October 9, 2024
Although Indiana farmers have made significant strides toward using more no-till and reduced tillage, Indiana State Department of Agriculture statistics indicate that cover crops are still only incorporated on about 10% of Hoosier farmland.
In August, two veteran soil health experts, Ray Archuletta and Barry Fisher, traveled around the state to encourage farmers that there’s still much room for improvement. By adopting a more holistic, regenerative approach to soil stewardship, farmers can make their soil “come alive,” building soil organic matter and, in the process, becoming more profitable.
One of the duo’s stops was Bobby Hettmansperger’s farm in Wabash County, hosted by the Wabash County Soil and Water Conservation District.
The good news of soil health
The two passionate crusaders preached the good news of soil health with evangelistic fervor, seeking converts to regenerative agriculture and encouraging farmers to turn to a more natural system involving “biomimicry.” In this system, farmers’ practices mimic the prairies and the forests. Archuletta and Fisher even invoked scripture, citing Job 12:7: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you, or speak to the earth, and it will teach you.”
Archuletta said the first hurdle for anyone contemplating moving to regenerative agriculture is humility: the willingness to admit to yourself that maybe what you’ve been doing all these years, what Dad and Grandpa taught you, just might be wrong. And there is a better way of farming.
Those open to change can stop leaving a long list of benefits on the table:
soil that is alive and has good structure
better nutrient, air and water cycling
more earthworms that loosen soil, eat crop residue and then deposit it in the soil, increasing organic matter
more water stored in the soil profile for dry spells
active, year-round soil biology
protection from wind and water erosion and extreme weather events
sequestering of carbon from the air into the soil
reducing and breaking up of soil compaction
less need for fertilizer and pesticides
more profit
For those who have fears about taking the plunge into regenerative agriculture, Archuletta said help is available.
“You’re not the first farmer who’s tried this,” he said. “There is a community of other farmers around who are currently doing regenerative agriculture, and who would love to help you.”
Archuletta also contended that if regenerative agriculture were practiced widely, it could solve the climate change conundrum.
“What we have is not really a carbon dioxide problem, it’s a water vapor problem,” he explained. “By so much water not being absorbed into the soil profile, but rather evaporating into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a tiny fraction of the amount of water vapor. We could solve climate change with regenerative agriculture.”
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