Natural Systems Agriculture

Last week I attended the annual field day of the Natural Systems Agriculture program of the University of Manitoba. I was again impressed with the important work these people are doing, and the importance of agricultural research to our lives.

Had average crop yields remained at the 1900 level the crop harvest in the year 2000 would have required nearly four times more land. Since 1900, Canadian and US crop yields have more than tripled. In France, yields have increased by a multiple of 5.2 and in China by a multiple of 3.8. Primarily, three technologies made this yield increase possible: the development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, the development of pest control chemicals and the breeding of plant varieties that responded to these ideal conditions.

In 1900, agriculture used no synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Today’s agriculture, today’s food production, is utterly dependent on it. Without synthetic nitrogen, modern agriculture would collapse. The development of synthetic nitrogen is an monumental achievement on the one hand, but on the other, it creates a disquieting vulnerability. Ironically, virtually all agricultural research today is directed either towards achieving higher yields while optimizing nitrogen or towards increasing the efficiency of the use of nitrogen. The perpetual availability of synthetic nitrogen is assumed.

But all synthetic nitrogen manufactured today comes from natural gas, a resource in limited supply.

The only alternative to synthetic nitrogen derived from natural gas is natural nitrogen. We know of no alternative source of synthetic nitrogen. This is why the work done by the Natural Systems Agriculture program, a program run by a small group of researchers is so important.

What impressed me most at this field day is that these Natural Systems Agriculture people are not doing things the way my father (who was a farmer) did things prior to the availability of synthetic nitrogen and chemical pest control products. Through the judicious use of plants that fix atmospheric nitrogen and return biomass to the soil, they have been able to achieve yields that come very close to the yields achieved by what is currently seen as conventional agriculture.

At the field day, these researchers demonstrated that:

• Soil nitrogen levels can be maintained with nitrogen fixing plants in the rotation. Yields following a nitrogen-fixing crop typically approach yields of crops fed synthetic nitrogen.
• Tillage and the use of weed control chemicals have been over-rated as weed control tools. By using equipment designed to plant into untilled ground and by maintaining a good mulch, weeds are not eliminated, but can be controlled.
• Careful crop rotation is needed to maintain field fertility and control weeds.

As is typical at field days of this nature, the various donors that made this work possible were acknowledged. These included various government funding programs and assorted farmer and consumer organizations. Notably absent from the list of donors were the big agribusiness companies. Yet it is these companies that are responsible for most of the agricultural research done today, either by supporting work at the University or by carrying it out themselves.

Low input agriculture may not be important to the large corporations of this world, but it is vitally important to the people who depend on a healthy environment for survival.

Eric Rempel