Agriculture Agroecology

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Agriculture ?Agroecology

• Bruce Maxwell Perry Miller
• Department of Land Resources Environmental
  Science

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Outline

• What and Where are the jobs in Ag?
• Where are the degrees in Ag?
• What are the issues in Ag?
• Examples of how we work on the issues.

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Future Jobs in Agroecology

• People with systems-level knowledge of
  agroecology, will be important for bridging
  environment concerns with production agriculture

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Jobs in Agroecology

• Consultants
• Ag companies
• Self-employed
• 3rd party providers for environmental compliance
• Ag Industry
• Product development
• Insurance, Banking
• Govt Agencies
• NRCS, FSA, USDA, etc

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MSU Degrees In Crop Production Agriculture

• Plant Science and Plant Pathology
• Crop Science Option
• Land Resources Env. Science
• Land Resources Analysis and Management Option
• Soil and Water Science Option
• Agricultural Business
• Agribusiness Management Option
• Rarm Ranch Management Option
• Agriculture Education
• Ag. Ed. Teaching Option
• Ag. Ed. Extension Option
• Education
• Agricultural Operations Technology

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Agroecology The issue How might we feed the
world in 100 or 1000 years?
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Conventional Agriculture A. Goals
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• The basic practices that generally characterize
  conventional agriculture
• intensive tillage
• expansive monoculture crops
• irrigation
• application of inorganic fertilizer
• chemical pest control
• genetic manipulation of crop plants

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C. Conventional agriculture may not be
sustainable 1. Soil lost to wind and water
erosion

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• Half of the water applied in agriculture is not
  taken up by the targeted crop plants.
• Pollution 28 of 29 cities tested in the Midwest
  (US) had herbicides in their drinking water (EPA,
  1995)
• High yields have been accomplished through high
  inputs
• Loss of genetic diversity There are fewer and
  fewer varieties to draw upon for adaptive genes.
• Loss of local control over agricultural
  production. lt2 of pop. Live and work on farms in
  US
• Farmers share of profit for crop is declining
  and increasingly dependent on government
  subsidies.

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• Sustainability defined (Gliessman, 1998)
• Agricultural Sustainability would at the very
  least
• Have minimal negative effects on the environment
  and release no toxic or damaging substances into
  the atmosphere, surface water, or ground water
• Preserve and rebuild soil fertility, prevent
  soil erosion, and maintain the soils ecological
  health
• Use water in a way that allows aquifers to be
  recharged and the water needs of the environment
  and people to be met
• Rely mainly on resources within the
  agroecosystem, including nearby communities, by
  replacing external inputs with nutrient cycling,
  better conservation, and an expanded base of
  ecological knowledge
• Work to value and conserve biological diversity,
  both in the wild and in domesticated landscapes
  and
• Guarantee equality of access to appropriate
  agricultural practices, knowledge, and
  technologies and enable local control of
  agricultural resources.

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The agriculture of the future must be both
sustainable and highly productive.
A more ecological approach to agriculture may
improve our chances at accomplishing the goal.
Agroecology the application of ecological
concepts and principles to the design and
management of sustainable agroecosystems.
Agroecology is a discipline that provides
concepts and principles based on organism-level
interactions that can be used to design
resource-efficient agricultural systems.
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Agroecology

• Goals
• environmentally sound
• productive
• economically viable
• socially just

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Appreciating the complexity of ecosystems and
managing with them rather than against them
Adaptive Management
Ecology the relationship between organisms and
their environment
Ecosystem a functional system of complementary
relations between living organisms and their
environment, delimited by arbitrarily chosen
boundaries, which in space and time appear to
maintain a steady yet dynamic equilibrium.
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Ag Sustainability in the northern Great Plains
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Padbury et al. 2002 AJ 94251
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Unsustainable U.S. Ag

• Agriculture is in crisis.
• eroding the foundation (soil, water)
• Paradigm of maximum output, maximum profit
  requires immense technical toolbox
• Pesticides, fertilizer, energy costs,
• irrigation, etc.
• Recent articles in Nature argued that
• technical limits to production have been
• reached

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U.S. Sustainability - The Hook

• Through the Farm Bill, U.S. Taxpayers provide big
  share of net farm income
• During 1999-2001 Program payments gt 100 net
  income for Montana grain growers
• Food is a lifestyle choice in western societies
• Consumers demanding that U.S. agriculture be
  conducted in a sustainable manner
• Wildlife-friendly systems?
• Global warming
• Carbon sequestration has united environmental
  groups and traditional soil conservation groups
  to promote conservation tillage

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The Practical Problem in Montana

• Frequent summerfallow
• Tillage
• Lack of Diversity (Cereal monoculture)

Wheat-fallow strip farming near Three Forks, MT
1999
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1. Frequent summerfallow

• Summerfallow has rich history in northern Plains
• Campbell Soil Culture Manual (1907) preached as
  dry farming bible by railroads when settling
  Montana 1910-1920
• Practice of summerfallow 95 responsible for
  salinization of northern Great Plains ( 5
  million acres)
• Many producers think that fallow rests the land
• In todays economic conditions, fallow is a
  reality
• How can we make fallow more sustainable?

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2. Tillage
Liberty Co. Soil Conservation District sign

• Erosion -
• Loss of soil organic matter (C and N)
• gt 200/ac N has been mined from average Montana
  soils
• Loss of soil structure (infiltration)

Severe wind erosion near Chester, MT 2001
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• Water-Use-Efficient No-till Systems
• Duff layer?
• Stubble microclimate
• Rapid infiltration

Wheat field Beach, ND Sept 11, 2001
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CURRENT USE OF CONSERVATION TILLAGE

• (http//ctic.purdue.edu)
• No-till adoption in Montana? CTIC estimates 17.
• No-till revolution is sweeping the Great Plains
  but Montana lags behind the Canadian prairies and
  the Dakotas
• Q. Why is the adoption of water-efficient no-till
  systems lagging in the U.S. Northern Plains?
• 2001 census in Saskatchewan showed
  no-till is the new convention.

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3. Lack of Diversity (Cereal monoculture)
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• Wheat commodities dominate farming systems
• various spring wheats from 2.0 to 4.0 M acres
• - winter wheat acreage varies annually between
  1.0 and 2.5 M acres, according to fall planting
  conditions, price prospects
• barley 0.8 to 1.4 M acres
• durum 0.1 to 0.3 M acres
• no other crop had gt 100,000 acres in 2001!

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• Crop and livestock enterprises are highly
  specialized and often separate
• missed opportunity?
• potential for interfarm cooperation in the same
  locality

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• Disease, insect pests take a big chunk out of
  Montanas wheat crop every year

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Note yield depression for cereals on spring
wheat stubble
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• Weed problems
• annual grassy weeds that mimic wheat growth
  patterns are the main economic targets
• wild oats, wild millet, downy brome, jointed
  goatgrass, p. darnel
• herbicide resistance growing in wild oats, wild
  millet, kochia
• cheap, long-lasting sulfonyl urea (SU) chemistry
  interferes with crop rotations to broadleaf crops

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• Your biggest annual cropping expense is for
  grassy herbicides. Has anyone eradicated wild
  oats off their farm? Are your oat problems less
  than they were 10 years ago? (AJ Bussan, 1999)

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3. Cereal monoculture

• Simplify mechanized operation
• Routine pest management
• Playing the Farm Bill
• - time-intense operational windows
• - Pests adapt to simple systems, become expensive
  to manage
• i.e. Sawfly producers!
• - Restricted marketing options

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Special role for Pulse Crops

• High water-use-efficiency makes grain legumes or
  Pulse crops well adapted to semiarid regions
• Symbiotic association with N-fixing bacteria
  (rhizobia) eliminates need for N fertilizer
• Provide rotational benefits to cereal crops
• Enhance soil microbial activity, quicken soil
  carbon accumulation

Desi chickpea field near Wolf Point, MT
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N-fixing nodules on legume roots.
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Central Paradox

• Can we combine short-term goals for economic
  productivity with long-term goals for
  sustainability?
• Does agroecology hold the solutions?

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Turning Ag Green

• What models exist for more sustainable
  alternative systems?

Continuous crop wheat-lentil system near Havre,
MT
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Advanced Organic Systems

• Increased crop diversity (time and space)
• Enhanced soil biological activity
• High value market opportunities
• - caviar crowd?
• ? Elimination of chemical fertilizers and
  pesticides
• ? Shunning of transgenic crops
• High intensity tillage

Clean organic lentil field
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Alfalfa underseeded in kamut, Big Sandy, MT
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Advanced No-Till Systems

• Elimination of tillage
• Enhanced soil biological activity
• Increased crop diversity (time)
• Increased cropping intensity
• ? Acceptance of transgenic crops
• ? Reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides

No-till lentils direct-seeded in wheat stubble
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Low-disturbance air drill in stripped wheat
stubble, Pierre, SD
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Spring wheat seedlings emerging in high density
corn residues. Pierre, SD.
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Enhanced biodiversity
Earthworm in no-till plots
Bull snake for rodent control on no-till farm
near Hardin, MT
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Key Question

• How much reduction in agricultural productivity
  will society accept in return for increased
  sustainability?
• Reduced supply drives up food costs
• Incentive to bring marginal land into production
  (Nature 2002)
• Is this the right question?
• No-till systems increase productivity

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Who will find the answers?
Sunset near Moccasin, MT