In the afternoon groups split and visited three different farms.
Sutter Farm – Kenny, Jacob, and Tyler Sutter
Sutter Farms encompasses 3300-3500 acres on which they raise beef, hogs, corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. Four complete families from four generations depend on the farm for their livelihood. They participate in the Unilever Sustainable Soy program practicing no-till and minimum-till to prevent soil erosion. The Sutters use cover crops in the winter, including cereal rye, to help retain soil moisture, prevent erosion, and store nutrients for the next season. Grazing the cover crops with their cow/calf herd provides an important source of winter feed and the soybeans and corn they grow goes into the processing plant that creates the feed for their hogs. He wants to start using red and sweet clover as a cover crop instead of straight cereal rye, but requires more short-season crops like small grains to do so. Kenny has set up test strips of cover crop experiments to evaluate different cover crop management strategies side by side such as grazing, mowing, and harvesting cover crops for seed.
Cardinal Farms – Craig Fleishman and Dan Taylor
Craig and Deb Fleishman raises corn, soybeans and oats on their century farm. Conservation and profitability drives his farm decision making, and he’s looked to come to a balance between the two. He’s been ridge-tilling since 1981, which allows him to combine cultivation and herbicides in a system that reduces both tillage and chemical use. Over the last few years, he’s included oats into the rotation on some of his corn and soybean ground. He’s also maintained a demonstration of a three-year crop rotation in strips on one of his fields.
Dan and Ila Taylor are neighbors of Craig’s and works with Craig on the oat harvest. Dan and Ila raise and finish cows and hogs for Niman Ranch and have converted about 100 acres of their land from row crops to grass or hay for the livestock. Using cover crops expands their grazing season by almost three months and offers a tangible economic benefit to the operation.
Helland Farms – Mike Helland and Lee Tesdell
About 60% of the farmland in Iowa is rented and farmed by non-owner operators. If the operators and the owners are not on the same page in terms of farming practices and outcomes it can be difficult for a farmer to invest in soil health practices that protect the land asset. Mike and Lee are an example of a land owner (Lee) cooperating with a farm operator (Mike) to achieve soil health and conservation outcomes. Together they apply for cost share programs through NRCS and split the costs on investments like cover crops or new technologies.
Sediment and nutrients in water drainage is a critical issue in Iowa and Mike and Lee work together to address water quality issues on this land. Lee installed capital intensive solutions like a saturated buffer system and a wood chip bio reactor. Mike, for his part, uses cropping system management by no-tilling beans for 23 years and one-tills his corn. Mike integrates livestock on the farm, last year he raised 500 acres of cereal rye for pasture and hay for cattle.
On Wednesday, following the field visits, the group extracted observations about qualities of leadership, sustainability, and systems change from our tours.
A shared systems perspective was developed and is captured below:
Why Soil health is important:
- Increases in soil organic matter (SOM) result in reduced GHG emissions, decreased soil erosion, and improved water quality.
- Healthy soil holds moisture in the ground to make water more available during drought years and reduces flooding in wet years.
- Healthy soil reduces disease and plant stress, and decreases the need for inputs such as synthetic fertilizer and herbicides.
- Therefore, healthy soils create the conditions for a more resilient production and secure supply in the long term
What practices contribute to health soil:
- Continuous cover (living or residues) on the ground for as much of the year as possible (cover crops, rotations);
- Minimal soil disturbance (reduced tillage, no till);
- Diversity (cover crops, rotations);
- Organic compost or manure inputs when possible (integrated livestock systems, rotations and cover crops enable this system either in cooperation with neighbors or on own farm).
The difficulties:
- Most benefits are long-term, but there are short-term costs, and it’s not clear who will pay.
- There is limited market and little infrastructure for rotation crops like small grans and hay.
- Farmers are ostracized by their neighbors when they try something different.
- Over 60% of the land in Iowa is rented, forcing farmers into short term agreements that do not incentivize long term investment in soil health.
- Cover crop seed, advice, and infrastructure is not readily available from Ag Retailors and other traditional sources of inputs for farmers
What’s needed to overcome difficulties:
- Market pull for small grains
- feeding small grains as part of a sustainable feed ration
- an early mover to prime the pump and increase supply
- Incentives for cover crops,
- Facilitated farmer learning groups and paid farmer mentors to increase social acceptance and knowledge network of cover crops, rotation, and use of livestock in the system
Therefore, we’re in a redesign mode, rather than a tweaking mode, which requires not only technical but also organizational and leadership changes.
Key leverage points for future action were identified:
- Pre-competitive commitment to increase small grains in feed rations
- Develop good storytelling and soil health education for companies that have close relationships with farmers, and for land owners who are renting farmland.
- Convene ag retailers to be more supportive of cover crops and diverse rotations by making it easier to get seeds and access to the right equipment and infrastructure
- Amplify the PFI model to support farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange and peer mentoring
- Collaborate to insure that markets are available for more diverse rotations
- Work with R&D teams to develop new products that include small grains and other crops needed to make corn and soybeans more sustainable
- Joint advocacy to reform crop insurance
The Food Lab will support a working group on small grains as part of a sustainable feed ration moving forward. We will also be facilitating an online discussion through Climate Collaborative implementing regenerative agriculture in the supply chain.
If you are interested in participating in one of these working group please email Elizabeth Reaves at [email protected].
that keep living roots in the ground year round, such as cover crops and extended rotation with small grains. The cover crops keep the ground full of living roots that take up and hold Nitrogen in place so that it can’t be washed into the water table. The Marsden trial reveals that “diversification of conventional corn soybean systems with small grains and forage legumes can allow for large reductions in the use of mineral fertilizers and herbicides and lead to less environmental damage, equivalent profitability, improved soil quality, and higher crop productivity.”
