Sustainable Agriculture

According to recent marketing (TV, radio and newspapers), about everything is or can be “sustainable”.  The word has been used so much one must research how each company or organization defines “sustainable”.

Question:  What are you trying to “sustain” (continue, keep or save)?

Just as many of us struggle with health issues, the “health” of our nations farmland is struggling.  Do you think there might be a correlation between human health and soil health?  If you have a health issue, the last thing you want to do is “sustain” your current state.  The same goes for our farmland.  Current levels of agriculture production is “sustained” by oil based products such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Many indicators point to the fact that our farmlands are in a “degrading” state.

• Dirty streams, lakes and ground water (aquifers)
• Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’
• Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere
• Soil erosion from farmland

Our Degraded Pasture

Listening to a presentation by farmer/rancher Gabe Brown (YouTube TedX link, 16 minute video), helped bring this “degraded” landscape message home to me.  Below is a soil degradation map of the world, looks like our farm fits in the “Very degraded soil” category.

Gabe’s message forced us to look at our pastures in a new way.

What do you think of our detailed degraded farm/pasture map below?

Yes, we now look at every part of our farm from Degraded to Extremely Degraded.

Since we see our pastures differently now, we are taking steps to “improve” our pastures.  Sustaining what we now have is no longer an option in our mind.  Many farmers and ranchers in this new movement have latched on to the term “regenerative agriculture” (search FaceBook to see all the different “regenerative” groups).

Here at DS Family Farm, we are fine with the term “regenerative ag” or whatever other name comes along.  The main thing is that we approach our farm management in a way to promote the opposite of degrading the soil, pastures and animals.  A quick search for the opposite meaning of “degrading” comes up with the term “exalt”.

We say good-bye to “sustainable ag” we are on a mission to “exalt ag” or “regenerative ag” or whatever you want to call it.

In future posts we will try to flesh out this topic in more detail.

Please, if you have a question or comment on this topic (or any other topic), please drop us an email or post a comment to our FaceBook page.