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A vision of Kaua‘i
By Jim Rich - Special to the Garden Island
“The history of every nation is eventually written in the way in which it cares for its soil.” — Franklin Roosevelt.
I think many of us realize that some day Kaua‘i will need to depend on its own gardeners and farmers to provide the food we need. With the present shakiness of the economy, not to mention the oil crisis, this may be sooner rather than later. But there is another factor heretofore under the radar that could insert a sense of urgency regarding the matter of food self-sufficiency.
The world’s supply of phosphorous will have run out in 30 years or less at the present rate of use. And when demand exceeds supply Kaua‘i will likely be one of the first places to be cut off, being so far from the major phosphorous industries in Florida. Already, in fact, the supply of phosphorous is being restricted and the cost is rising. Since phosphorous is a major nutrient for which there is no substitute, the other fertilizer elements are virtually useless without the balance of phosphorous.
Bill Mollison minces no words when he states — assuming for the moment conventional chemical agriculture will continue — that “next to clean water, phosphorous will be one of the inexorable limits to human occupancy on this planet.”
As our chemical factories shut down the fertilizer factories that have existed in the soil for millions of years will have a chance to re-establish themselves. They have been for the most part put out of business by our practice of mechanical tilling and putting chemicals in the soil solution. Nature’s factories use humus and micro-organisms to provide the balance of nutrients which the plant actually needs for its optimum health.
Chemicals in solution, on the other hand, result in ‘unavoidable’ nutrients resulting in imbalanced nutrition – a virtual plant obesity – making plants susceptible to disease and insect damage which are Nature’s method of eliminating the weak. Chemicals in solution also contribute to the oxidation — burning — of soil humus.
Another blessing coming from the demise of our fertilizer factories will be the return of humus to our soils worldwide, which humus stores huge quantities of carbon. It has been calculated that the addition of carbon to the atmosphere from the loss of humus, together with the loss of carbon storage due to deforestation, greatly exceeds the addition of carbon to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Putting carbon back into the soil therefore will not only ensure that the world will be fed but go a long way towards reducing global warming.
Several years ago a group of soil scientists at Ohio State University put together a detailed paper entitled “Achieving Soil Carbon Sequestration in the United States; a Challenge to Policy Makers”. The carbon sequestration this paper stressed was putting carbon into soil humus where it is critical in maintaining soil fertility, whereas the method of sequestering carbon in underground pools or the bottom of the ocean is impossibly expensive and environmentally dangerous. The scientists sent this report to Congress, receiving the response that present conservation measures already in place were adequate to meet the carbon problem. No comment!
The challenge before us will be in devising an agriculture that is truly sustainable and will help keep our atmosphere in a proper balance of gases. Worldwide it has been calculated that Nature generates soil at the rate, on average, of one inch in one thousand years. This is a very high bar that Nature set and so far we haven’t come close. We lose topsoil to development, erosion and desertification.
In the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences says we are losing it ten times faster than it is being replaced. The U.N. says that on a global basis the rate of loss is ten to one hundred times faster than that of replacement. This huge loss is the result of our practice of tilling the soil and putting fertilizers in solution, both of which oxidize humus, that portion of the soil that resists erosion. So we have our basic guideline of the kind of agriculture needed: a no-till, no-fertilizer agriculture. Such agriculture requires a transition period, during which less income will be generated.
The soil scientists at Ohio State University calculated that the transition from till to no-till agriculture would cost 8.4 billion dollars paid out over a thirty year period, although it is calculated to take only three to five years for each parcel of land to be restored to inherent fertility. How they came up with these figures I have no idea but it seems like a gross under-estimation. Yet if the costs were many times this amount it would be a bargain if such subsidies would actually fix our broken agriculture and reduce global warming. Of course, if we would be willing to pay higher prices for food produced under the no-till system, as we do for organic produce, such subsidies may not be necessary. When up and running food costs could hereafter be lower than for conventional organic production, due to savings in machinery, fertilizers and labor.
Not tilling or fertilizing is just a beginning step in a sustainable agriculture. Most of the vegetables we enjoy are annuals, which is a “pioneer” species which in Nature prepares disturbed soils for the introduction of perennials. So to follow and not counter Nature’s process we would need to introduce perennials into our gardening methods.
• Contact Jim Rich, a retired home-gardener, via e-mail at christine_innes@adidam.org
I think many of us realize that some day Kaua‘i will need to depend on its own gardeners and farmers to provide the food we need. With the present shakiness of the economy, not to mention the oil crisis, this may be sooner rather than later. But there is another factor heretofore under the radar that could insert a sense of urgency regarding the matter of food self-sufficiency.
The world’s supply of phosphorous will have run out in 30 years or less at the present rate of use. And when demand exceeds supply Kaua‘i will likely be one of the first places to be cut off, being so far from the major phosphorous industries in Florida. Already, in fact, the supply of phosphorous is being restricted and the cost is rising. Since phosphorous is a major nutrient for which there is no substitute, the other fertilizer elements are virtually useless without the balance of phosphorous.
Bill Mollison minces no words when he states — assuming for the moment conventional chemical agriculture will continue — that “next to clean water, phosphorous will be one of the inexorable limits to human occupancy on this planet.”
As our chemical factories shut down the fertilizer factories that have existed in the soil for millions of years will have a chance to re-establish themselves. They have been for the most part put out of business by our practice of mechanical tilling and putting chemicals in the soil solution. Nature’s factories use humus and micro-organisms to provide the balance of nutrients which the plant actually needs for its optimum health.
Chemicals in solution, on the other hand, result in ‘unavoidable’ nutrients resulting in imbalanced nutrition – a virtual plant obesity – making plants susceptible to disease and insect damage which are Nature’s method of eliminating the weak. Chemicals in solution also contribute to the oxidation — burning — of soil humus.
Another blessing coming from the demise of our fertilizer factories will be the return of humus to our soils worldwide, which humus stores huge quantities of carbon. It has been calculated that the addition of carbon to the atmosphere from the loss of humus, together with the loss of carbon storage due to deforestation, greatly exceeds the addition of carbon to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Putting carbon back into the soil therefore will not only ensure that the world will be fed but go a long way towards reducing global warming.
Several years ago a group of soil scientists at Ohio State University put together a detailed paper entitled “Achieving Soil Carbon Sequestration in the United States; a Challenge to Policy Makers”. The carbon sequestration this paper stressed was putting carbon into soil humus where it is critical in maintaining soil fertility, whereas the method of sequestering carbon in underground pools or the bottom of the ocean is impossibly expensive and environmentally dangerous. The scientists sent this report to Congress, receiving the response that present conservation measures already in place were adequate to meet the carbon problem. No comment!
The challenge before us will be in devising an agriculture that is truly sustainable and will help keep our atmosphere in a proper balance of gases. Worldwide it has been calculated that Nature generates soil at the rate, on average, of one inch in one thousand years. This is a very high bar that Nature set and so far we haven’t come close. We lose topsoil to development, erosion and desertification.
In the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences says we are losing it ten times faster than it is being replaced. The U.N. says that on a global basis the rate of loss is ten to one hundred times faster than that of replacement. This huge loss is the result of our practice of tilling the soil and putting fertilizers in solution, both of which oxidize humus, that portion of the soil that resists erosion. So we have our basic guideline of the kind of agriculture needed: a no-till, no-fertilizer agriculture. Such agriculture requires a transition period, during which less income will be generated.
The soil scientists at Ohio State University calculated that the transition from till to no-till agriculture would cost 8.4 billion dollars paid out over a thirty year period, although it is calculated to take only three to five years for each parcel of land to be restored to inherent fertility. How they came up with these figures I have no idea but it seems like a gross under-estimation. Yet if the costs were many times this amount it would be a bargain if such subsidies would actually fix our broken agriculture and reduce global warming. Of course, if we would be willing to pay higher prices for food produced under the no-till system, as we do for organic produce, such subsidies may not be necessary. When up and running food costs could hereafter be lower than for conventional organic production, due to savings in machinery, fertilizers and labor.
Not tilling or fertilizing is just a beginning step in a sustainable agriculture. Most of the vegetables we enjoy are annuals, which is a “pioneer” species which in Nature prepares disturbed soils for the introduction of perennials. So to follow and not counter Nature’s process we would need to introduce perennials into our gardening methods.
• Contact Jim Rich, a retired home-gardener, via e-mail at christine_innes@adidam.org
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