Arboretum Diary

"Nearly every farming operation offers chances either to conserve or to destroy the wild plants on which game, fur, and feather depend for food. There are many of those wild plants, and each needs its own conditions of soil and light in order to prosper and bear fruit. Each has its own 'customers' who like its products."  – Leopold, "Wild Foods'






The evolution of farming -- as hunting and gathering turned to planning plots for sustenance up to modern mega-ag model -- is as fascinating a topic as any other.  The linear model is fairly easy to track: grow more more easily for the sake of high production, sales, and the hopeful arrangement that yields support populations.  Nothing moves forever in a linear direction however.  Leopold, even back in the 30's, was asking (no, demanding, instructing) that farmers still consider their plots as dynamic communities that do more than one thing: plant for the security of the wildlife on your farm, for they too are a critical player in the health of the land.  His famous story that without the wolf the mountain suffers by the teeth of the unchecked deer herd, is a symbol of this relationships.  Let one strip of the corner of your farm turn back to prairie will offer up much more than a wild palette of color. Pollinators return, top soil recharges, water is filtered, and species survive.  In other words, the linear model of farming that leaves us with one crop, worn soil, chemical water is not sustainable because it will eventually deplete and collapse, which is what is happening to soil around the world today.  If Leopold kept an eye out for the friendly creatures of the back pastures, today the call for a more dynamic approach to planting might be for the sake of all those above, but also for the sake of carbon farming.  Good healthy soil is a natural vehicle for absorbing carbon and other climate altering gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.  As the farmer over tills and under rotates, the soil loses its capacity to hold naturally occurring nutrients and its ability to 'sequester' co2.  As of right now agriculture contributes basically half of all emissions that contribute to climate change.  Leopold had already used the term climate change back in the early part of last century, but had not yet conceived of the changes that we now witness, yet his call for reserving time, space, and energy for better farming practices completely apply to carbon sequestering through "crop rotation, cover crops, and contour hedgerows, as well as what is called silvopasturing, which is a way to allow livestock to more freely graze instead of isolating it to one place that then becomes completely depleted of all regenerative energy.  All of this takes mindset change and it takes support from consumer.  For the farmer to willingly make the leap from large-ag monoculture to dynamic rotation and carbon sequestering is not in any way automatic.  A view into the future might show investors becoming farm restoration specialists, groups willing to replant strategically and organically for the sake of chemical free crops that also serve as carbon absorption.  If large farms were broken into smaller portions, the work to yield quotient would be more manageable; if the consumer knew she was buying from a carbon farm, she might very well be willing to either invest, similar to a CSA, or to at least demand that the grocery carry this kind of produce.  There is no such thing as a one-way route to ag-success. If the ethical minded farmer who restores his land is not met by an informed consumer, the efforts won't be affordable.  If the consumer merely demands that their vegetables come from a small organic local farm, it won't be enough for large scale carbon sequestration.  Leopold had it right that conservation education is of course the beginning of everything. We're still waiting to see if the call will be heeded by farmer, consumer, educator.