Three steps to heaven – Tillage & Soils
Moving from conventional to fully regenerative farming is best accomplished in stages rather than one large step, suggests leading Canadian consultant Joel Williams ...
Addressing a Hutchinsons conference, he said the first step was to ensure the conventional system being replaced was as efficient as possible. Once that was achieved, farmers should move to substituting practices and inputs. Only then should they consider moving to fully regenerative techniques and systems.
Before moving away from conventional production, farmers need to consider how they use the range of ‘un-natural’ tools and inputs on which they had relied in the past.
“Let’s optimize the current model and be as efficient as we can be with inputs like fertiliser, crop protection products and diesel.
“We will still be using them, but in a high efficiency; low input system.”
Among the changes he suggests could be applied at this stage are a switch to foliar nitrogen, and products such as nitrogen stabilisers.
“Foliar applications cut the amount of fertiliser that enters the soil, while also reducing the risk of leaching and volatilization.”
The next move is to start substituting biological inputs for conventional ones, which might mean using products like fixing agents to help reduce N requirements.
Once that process is complete, he says the final stage is the total system re-design to tackle the previous input dependency.
He advocates replacing a simplified, conventional cropping system with a more diverse one that includes legumes and cover crops.
“That helps bring diversity back into the system, while also achieving nitrogen fixation.
“Legumes are the king in terms of fixing nitrogen, and the more we can bring them in the better.”
And a wide range of other options are available to increase the system’s diversity, he adds.
These include tactics like broadening the rotation and introducing novel, cash crops; using a mixture of annual and perennial crops; cover, companion and inter cropping.
Other options include establishing bio-diversity strips, flower margins and agroforestry.
“Efficiency and substitution are very important first steps, but it is the re-design that is really going to make a bigger impact on the system.”
The idea of growing a non-legume crop alongside a legume so it could benefit from the legume’s nitrogen fixing properties is being tried.
“The legume will release exudates that the non-legume can scavenge and use.” While the general belief was that plants are competitive for nutrients and moisture, he says there is growing evidence of something different:
“We are beginning to see examples of plants being very collaborative with each other. For example, maize releases exudates that activate elements in the soil that help legumes like fava beans fix nitrogen.
“It’s about nature friendly farming and working with nature. In that scenario bio-diversity is regarded as an asset to help grow food.
While there is a lot of debate about how radical any change has to be, he makes the point that Thomas Edison didn’t come up with his design of the light bulb by making incremental changes to a candle:
“It was transformative change that came up with the lightbulb, and thereafter step by step we have reached the modern LED light.
“It is not that evolutionary change is bad – but let’s not neglect the potential for revolution and get stuck in incremental thinking.”
Ian Robertson, head of soils for Hutchinsons, provided his thoughts on what farmers need to achieve before making a system switch. He said they need to know where they are starting from; make a clear plan and not try to do everything at once.
There is no blueprint to follow: “We are all farming different aspirations and soils, and working with different skill sets.”
One unifying factor was that every farmer needs to know much more about their soil and pay attention to its biology.
“We have tended to focus on physics and chemistry because biology can be difficult to see, and testing for it was expensive, so we haven’t done a lot.
“It’s fundamental to everything but we have kind of forgotten it.”
It is not just farmers switching to regenerative systems who need to make changes, suggests Shropshire farmer Harry Heath, who uses the system at Whitley Manor Farm, near Newport with his father Martin.
His family used to have a conventional arable system and a 600 sow pig herd, but they have replaced that with a more varied, regenerative arable system and a much smaller ‘niche’ outdoor pig unit.
Harry thinks the supply industry needs to adjust, because all current recommended crop varieties are based on high fertiliser rates and conventional crop protection products.
New research is needed to assess which current varieties are best attuned to being used in regenerative systems. Ceasing to use conventional systems is like “stepping off the treadmill”, he said – which applied especially to cultivations.
“With ploughing and power harrowing, the more we did the more we needed to do to artificially create a seedbed.”
But he urges those following in his footsteps not to rush the process:
“I see people rush and just not give everything enough time. The soil needs time to adjust. Stepping away from conventional cultivation can take time.”
If farmers are expecting to continue receiving public money, they need to engage with that public, suggests Ben ‘Regen-Ben’ Taylor-Davies,f rom Townshend Farm, Herefordshire.
He has established four themed (sculpture/wildlife) walking trails around the farm, as well as taking some very long-sighted decisions on planting crops for the future.
“I find the combination of “Get off my land but Buy British” very ironic. We have some wonderful conversations with people walking around our farm.”
He has also turned the trails into an income source by staging regular paid-for walks.
On the farming side-and with a nod to the effects of climate change – new crops like olives and tea are making an appearance, in the expectation that they will be regarded by future generations as conventional crops.
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