Group Members: Shu Chatani, Jisoo Choi, Adrian Ryadi, Calvin Perry

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Viability of Transitioning from Conventional to Sustainable Farming

 

Background:

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The main purpose of this research is to see if conventional farming can become sustainable and what the barriers are regarding this transition. We became interested in this topic after our tour of 21 Acres Farm. After seeing the sustainable practices used on 21 Acres, we wondered why conventional farms have not yet transitioned to those types of practices and if there were barriers to initiating that type of change.

Conventional agriculture is a farming method that includes the usage of synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other continuous inputs. Agriculture as a whole produce 21-25% of total CO2 and a total of 65-70% N2O emissions and conventional farming is responsible for the majority of the emissions (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2002). The high emission rates are due to the huge amount of energy it requires in the process of producing crops. These processes require the excessive use of electricity and gas by farmers to increase productivity. According to The World Bank, conventional farming has increased recent food production worldwide between 70 and 90 percent. Conventional farming also provides more job opportunities and lowers the cost of production. Conventional farming has become widespread across the world since the late nineteenth century because of its higher levels of productivity. Conventional farming has increased agricultural productivity to meet the demand for growing populations, but its unecological methods leave salts in productive soil, which could cause the salinization of the soils, lowering productivity, and the farmland abandonment (Dan, 2007).

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Sustainable farming is a larger category of farming that includes conservation and regenerative farming (Schaller, 1993). This type of farming includes methods such as no-till, the use of cover crops, a crop rotation, no use of pesticides or herbicides, and working closely with the ecosystem to name a few. Conservation farming mainly focuses on the soil within the farming process. The practices done on sustainable farms revolve around minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining soil cover, and managing crop rotation. According to Huggins and Reganold, “Conservation tillage includes any method that retains enough of the previous crop residues such that at least 30 percent of the soil surface is covered after planting. The protective effects of such residues are considerable” (Huggins & Reganold, 2008, 73). Regenerative farming focuses on diverse cover crops, in-farm fertility (no external nutrients), no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and multiple crop rotations (Regenerative Agriculture, 2017).

 

Methods:

 

Methods for our research on whether conventional farms can be sustainable include interviews of farms and online research. Farms were mainly contacted through email, but some farms were also contacted by phone. The interviews consist of 12 questions that were sent to both conventional and sustainable farms, with most being in the state of Washington. The questions in the interviews are the same for each farm and are:

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1. What is the name of your farm?

2. What crops are grown on your farm?

3. Do you believe that your farm is or can be sustainable? In what ways is your farm sustainable? In what ways can your farm be more sustainable?

4. How are the crops planted? Do you till the soil? How are the fields irrigated?

5. Does your farm use any pesticides/herbicides in the process of raising crops?

6. Does your farm use any fertilizers/soil amendments? If so, what do you use?

7. Is most of the work on the farm done by humans or machines (tractors, cultivators, seed drill, etc.)? What machines, if any, are used?

8. Are workers employed seasonally or year-round?

9. Do you plant cover crops? If so, what do you use? If not, how come?

10. Where do your solid and liquid wastes go?

11. What technology would be needed for your farm to become more sustainable?

12. In order to become more sustainable, would you or the workers need any additional education or training? If so, how much?

 

The purpose of these questions is to understand how farms perceive themselves, what their practices are, and how they believe that they could improve. By keeping the questions the same for each farm, we can compare the responses from the different farms and gain an even better understanding of how the different types of farms practice agriculture and think they can improve.

Our online research is primarily looking for economic costs in transitioning from conventional to sustainable farming if sustainable practices can be just as viable as conventional practices, and what programs there are for research and education on sustainable farming. This research will help determine if there are barriers to transitioning from conventional to sustainable practices and what they are.

 

Results:

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Unfortunately, when we tried to contact conventional farms, we were not able to receive any responses. We have contacted Gebbers Farms, Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center, Walther Farms, Milberger Farms Local Roots Farm, Skipley Farm, Swans Trail Farms, One Leaf Farm, Hampshire College Farm, and Beech Hill Farm. Out of the farms listed above, Gebbers Farms became hostile when they heard our problem statement and refused to participate. The lead farmer questioned us on where we found their contact information and ended the phone call with “We are not going to participate in this.” This was interesting because we could infer from the hostility that the Gebbers Farm was aware of how they practice farming and that there are possibilities to become sustainable but refuse to. The table below is the list of farms that we have contacted, ways of contact, and if they responded or not.

 

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The sustainable farms that we contacted were 21 Acres Center, Root Connection CSA, Swift River Farm, Seattle Urban Farm Company, Carnation Farms, and Vitruvian Farms, LLC. We have contacted the farms via email and over the phone. 21 Acres farms invited us to visit their farm, but our schedule as a whole limited us from exploring that option. We received an email from Skipley Farms asking us if we could conduct our interview via voice but when we called him and told him about our whole project, he said that he felt uncomfortable answering our questions.

 

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We were able to receive an email response from Lauren Moon from Carnation Farms after our second attempt. At first, Lauren was hesitant to answer our questions as she was not sure what our project was or who we were. However, once we resolved any questions she had, she was excited to respond to our interview questions and mentioned that “Our food system is pretty sick right now and we need consumers that are educated and wanting to help!” The responses from Lauren and Carnation Farms are shown in the table below:

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Most of the farmers we contacted became defensive and felt uncomfortable with our questions since these questions can be seen as counter to their operation and to the conventional style of agriculture as a whole. Some of the farmers that were contacted may be relatively close to sustainable farming but don’t follow all sustainable practices. They also might not pursue the transition because some farms have been run as a family business that have their own traditional way of doing things. When we looked into the website for Gebber Farms, they advertised the fact that it’s been a family tradition for almost a century; Walther Farms also mentions in their website that it’s a third-generation family owned business.

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Throughout our online research, we found that conventional farmers are facing difficulties in the transition from conventional to sustainable practices due to financial issues. In an article for Pacific Standard, John C. Cannon suggests that conventional farmers must be concerned with high costs for the transition; conventional farmers need to find backers due to high costs in techniques and tools. In the same article, Simone Bauch mentioned, "Farmers do not have the money they need, and investors do not know where to put their money," (Cannon, 2017). Farmers must extend the loan timeline to complete a sustainable farming system in their farms and make stable profits. Most funders may be uncooperative to fund conventional farmers looking to transition to sustainable practices since they are likely to avoid high risks and a low return. On the other hand, the researcher shows his positive attitudes toward backers. Funders could rely on credit guarantees and insurance, provided by a non-governmental organization or bank, in order to reduce the high risks of loans. Larger companies may also be willing to purchase agricultural commodities from contracted farmers as offtake agreements. In addition, there are also many programs offered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provide grants to farms, students, educators, and researchers. For example, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) provides grants which fund research and then publicize the findings of this research to farmers. There are many similar programs, such as the Sustainable Agriculture Program which offers grants and other programs for farmers, and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) which offers grants for research that looks to improve rural economies, food production, and fight the environmental impacts of agriculture.

 

Our research also found that switching from conventional practices to sustainable methods, such as conservation agriculture and regenerative agriculture, will actually save money while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Drawdown, a comprehensive project working towards the mitigation of climate change, has researched the effects of switching to both of these styles of farming. According to Drawdown, by the year 2035, if the 177 million acres of land used for conservation agriculture grows to 1 billion acres, the net implementation cost would be $37.53 billion while the net savings would be $2.12 trillion, and this would also reduce CO2 emissions by 17.35 gigatons (Conservation Agriculture, 2017.) Also, if the 107 million acres of land used for regenerative agriculture grows to 1 billion acres by 2050, the net implementation cost would be $57.22 billion while the net savings would be $1.93 trillion, and this would CO2 emissions by 23.15 gigatons (Regenerative Agriculture, 2017.)

 

Discussion:

 

Conventional farming can become sustainable. However, the main issues of conventional farms transitioning to sustainable farms consist of high initial investment cost, time, and education. Based on our visit to 21 Acres Center and the response from Lauren Moon from Carnation Farms, we can conclude that no new technology is needed for a farm to be sustainable. However, for conventional practices to become more sustainable, more efficient technology would be extremely helpful, but this would also increase the cost of farmers. The initial cost of starting the no-till soil practice alone is around $100,000 for the seeding equipment which puts small-scale farms in a difficult position as this equipment is harder to acquire. However, this process allows farms to no longer use other tillage equipment, lowering total capital and operating costs up to 50 percent (Huggins & Reganold, 2008, 75). There is another benefit that comes from conventional farming, “According to the USDA’s National Resources Inventory data, soil erosion from water and wind on U.S. cropland decreased 43 percent between 1982 and 2003, with much of this decline coming from the adoption of conservation tillage” (Huggins & Reganold, 2008, 73).  The necessity of investment is very apparent in transitioning conventional farming to sustainable farming.

 

The other issue for the transition is the lack of funding sustainable agriculture research in the U.S. or globally. There are programs from organizations, such as SARE and AFRI from the USDA, that offer grants for research and education in sustainable agriculture, but these programs and grants are highly competitive and most farmers would have limited to no access to them. According to Marcia, Albie, and Liz; “Research and development related to agroecology has been thought to command less than two percent of public agricultural research funding in the United States and less than one percent globally” (Marcia et al.,  2015). The data on funds for agroecological research in the U.S., collected by the researchers shows that small fractions of the funds are allocated to investments in diversified farming, crop rotations, and improved grazing management. The authors also point out the need for modification to the small allocation of the funding for growing community and business in order to enhance economic sustainability, and they believe these developments on socioeconomic supports will supply massive foundation for the transition (Marcia et al.,  2015).

 

We also believe that a large portion of the problem is the attitude towards sustainable farming. The lack of involvement of commercial farmers was visible while we conducted our phone and email interview as many farmers felt uncomfortable discussing the issue of sustainability. We have discovered that there are issues of transparency when it comes to specific practices done on conventional as well as sustainable farms.

Throughout our research, we found that conventional farms face issues such as a high initial cost which is met with the fact that there are very few means of investment for farmers to switch from conventional to sustainable practices. No new technology is technically needed in order for conventional farming to become sustainable, but new technology that is more efficient at using pesticides/herbicides, water, and energy could help. These new technologies would also raise the initial cost of transitioning to more sustainable practices. Thus, cost is the main barrier for conventional farmers in the pursuit of sustainability. However, it is also clear that the benefits of sustainable agriculture practices outweigh the costs, both economically and environmentally, so there needs to be more efforts to help farmers become more sustainable. Conventional farmers need the support of government funding, access to education, and strict regulation to limit the use of synthetic chemicals in order to help the transition to sustainable farming.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Alavanja M. C. (2009). Introduction: pesticide use and exposure extensive worldwide. Reviews on environmental health, 24(4), 303-9.

 

Benbrook C. M. (2016). Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally. Environmental Sciences Europe, 28(1), 3.

 

Cannon, J. C. (2017, June 06). The Transition From Traditional to Sustainable Farming Is a Financial Issue. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://psmag.com/social-justice/transition-from-traditional-to-sustainable-farming-is-a-financial-issue

 

Conservation Agriculture. (2017, July 20). Retrieved from https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/conservation-agriculture

 

Dan H. Yaalon. (2007).  Human-induced Ecosystem and Landscape Processes Always Involve Soil Change. BioScience, 57(11), 918-919

 

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (n.d.). Environment and Natural Resources. Retrieved December 4, 2018, from http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4137e/y4137e02b.htm

 

Marcia S. DeLonge, Albie Miles, & Liz Carlisle. (2016, January) Investing in the transition to sustainable agriculture. Environmental Science & Policy, 55(1), 266-273.

 

Regenerative Agriculture. (2017, July 20). Retrieved from https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/regenerative-agriculture

 

Scialabba, N.E., & Hattam, C. (2002). Organic Agriculture and the Environment. In Organic agriculture, environment and food security Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.