How Cover Crops Help Save the Planet

By Gwen Anderson

Like most kids, I learned about photosynthesis when I was in grade school.  I learned that plants ate sunshine, breathed in carbon dioxide, and exhaled oxygen.  I remember as a child thinking how great it was that I was exhaling what my new tree out back was inhaling, and in turn, it was exhaling what I needed as well.  I knew protecting the forests was good for the planet; we learned about it every Earth Day.  What I didn’t know is that we should also be protecting our farmlands.

As we are growing our crops, they are eating all of that sunshine, breathing in all of that carbon dioxide, taking nutrients out of the soil to grow.  Then we harvest those crops.  They stop breathing in that carbon dioxide.  Then what?  On the typical conventional farm, the lands sits empty, doing nothing.  Rain comes, washes away all of that expensive chemical fertilizer, the ground gets hard and cracked as it dries, and blows away in the wind.  Next year, they plant seeds, spray it with more chemicals because they all washed away the year before, harvest the crop once it grows, if it grows.  Rinse, repeat. 

Cover crop (millet, oats, rye grass, and 3 types of clover)
planted 2 and a half weeks ago in our fields.

That isn’t how we do things at Harmony Valley Farm.  Farmer Richard has been planting cover crops for over 40 years.  As soon as we are done harvesting, we either plant a new crop if the season is early yet, or we “put the field to bed” by planting cover crops.  Right now, we already have 30 acres of our farm planted with cover crops, and will continue planting it as the harvests keep coming in.  As it stands, about 70% of our ground will be cover cropped by fall, and we are increasing that number by seeding grass and clover into our late harvested crops like Brussels sprouts and fall broccoli.

Cover crop (winter rye, rye grass, and 3 types of clover) in
the same field as above, planted one week later.

What are cover crops?  They are crops that cover the ground!  We don’t sell them, they aren’t vegetables.  They are there to photosynthesize away while we wait for the planting season to start again.  Of course, there are plenty of other benefits as well, like holding nutrients in the ground and literally holding the ground in place, instead of letting it wash away in the rain and wind.  They help build up the organic matter in soil, which translates to healthier soil, which is able to better feed the crops we grow and filter the water as it drains, keeping the nutrients in our soil instead of our waterways.  Healthier soil also holds more water, so there is less run off in the first place, and more water for plants to utilize in times of drought.

One thing my childhood rendition of photosynthesis left out is what the plants do with that carbon dioxide they breathe in.  While they do use some of it to grow, because carbon is the building block of life, they also leak the extra carbon they don’t use to grow right down into the soil itself, which feeds micro-organisms that in turn produce food for the plant.  And why is this so important and groundbreaking?  Because right now, there is too much carbon in the air, which is the leading cause of climate change.  By allowing Mother Nature to take all of that carbon that we humans have been pulling out of the ground for centuries and putting it back into the ground, we can have a real impact on climate change.  Rumor is we could even reverse climate change it if we act quickly. According to an article posted in April, 2014 by the Rodale Institute: “If management of all current cropland shifted to reflect the regenerative model as practiced at the research sites included in [Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming], more than 40% of annual emissions could potentially be captured.  If, at the same time, all global pasture was managed to a regenerative model, an additional 71% could be sequestered.  Essentially, passing the 100% mark means a drawing down of excess greenhouse gases, resulting in the reversal of the greenhouse effect.”

Map of the world's farmland, indicating average size of farms, picture from fastcompany.com

About one third of the Earth’s land is used for farming, and while the number of farmers using cover crops is at an all-time high right now, those numbers are still remarkably small.  According to the Des Moines Register in a study published in March 2017, only 2.6% of Iowa’s almost 23 million acres of farmland had cover crop on it in 2016, which was barely better than Illinois’ 2.3%.  Iowa has a goal of getting 12.6 million acres of farm land planted to cover crops, but at the current rate it will take about 3 decades to achieve.  According to Ben Dobson, who was hired on by Stone House Farms in Livingston, NY to convert the 2,200 acre farm from conventional to organic, in their first year alone they increased their soil carbon content by 0.7%.  That amounted to 15 tons of carbon dioxide being removed from the air per acre.  The average passenger vehicle emits 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide per year according to the EPA.  Stone House Farms managed to take the emissions of just over 3 cars back into their soil per acre per year.  Imagine how much carbon could be placed back into the ground if we could get the whole world on board with this!  If Iowa can reach their goal of 12.6 million acres, we are talking about 189 million tons of carbon dioxide (or just over 4 million cars’ worth) in just one year, and that is only half of one state’s farmland. 

Of course, planting cover crops is just one aspect of regenerative farming which is a more holistic approach to soil health, results in cleaner waterways, puts carbon back into the ground, and ultimately helps us combat climate change.  Things such as conservation tilling, crop rotations, composting, diversifying crops that are grown, and the reintegration of animals to the farm are all needed for maximum effectiveness of the regenerative farming model.  And in order for this to be done, more than one eco-minded family farm at a time, we need open communication between farmers, and the backing of government policy to encourage the changes instead of reinforcing the mono-crop farming habits of today.  The good news is that there is a new certification, the regenerative organic certification, which is currently being piloted by the Rodale Institute.  Organic Valley is also piloting its own program in California, where there are already incentive programs in place for “carbon farming” planning and practices.

Per the Rodale Institute, the goal of the regenerative organic certification is to “increase soil organic matter over time, improve animal welfare, provide economic stability and fairness for farmers, ranchers, and workers, and create resilient regional ecosystems and communities.”  The aim is not to replace current organic practices, but rather to support them as well as make it easier for widespread adaptation of the regenerative farming model.  This is something that has really caught our interest here at Harmony Valley Farm, and we look forward to hearing more about it in the future.

The initiatives here in the US aren’t the only ones aiming to combat climate control through regenerative farming.  Regeneration International, a world-wide non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and practicing regenerative farming, has played a huge role in bringing the 4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate Initiative to the world stage.  4 per 1000 is a regenerative farming initiative launched by the French government in December 2015, and goes hand in hand with the Paris Climate Accord, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreement between 197 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that was also signed that same month.  However, out of the 197 countries to sign the Paris Climate Accord, only 36 of them have also committed to regenerative farming practices.  In order to bring awareness to the world benefiting practice, Regeneration International has assisted in bringing 1 per 4000 Initiative teaching events to Washington DC, Mexico City, and Montreal, Canada.  In October of this year, they are partnering with South African agencies as well as the French and German governments to hold a symposium in Johannesburg.

Little baby clover (cover crop) overseeded
in our
Brussels sprout field.

We’ve talked about how great regenerative farming is for the planet, but what does it do for farmers?  As I mentioned earlier, Farmer Richard has been planting cover crops for over 40 years, well before the regenerative farming movement caught his attention, because of the benefit it gives the farm and because it is the right thing to do.  Something he knows well is that healthy soil means healthy crops.  And healthy crops are good for the bottom line.  Del Ficke, a 5th generation farmer from Pleasant Dale, NE who adopted practices such as cover crops, reintegrating livestock, and using manure instead of chemical fertilizer, told the Union of Concerned Scientists “I used to farm 7,000 acres. Now I’m less than 700 acres, but 70 percent more profitable.”  While starting these practices takes time and commitment, and are oftentimes difficult, when your soil is healthy and you are following good farming practices, regenerative farming can produce yields comparable to conventional crops, or even better yields, without damaging the planet.  “It’s a ripple effect,” Ficke says.  “Money will follow the sustainability.”  Once we can show the everyday farmer how these practices can not only help the environment, but make their farms more productive and economical, it is only a matter of time before everyone gets on board.  Let’s just hope it's not too late.

Soil…Our Hope for a Climate Solution

By Richard de Wilde & Andrea Yoder

In this week’s newsletter we’d like to return to our series of articles pointing to “the future of our food.”  The question on our minds this week is “Can we feed the world…without destroying it first?”  While we didn’t intend to write an article about climate change, here we are once again being faced with issues of climate change as it directly relates to this question.  Food First is an organization dedicated to ending the injustices that cause hunger and helping communities to take back control of their food systems.  Their work is centered around research, education and action.  This organization was founded by Frances Moore Lappé who, back in 1971, wrote Diet for a Small Planet.  Lappé laid out the evidence at that time representing several key points including the fact that there was 1 ½ times more than enough food to feed everyone on Earth, hunger is due to poverty and not scarcity, and the way the developed world produces and consumes food is damaging the planet.  Here we are over forty years later and the fact still remains the same that we still have enough food to feed the world and our corporate, industrial food system continues to damage the planet.  In Food First’s Summer 2017 “News & Views” publication, they stated “…the corporate food system contributes up to ⅓ of the world’s greenhouse gases, making industrial agriculture one of the main forces behind climate change.”² In this week’s article we want to face this topic of climate change and look at how we can turn the tide, quickly, so we have a future.

Asparagus field with a well established
cover crop including a variety of clovers.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that “Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21^st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally.” ³  The Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University released Climate Policy Brief No. 4 in April 2017 entitled, Hope Below Our Feet, Soil as a Climate Solution.¹ In their report they quote climate scientist James Hansen who, in 1988, warned that:  “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that.”  They follow his quote with the fact that atmospheric CO₂ levels today exceed 400 ppm and are still on the rise.  Carbon is not the culprit here, it is essential to our existence.  Climate change is happening because there is too much carbon in the atmosphere and the reason it’s there is largely due to human activities.  Carbon cycles in nature between five pools where carbon is stored.  Those five places include the atmosphere, oceans, fossils, soil and our biosphere.  The carbon cycle was in balance for many, many years cycling between these pools in a way that was beneficial to all life forms.  The problems started when we figured out how to extract carbon from fossils and use it as fuel, etc.  We disrupted the cycle and threw off the balance by putting more carbon into the atmosphere than the oceans, plants and biosphere could cycle.  The opening paragraph in the GDAE Climate Policy Brief¹ mentioned above reads as follows: 

“A major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is clearly needed, but there is increasing scientific consensus that even if achieved, this will not be enough.  In addition to a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, carbon must be removed from the atmosphere.  An important solution is beneath our feet—the massive capacity of the earth’s soils to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere.” 

This field is ready for winter with a
young cover crop of rye in place.

The problem is the lack of balance.  Soil, which holds about three times more carbon than the atmosphere, offers us hope for restoring this balance of carbon in nature that humans have disrupted.    As farmers, this excites us and truly gives us hope.  Why?  Because we understand firsthand how resilient and beneficial soil can be when properly cared for and many of these strategies to store carbon in the soil are things we’ve been practicing on our farm for many years now!  Over 40 years ago I (Richard) was inspired by the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner who taught me about the value of capturing solar energy and putting it into the soil.  Through the process of photosynthesis, plants have the ability to take CO₂ from the atmosphere along with water and sunlight to turn it into nutrients for the plant that develop root structures and carry these nutrients into the soil.  The nutrients feed the biological life in the soil and deposit carbon.  Carbon rich soil with high biodiversity is healthy, resilient soil.  I quickly learned the value of cover crops and we still make it a priority to plant a cover crop in a field as soon as we take our main crop off.  Cover crops fix nitrogen in the soil, hold soil in place and, in the end, break down and become part of the soil and build organic matter.  When I started planting cover crops, I did so for benefits including increasing soil fertility and tilth and increasing organic matter in the soil thereby increasing the resilience of the soil to hold water in a time of drought and drain water in times of excess moisture.  I never imagined we’d be in the position we are in now where planting cover crops and other basic, natural agricultural practices could be the key we need to regenerate and heal our broken cycle and reverse something as big as climate change!  In contrast, “Intensive forms of farming using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, are a leading cause of degradation of soils worldwide, as are destructive grazing practices in pasturelands.  But through appropriate practices that would enhance carbon pools in soils and biota, the potential terrestrial carbon sink capacity could be restored, essentially reversing its historic depletion, in what has been called the ‘recarbonization’ of the biosphere.”¹  

Our young piglets enjoy romping
around in the lush pasture grasses.

Our grass-fed Red Angus beef cattle are
rotationally grazed on our nutrient rich pastures.

There are several approaches we can take to regenerate our soils and enhance the natural functioning of ecosystems to rebuild what we’ve lost.  The GDAE report outlines some important regenerative strategies to increase the ability of soils to store carbon.  In cultivated soils, strategies include things such as the use of cover crops, planting trees and legumes to fix atmospheric nitrogen, feeding the soil with manure and compost, decreasing erosion and soil loss from sloping soils through terracing, and increasing soil microbiology with fungi and other microorganisms.  Pasture management in animal production systems is another important factor.  Sustainable pasture management includes planned rotational grazing which can have a remarkable impact on regenerating pasture grasses, increasing soil fertility, and reversing and preventing desertification of soils.   We also need to consider forested soils.  There have been astounding acres of valuable forest lands cleared for industrial farming and agricultural purposes.  We need to stop deforestation and be promoting reforestation to regenerate degraded forest ecosystems.  All of these efforts have the net benefit of supporting the movement of excess carbon out of the atmosphere through the use of plants and putting it back into the soil.  While it’s pretty remarkable to be able to use plants to combat climate change in this way, there is a twofold benefit from regenerating soils.  More plants on the land and more carbon returning to the soil results in not only decreasing atmospheric carbon, but also leads to increased soil fertility which also can have a significant impact on production and yield as well as the quality of food.  This will also help us continue to produce food more reliably in the face of weather extremes which is our current reality.  However, remember that hunger is not caused by scarcity but rather poverty.  “What causes hunger is not lack of food, but lack of access to decent land and work.  Most of the chronically hungry in the world are marginalized farmers and rural workers.  It is not how much we produce that is important, but who produces it, how, and who profits.  With 70% employment in agriculture in many parts of the world, simply producing more food in countries like Kenya, Uganda, or India will not solve hunger if there are no decent and stable livelihoods in the countryside.  Industrial farming displaces workers—so many we would need unrealistically fast economic growth, evenly spread around the globe to create enough jobs to employ all the world’s peasant farmers.  To end hunger, we don’t need to produce more crops per se—we need to produce more decent livelihoods.”⁵  We need to turn food production back over to small farmers, thereby giving them food security by giving them their jobs back and allowing them to preserve their cultural heritage and feed their own local markets and be part of their local economy.  In this manner human needs are met in a way that restores ecosystems and communities instead of degrading them.  It’s an obvious win-win situation!  We’d encourage you to read the GDAE’s policy brief for yourself as there are more details and benefits from employing these strategies than we can fully report on here and truly does offer us hope.  We need to face the realities that industrial agriculture has no place in the future of our food system.  Eliminating this form of agriculture would gain us great strides in combating climate change, but furthermore if it were traded for regenerative farming practices we would actually be able to make some headway.  The answer to our original question is “Yes, we can feed the world without destroying it.”  The question now is “Will we?” 

If you’d like to learn more about how the soil can lead us in regenerative efforts to combat climate change as well as see some examples of how other countries are implementing action and incentives for this purpose, we’d like to suggest the following resources:

• "The Soil Story", a video by Kiss the Ground that clearly summarizes the carbon cycle and the role of regenerative agriculture in less than 4 minutes!  If you do nothing else, watch this short video.
•  Soil 4 Climate is a nonprofit organization that is an advocate for soil restoration as a climate solution.  They have a lot of informative resources available on their website for both education as well as action. 
•  Global Development & Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University offers expertise in the areas of economics, policy, science and technology as they relate to global development and issues related to the environment.  They have numerous publications available on their website including the Climate Policy Brief we cited above, Hope Below Our Feet. 

References:

1.  Codur, A.M., S. Itzkan, W. Moomaw, K. Thidemann, and J. Harris.  2017.  Hope Below Our Feet, Soil As a Climate Solution.  
2. Holt-Gimenez, Eric.  2017.  The Politics of Food:  The More Things Stay the Same, the More They Change.  Food First News & Views. Volume 39. 
3. IPCC 2013.  Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report, Summary For Policy Makers.  
4. Kruzic, Ahna and Holt-Gimenez, Eric.  2017.  The Politics of Food:  Feeding the World Without Destroying It.  Food First News & Views. Volume 39. 
5. Shattuck, Annie.  2017.   Food, Climate, and the Myths that Keep our Planet Hot.  Food First Backgrounder, Volume 23.
   
   

"How's the Weather?"

by Farmer Richard

This is a continuation of our series of newsletters on the subject of “the future of our food” as we discuss what kind of food system we want going into the future.  This week I’d like to discuss a topic that’s always on our minds, but even more so over the past week….WEATHER.

Weather has been with us forever!  In my case I only have 60 years of weather memory.  Starting on the South Dakota plains, with winter blizzards when we went to the neighbors’ house a mile away with Smoky and Barney pulling the bob sled for a Saturday night taco and card game evening.  A night when only a team of horses could have made the trip.  And then there was the ice storm of ’59 when a heavy buildup of ice snapped off power poles for miles.  We were without electricity for two weeks.  My brother Dennis, my Mom and I milked our cows by hand while Dad was off helping the electric linemen put in new poles.  I know something about weather, I’ve farmed around weather for most of a lifetime.  Sometimes it is too wet and sometimes too dry.  We have learned to farm around it.  We watch weather forecasts day and night and plan accordingly!  We make the absolute most of dry days to keep planting schedules and do our weed control.

Early spring onion field on raised beds

Twenty five years ago we converted to farming with a system of raised beds so excess moisture immediately drains to the wheel tracks and off the fields.  We watched the water run during rain storms so we could observe how it moved and then made ditches and berms to protect fields and drain off excess water.  We built high organic matter in the soil that allows it to be more resilient, absorbing  water and at the same time draining well so it can be worked very soon after a rain.  When it was dry, we irrigated.  We learned to use a variety of different irrigation methods including buried drip irrigation lines to efficiently deliver water and nutrients to plant roots without watering the soil surface and germinating new weeds. 

Last year we built a new dike to help prevent rising waters.

We are very good farmers and have consistently raised good to excellent crops through a variety of weather variations that we considered “normal.”  But over the past ten years, that has changed for the worst!  For example, lets look at the history of the Bad Axe River watershed we live and farm in.  Human beings have lived and survived here for 10,000 years, but farmed for only the last 1,500 years.  European settlers have farmed here for less than 200 years.  The Bad Axe River would periodically flood over its banks and damage the rich valley farmland.  So starting in the 50’s a series of dams were built on the North and South forks of the Bad Axe River to hold excess water and prevent flooding.  The dam that is 5 miles above our farm is the Runge Hollow Dam.  It successfully ended flood events until 2007 when we had what was called a “100 year flood,” with an unprecedented 18 inches of rainfall in 24 hours that overflowed the dam and flooded our valley crops. We survived life and limb and came through economically with the help of many friends and customers.  Then it happened again ten months later.  We had another “100 year flood.”  We survived again and went on to have several good years, got out of debt, and then had another “100 year flood” last fall, September 2016.  We really needed a good year to recover from the losses of that last event, but here we go again just 10 months later! 

A fallen tree on our landlord's storage shed!

 Is our climate changing?  Absolutely!!  We have experienced four “100 year” weather events in less than 10 years!  The overall average temperature has risen a few degrees, ie “global warming” has brought us some late, warm falls and some earlier springs which were welcomed by us.  However, those few degrees in the ocean leads to melting the polar ice caps and may not be welcomed by coastal dwellers in the future.  But what we are struggling with now is the extreme, more intense storm events and weather patterns!  What does that look like for us? 

Cleaning up fallen trees & branches
on field roads Thursday morning

Good, healthy soil can absorb up to one inch of rain in an hour with minimal run-off.  We have recently witnessed three inches of steady rain over a six hour period with minimal problems.  But our recent four inches of rain that fell in less than an hour followed by another four inches just six hours later caused huge problems!  Eight inches of rain on every square foot of field at a rate of two or more inches per hour is “intense.”  Our raised beds with five rows of crop, lost the outside two rows!  The water could not drain away fast enough and fields looked like a “lake” for a time because our valley drainage systems were overwhelmed with the huge amounts of water and debris running from the surrounding woods and hillsides.  When I wrote last week’s newsletter about making choices and considering your impact downstream, I had no idea what we were in for before last week was over. In last week’s newsletter I wrote “Sometimes we are the person being impacted downstream and other times we are the one with the ability to impact what’s happening downstream.  Yes our choices do matter and the farming practices you choose to support can make a significant impact on our local health and environment as well as the health and environment downstream.  At the end of the day, we are all a community and we all have choices.”  Unfortunately, last week we were the downstream recipients who paid for the poor choices and irresponsible actions of a farmer on the ridge above us who chose to clear steep hillsides so he could plant corn.  

Farmer Richard making use of his bulldozer to
clean silt and debris off a field.

When the rains came, there was significant erosion off those hillsides that washed down into one of the dry wash ditches that is supposed to direct water from the hillsides and carry it to the river.  The rocks, silt, soil and sand that washed off the ridge top came down fast with the momentum of the water driving it.  It clogged up the dry wash and came close to taking out our neighbor’s solar panels and house basement.  The debris covered Newton road with silt, soil and debris that was one foot deep.  Because the water and debris didn’t follow the intended path, it spilled over the road and onto one of the fields we farm covering half of a field of small beets intended for fall harvest.  In other places, the erosion and volume of water running off the hillsides took out our five fences that contain our animals and cross our small creek.  After the first 4 inches of rain, our crew put back fences to contain the pigs, working well until after dark only to do it all over again in the morning.  There were numerous trees that fell and broke off throughout the valley as a result of the high winds including a large one on our neighbor’s property that took down a power line.  Wednesday evening Juan, Andrea and I got two generators in place and running so we could generate our own power to run the essentials until power was restored 24 hours later.  We kept greenhouses inflated so they were rigid enough to withstand the high winds of the second storm that came through in the middle of the night.  We were also able to keep our coolers and ice machines running as well as the water pump so we could continue to wash and pack vegetables on Thursday as we tried to fill our wholesale orders and prepare to pack CSA boxes on Friday.  Did we say intense and violent storms? 

The goats really like the fallen trees!

In the days that have followed, we have had six skillful young men working full-time replacing fences, cutting downed trees, clearing silt from river crossings and fields. We lost many hundreds of trees, snapped off from tornado like winds.  We can salvage some firewood and maybe hopefully sell some wood products to help contribute towards the cost to clean all this up!  The wind driven rain and the hail the storm brought with it has shredded the leaves on many crops, leaving them vulnerable for leaf disease.  The water-logged soils  have already led to some plants dying.  Brassicas in particular (kale, collards, broccoli, etc) do not like “wet feet,” meaning their root system cannot stand in water for extended periods of time.  We’ve seen many of these sensitive plants wilt, die and add to our losses.  In our past experience we find that waterlogged plants and crops that go through wet, humid days may look fine, but the shelf life may be shorter and they may suddenly start to rot or break down.  So, please be patient, observant and understanding.  Please do your part to store your vegetables properly, keep your eye on them and eat them in a timely manner so you don’t lose them.  We will never intentionally pack a poor quality vegetable, but what may look fine when it goes in the box may not look fine when you take it out or go to use it several days later. 

Replacing fencing panels washed out by the swift current.

What’s next?  We keep talking.  Brainstorming.  We need solutions to these issues, we need changes to policy, we need to figure out the course our future will take.  We’re back to the “future of our food.”  I, once again, encourage you to be part of these conversations so we, as a community, can proactively decide our future.  There are many things that could be done!  But, they take money, direction, leadership, “political will,” regulation, incentives and education.  Firstly, we need understanding, cooperation and the right attitude.

Adapting To Climate Change

By Andrea Yoder

The Bad Axe River along Harmony Valley Farm

     We realize there are differing opinions about climate change, what is causing it, what should be done about it, etc. As we reflect upon our recent wet September and then an unseasonably warm and beautiful October and November, we (as farmers) would be foolish to ignore the fact that the climate and weather patterns are changing. While we were experiencing excessive rainfall, California and the upper northeast portions of the US experienced a drought. Since 2007 we’ve experienced three substantial “Hundred Year Floods,” but we also had a drought year stuck in there as well. Weather patterns are becoming more extreme and erratic. Despite these changes, we all still need to eat. This  means we need to figure out how to adapt to these changes so we can continue to do our job!

Photo Borrowed from UCS website

    In June of this year, The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published a document entitled, Toward Climate Resilience:  A Framework and Principles for Science-Based Adaptation. Their framework starts with a concept they call “climate resilience gap,” defined as “the scope and extent of climate change-driven conditions for which people remain unprepared, leaving them open to potentially harmful impacts.”  There will always be times when we are faced with weather-related situations beyond our control. Despite our best efforts we may still suffer losses and major impact. But what can we do to adapt to these changes and do our best to be prepared and decrease the impact we experience from climate-change driven conditions?
     I think this is an important question for all farmers to ask themselves now. As we look at our own situation, we look for places of vulnerability in our operation. In doing so, we made a decision to stop farming one area of land we have leased for several years now. It is very prone to flooding and is not the most resilient soil. Several years ago we started leasing some new land that is “high and dry,” away from rivers and streams. We have transitioned the land to certified organic and are ready to put it into full production next year. In wet years, we value land like this. On the flip side, in a drought year we can have challenges with some of our higher ground that is further away from a water source. In some cases we don’t have a water source to irrigate from and in others we may not have permits to irrigate. We cannot live in fear of rivers and creeks and it isn’t realistic to move our farm out of the valley. There is no perfect situation, rather we value the diversity we have with different areas we farm and do our best to mitigate risk.

New in November 2016: Dike In Field

    Following the excessive rain this fall, Richard and many of the field crew took advantage of the time now available to work on some drainage improvements. In one area they rerouted the drainage ditch to take water around a field and built a nice berm to slow water down and shunt it in the right direction as it exits a culvert. We have another field that is located right along the Bad Axe River. The crew worked in this area to improve the drainage around this field so rain water can run off the field in the wheel tracks and is adequately drained away to avoid washouts and excessive wet spots. They also built a little dike! (Richard tapped into his Dutch heritage).  It will give us two feet of vertical protection to hold back the river if we have another flood type event. We also have a larger field that had some wet spots and areas that just didn’t drain well after it rained. In years like this where we had rainy day after rainy day, the plants didn’t thrive very well in those wet, soggy areas. It took several days of intense work to get the grade of the field worked out and build some drainage ditches around the perimeter of the field, but it looks great right now and we’re anxious to see how these changes work next year!
     We’ve also removed trees, branches and debris from the river as well as dry washes. If we don’t get these things out of the way, they will build up and create dams which obstruct water from flowing where it’s supposed to go and potentially can spill over into field and roadways. Management…it’s constant management and observation. You don’t clean or fix something up one time and assume it’s good for ever. Water is powerful and changes things as it moves. You have to constantly reassess the situation each year and especially after a major event.

Cover Crop: Built-in Soil Protection

     But what if we swing to the other end of the spectrum and have drought? One of our first defenses is to be ready to irrigate. Irrigation equipment is an expensive investment and some years it may be used minimally. In a drought year, it may be the only way we have to get even minimal amounts of water to vulnerable crops. Over the past few years we’ve also started burying drip tape in fields before we plant the crop. In many cases this is a more efficient way to water a crop as you lose less water to evaporation.
     We realize we have a lot to learn and will continue to assess what we can do to adapt as well as what we can do to contribute in positive ways to decreasing factors contributing to climate change. This is a big topic to explore, but we all have to assume responsibility for doing our part to care for our corner of our world.