to artificially inflate the cost of produce. We did that because the old system generated outrage - namely, the federal government buying produce that it would ship to a warehouse (which of course the government didn't own or operate itself, so we paid for that as well) and then just let it rot. Bad optics, you see.
So now we just pay them to not do anything at all, because that's more efficient. Except we still have the federal govnerment buying up billions in food and letting it spoil.
Meanwhile, we have millions of kids who go to school hungry. And whenever anyone suggests more federal spending to fix that, guess who stands up and shouts about it the loudest? That's right, the congressional reps from midwestern states where they believe in capitalism and none of that commie handout shit.
American farmers aren't very productive because they don't have to be. They get $85 billion a year in all manner of federal programs, and that doesn't even start to cover protectionist trade policies.
We pay farmers to not grow anything to artificially inflate the cost of produce. We did that because the old system generated outrage - namely, the federal government buying produce that it would ship to a warehouse (which of course the government didn't own or operate itself, so we paid for that as well) and then just let it rot. Bad optics, you see.
So now we just pay them to not do anything at all, because that's more efficient. Except we still have the federal govnerment buying up billions in food and letting it spoil.
Meanwhile, we have millions of kids who go to school hungry. And whenever anyone suggests more federal spending to fix that, guess who stands up and shouts about it the loudest? That's right, the congressional reps from midwestern states where they believe in capitalism and none of that commie handout shit.
European farmers also get massive subsides and are also not very productive.
Great topic! I will be reading part 1 as well. I just watched "Kiss the Ground" on Netflix, a 2020 documentary about regenerative agriculture.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81321999
Lots of smart people interviewed there. The side-by-sides of the industrial farm and regenerative farm were striking.
And the demo of the egg might convince a few people.
During the pandemic I tried to get about 50% of my calories from the farmer's market, and I'm hoping to keep that up after moving.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81321999
Lots of smart people interviewed there. The side-by-sides of the industrial farm and regenerative farm were striking.
And the demo of the egg might convince a few people.
During the pandemic I tried to get about 50% of my calories from the farmer's market, and I'm hoping to keep that up after moving.
thank you! and thank you for reading part 1, as well.
I was surprised that there was still tilling happening. My understanding is that tilling the fields helps dry out the soil, and breaks down part of the beneficial fungi and other biota in the soil.
I knew Bob- brilliant botanist and plant scientist. Took a trip with him and some family once- he knew every plant and how Lewis and Clark would have used it as they floated the Missouri.
Slightly off topic, but where is the best place to get a decent feed of regenerative-ag, rewilding, reforestation, conservation, land trust, indigenous land-rights, creative-land-use news?
(HN for the pragmatic eco-conscious futurists.)
Great post by teh way
(HN for the pragmatic eco-conscious futurists.)
Great post by teh way
There's some good stuff on the regenerative ag Subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/RegenerativeAg/. Land Core is a leader in the space, as is the Soil Health Institute.
Quinn encounters a lot of failures, and I kept thinking how unlike a place like Silicon Valley, failure isn't necessarily celebrated in rural farming culture, where during the homestead era, failure might have meant death. Nonetheless, Quinn told me, he's seeing a potential sea change in food and farming:
“I’m not pushing uphill quite as hard against so much tradition that says there’s no reason to change anything. Thirty years ago, fewer people had already gone broke. Everything was really rosy with industrial ag.”