Tag: Gardening

The Importance of Recycling Energy, Part 2: How to sequester carbon in the soil

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This is a continuation of Part 1 in the September Jehovah-Jireh Farm Newsletter on the importance of recycling energy.

Note: Using organic farming methods to sequester carbon in the soil is an important subject that was presented to our government officials several weeks ago. Since I wrote part one, I found out that Mark Smallwood, the director of Rodale Institute, walked from Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to hand deliver a White Paper detailing research proving that regenerative organic agriculture can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reverse climate change. The White Paper is titled: Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change, A down-to-earth solution to global warming. The full text of the White Paper can be found at: http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/
Incidentally, Mark Smallwood used to work for MOM’S Organic Market in their main office in Rockville, MD. and also helped us one time to process chickens at our old farm.

 

We today have an important opportunity to make a significant step forward to sequester carbon, build topsoil, control erosion, and feed the world through organic farming. There are many that are greatly concerned that we have irreparably harmed the environment, are destroying life, and leaving future generations with an environmental mess because our excessive use of fossil fuels. Many feel hopeless and that too many people do not care what they are doing to the environment.

There is hope!

Plants to a large extent were the original source of our present day fossil fuels. Plants are also a key element in recycling energy and putting the CO2 gasses back into the soil where they belong.

There are a number of ways to sequester carbon in the soil. What I want to share with you is a simple, easy method that we have used here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In the first seven years here on this farm we have sequestered approximately 325,570 lbs of Soil Organic Carbon on 35 acres. That represents recycling as much CO2 as the yearly output from approximately 146 cars. That was accomplished by increasing the soil organic matter on most of the farmland by almost one percentage point. That is without spreading organic matter or fertilizers other than lime. The only manure was the droppings from chickens when they are on the pasture and from the sheep and cows while they are grazing. The amount of  carbon sequestered is according to soil tests that were taken at the end of 2013. It represents the carbon sequestered in the top six inches of soil, although there has been much more carbon than that sequestered at greater depths in the soil. 

The method that we used to sequester the carbon was letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then grazing or mowing the grass and letting it decompose into the soil. This is a method that we discovered as we mowed the grass in the American chestnut orchard located here on the farm and observed the significant increased growth of the grass and the increased growth, vigor, health, and blight resistance of the American chestnut trees. Mowing pasture grasses is one of the best, the easiest, and cheapest of fertilizers.

Grasses often have more root mass and depth than the mass and height of grass above the ground. When the grass is mowed from a height of 24″ down to 4″, the roots slough off to correspond to the amount of grass left above the surface. As these roots that sloughed off decompose, they build organic matter in the soil to the depth the roots had been. It is not just the organic matter on the surface of the ground from the mowed grass that contributes to the organic matter of the soil.

Pasture based farming, using rotational grazing and managed mowing, is an important method of sequestering carbon in the soil in a very stable manner. Rodale Institute has proved that the proper organic crop growing methods are also an important carbon sequestering method. It is my opinion from my observations and research that pastures can sequester carbon faster, easier, to a greater depth, and have it more stable in the soil than can be accomplished with organic crop farming methods. That does not mean that sequestering carbon by organic crop farming methods is unimportant; it is important. But what it means is that globally we can sequester much more carbon by raising animals on pasture in pasture based systems rather than growing grain and feeding the animals grain in confinement operations. Plus, the grass-fed meats with higher omega-3 fatty acids are much more healthy for the consumer.  

Typical response of grasses to grazing. Above ground growth is more lateral and roots “die back” to match needs of above ground biomass. Diagram C. Luke 2011 http://www.sonoma.edu/preserves/prairie/management/restoration.shtml

 


http://kansasgraziers.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html
Up to 90% of a plant’s mass is in its root system. What is below the soil is much more important for sequestering carbon than what is above the soil. The plant on the far right has much more root mass than the mass that is in the grass above the soil level. The grass clump on the far left sloughed off most of its roots when it was cut short. The roots can then decompose and build carbon deep in the soil where it will be stable and stay in the soil for a very long time.

The above illustrations show the importance of managing plant roots by grazing and mowing to build carbon in the soil. The roots below the soil are more important for sequestering carbon than the grasses above the soil. This is significant, because it allows us to utilize the grass for feeding livestock and producing an income from the land while at the same time using the roots to sequester carbon deep in the soil, making the soil more drought resistant, reducing rain run off and erosion, and making the soil more fertile.

The depth that carbon is sequestered in the soil is important. Carbon that is greater than 12″ deep (30cm) is very stable in the soil. The Rodale Institute’s White Paper points out the importance of depth in the sequestering of carbon:
“It is likely that current data sets underestimate soil organic carbon stocks in organically managed systems because soil carbon is often measured at plow depth when recent findings suggest that more than half of the soil organic carbon stocks are likely in the 20-80cm depth. Beyond 30cm in the soil profile, the age of carbon increases continuously, much of it persisting for thousands of years.  How carbon acts in this subsoil range is poorly understood, but increasing rooting depth, application of irrigated compost (compost tea), choosing deep rooted grass-legume cover crops and encouraging earthworm abundance are all promising pathways for introducing carbon to depths where it is likely to remain stable over long periods.” (p. 10)

To get the greatest depth of roots in the soil, it is important that grasses be allowed to grow at least a foot or two in height before grazing or mowing. Grasses in home lawns will not be able to contribute much to carbon sequestering because they are never allowed to grow very tall.

One more plus to mowing pastures in addition to sequestering carbon is that it creates a beautiful manicured farm landscape. Beautiful pastoral farm landscapes do a soul good like a medicine. We need to create more beauty around us.
Our charcoal/biochar kiln experiment at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In 2009 we experimented with making charcoal to sequester carbon and to build up our soils. Inside this charcoal kiln were five metal 55 gallon barrels filled with split firewood. We made six batches of charcoal to use in the garden and in the chicken bedding. Making charcoal/biochar is labor intensive. In half of our garden, we applied about an inch and a half of charcoal and incorporated it in the top six inches of soil in a three foot wide by 70 feet strip perpendicular across the various rows of vegetables . Unfortunately, we did not see any improvement in growth, drought resistance, or brix improvement to the plants grown in the charcoal enriched soil in any of the years since then. Five years later, there is no noticeable difference in the color of the soil where the charcoal was applied.

Our experiment with biochar was not successful. It does not mean that charcoal/biochar is an ineffective method of sequestering carbon in the soil. The Terra Preta soils in South America show otherwise. Charcoal/biochar is a method that needs more research. 

There is much more to learn about how to sequester carbon and to build topsoil using atmospheric carbon. We want to experiment with increasing the brix (sugar content) of our pasture grasses. By increasing the photosynthesis of the plant leaves, the sugar (and carbon) content of the plant can be increased. The plant sends these sugars to the roots to feed the roots and microbes in the soil. By increasing the sugars in the plant, we should be able to significantly increase the carbon sequestration in the soil.

There is much more that we would like to experiment with to improve the soil. We thank you for your support of our farm in buying our farm products. Your support is what enables us to do these experiments in our living laboratory (the farm).

The Importance of Recycling Energy, Part 1: The answer to feeding a growing world population

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What you are about to read is a different perspective than what you normally hear about our use of fossil fuels. We have within our reach the ability to solve many of the environmental problems that we face today with the use of “non-renewable” energy sources — crude oil, natural gas, and coal. We get the impression from many scientists that our use of fossil fuels that we are removing from the earth is polluting our environment with unnatural toxins that should not be there and that we are creating a big environmental problem with greenhouse gases. But their field of view is too narrow and pessimistic. We have the opportunity of recycling fossil fuel energy back to it original form. In the process, not only can we solve many of these environmental problems, but we can significantly increase food production to feed a growing world population using organic methods. Chemical farming and GMO’s are not the answer for increasing food production to feed the world.

To see the solution, it is necessary to see the bigger picture of what fossil fuel energy really is and how it can be recycled. Fossil fuels are formed from the remains of dead plants and animals that were buried many years ago. In Pennsylvania, layers of coal can range from a few inches to 10 or 12 feet thick. To make coal or oil, plant and animal matter is highly compressed. Now try to imagine how many plants it would take to make a layer of coal that was only one foot thick.  What those layers of coal and oil tell us is that many years ago the soil was highly productive and produced vast amounts of vegetation that in some locations was likely much greater than anything we have seen in modern times.

In physics, The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change form. Energy is said to be conserved over time. In the case of fossil fuels, when they are burned the energy is not destroyed but rather changes form. A significant portion becomes carbon dioxide. But before we go further, we need to back up and look at where fossil fuels came from in the first place and look at the carbon cycle. First,  in very ancient times there was very fertile topsoil that was rich in carbon. That very fertile soil produced vast amounts of plant matter. The plant matter was buried and over many years was converted into fossil fuels. Today, fossil fuels are being removed from the earth and burned and vast amounts of carbon dioxide are being put into the air. What we need to do is to capture that ancient topsoil that is now floating in the air as carbon dioxide and put it back into our topsoil. If we can accomplish that we have the potential to significantly increase food production.

The bottom line is: gasoline came from topsoil, we burned it in our car and put the “topsoil” in the air. It is interesting that many of the oil rich countries, such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, are largely desert countries. Their topsoil is buried way below the surface in the form of oil. (It is interesting to note that the Garden of Eden, with its lush vegetation, would have been in their general area.) They are pumping their topsoil out of the ground as oil and selling their topsoil to us to burn in our cars. We are burning their topsoil and using the energy for transportation. In the process we have put their topsoil into the air where it is polluting the environment. Our responsibility and opportunity now is to recycle the topsoil out of the air and put it back in the topsoil where it belongs.

Why it is important to recycle energy back into our topsoil
Why is it important that we recycle carbon out of the atmosphere and put it in the soil? We have a great opportunity to restore soil productivity back to the way it was right before fossil fuels were formed. The carbon dioxide in the air is an important resource that we need to utilize.

The main difference between topsoil and subsoil is the carbon content in the topsoil. The carbon content is usually referred  to as organic matter. By increasing the carbon content of our soils we can increase the depth of the topsoil and make the soil much more productive. Dr. Carey Reams used to say that if he knew how deep the top soil was, he could tell you what the production would be. Research at Michigan State University indicates that a 1 percent increase in organic matter offers a 12 percent increase in crop production potential. (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1083169.pdf)

Adding carbon to the soil helps make the soil more drought proof. Carbon is like a sponge and can hold about four times its weight in water. Therefore increasing the carbon content of the soil enables the soil to hold water for an extended time after it rains and makes more water available to the plants. High carbon soil can also absorb moisture from the air during times of high humidity, increasing the water available to the plants even though it doesn’t rain.

Carbon in the topsoil makes it more porous so that when it rains the water soaks into the soil and does not run off as quickly. That is important for keeping the water where the plants can use it, but it also is very important in reducing topsoil erosion and flooding. This summer here on the farm we had an inch of rain in less than a half hour. I went to a place where we have often had water running off the pasture in the past. This time there was no run off. The soil had absorbed the entire inch of rain. That was a satisfying result of the work we have done in increasing the soil carbon content of our soils.

Carbon also provides a “hotel” for the microbes and bacteria in the soil. Those microbes and bacteria in the soil are important for making nutrients and minerals available to the plants and converting decayed plant matter into soil carbon.

It is important that we complete the carbon cycle and put the “topsoil” that we burn in our cars back into the soil where it belongs. The real answer to feeding a growing world is in organic farming that sequesters carbon and builds topsoil.

To be continued.

Eating Nutrient Dense Foods – The Role of Brix is Not What We Thought

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Testing fruits and vegetables for brix, the percent sugar, does not appear to be as reliable a method for testing their mineral density as previously thought. International Ag Labs released a report earlier this year in which they tested butternut squash samples for nutrient density from 29 different sources. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the explanation of the nutrient density standard that was used to rank the samples. However, the results show some interesting things:
The brix reading does not correlate with protein content.
The brix reading does not correlate with calcium content.
The brix reading does not seem to correlate with any other mineral content.

What this report shows is that testing the brix of fruits and vegetables produced by someone else, such as from the grocery store or from a farmer’s market, or even from your own garden, is not a reliable indicator of nutrient density. However, that does not mean that testing the brix content is worthless. In general, a higher brix squash tended to have a higher mineral content. Also, this test was an evaluation of only butternut squashes and not all fruits and vegetables.

Last summer, I started questioning the accuracy of testing fruits and vegetables for brix to find the mineral content. Our green beans were only 7 brix (between good and average on the brix chart with 10 being excellent), but the yield was incredible, and the taste was some of the best I had ever eaten and the beans were very tender. The leaves of the green bean plants were 15 brix. I did a little testing and found that doubling the moisture content cuts the brix reading in half. Cutting the moisture content in half doubles the brix reading. Therefore, knowing the moisture content (dry matter percent) is important if you are comparing the brix between two fruits or vegetables grown in two different locations.

But! Before you throw out your refractometer as a worthless test instrument, the refractometer is an important test instrument in your garden. If you can get the brix of the leaf of the plants above 12 brix, the bugs will pretty much leave the plants alone. You can test the plants to make sure that any nutritional spray, such as milk, honey and egg spray, is increasing the brix reading in the leaf. Also, if you have put down soft rock phosphate and high calcium limestone on your garden, you know that the minerals are there at a higher level, even if the brix reading of the vegetables does not test in the excellent range, especially if the leaves of the plant test 12 brix or higher.

This summer, it has been difficult to keep the brix reading of the leaf high because of all the rain and cloudy weather that we have had. It is the sun shining on the leaf that helps make the sugar in the leaf. We have had a lot more problems with Japanese beetles this year, and I believe it is because of all the rainy weather.

The squash study by International Ag Labs highlights the importance of growing our own food or purchasing it from someone we know who has put the minerals into the soil. Eating nutrient dense foods is not as easy to accomplish as we would like it to be, but it is vitally important for our health.

The results of the butternut squash study can be found at this link:
http://marketgardens.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Compiled-Butternut-Squash-Data.pdf

Newly Revealed Dangers of Eating Roundup® Tainted Food

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Most pastured poultry producers use conventionally grown feed (either GMO or non-GMO) for their chickens because it is half the cost of organic chicken feed. They are able to offer what appears to many as the same product at a much lower cost than what we can provide. We remain committed to using organic feed because in the end, when all the health care costs are figured in, it is probably at least half the cost of using conventionally grown chicken feed. Actually, a person’s health can’t be measured in dollars. Many terminally ill people would gladly give all they had just to have true health.

GMO grain is only part of the problem in causing health problems. Newly released research shows that trace amounts of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, are slowly and silently degrading people’s health. Farmers us glyphosate to kill cover crops, grass, and weeds so that they can plant the new crop. It is an important part of no-till farming, which is the method most conventional farmers use.

I remember, back when we first started farming, that farmers were being told that Roundup was completely harmless to people. We were told it only affected plants, and when it touched the soil it was neutralized. That was false information. I believe that most farmers are totally ignorant of what they are doing to other people’s health by their use of herbicides, pesticides, and GMO’s in the food that they are producing. In addition, for many farmers, money clouds their thinking and practice; not because they are greedy, but many of them have their backs to the wall financially and do not see it as possible financially for them to produce organic food.

New research shows that trace amounts of glyphosate is found in corn, soybeans, wheat and sugar grown on ground where Roundup was applied. These trace amounts of glyphosate inhibit enzymes in the gut and prevent the body from detoxifying other chemical residues and toxins. The result is many of the modern diseases.

The abstract of the new report in Entropy reads:

“Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.” (Emphasis added)

You can read the full report at this link: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

The bottom line is: if you want to get sick, eat as much food as you can that has ingredients from conventionally produced corn, soybeans, wheat, and sugar beet sugar. Eating out for lunch or dinner is a great way to get these glyphosate contaminated foods.

Our family is committed to providing you with food that will give you health. Thank you for your support by purchasing our products and making it possible.

Terra Preta Update

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In the June 2009 farm newsletter we shared how we were making charcoal and experimenting with it to make Terra Preta soil in our garden. We applied about an inch and a half of charcoal and incorporated it in the top six inches of soil in a three foot wide strip across the rows of vegetables in half of our garden. Unfortunately, we did not see any improvement in growth, drought resistance, or brix improvement to the plants grown in the charcoal enriched soil in any of the years since then. I suspect that there is some other ingredient in Terra Preta soils that make them so productive.

Thankful for an Abundant Harvest

We are thankful for an abundant harvest this year from our two gardens. Cathy, Kara, and Melody canned and froze an amazing 1090 quarts of fruits and vegetables this summer and fall. We also have a bunch of squash, pumpkins, potatoes and sweet potatoes in the cellar and in cool storage. I say amazing because I did not expect that much as we were harvesting things from the garden this summer.

We made a decision at the beginning of the year to try to grow as much of our own nutrient dense food as we could for the health of our family. The fruits and vegetables that you can buy in the stores still look as good and nutritious as they did 30 or 40 years ago. But the nutritional analysis by the USDA shows that the calcium and mineral content has significantly declined and it is showing up in the health of people. 50 years ago there were only a few small drug stores. The “pharmacy” section in the grocery store consisted of basic things such as aspirin, cough drops, and bandaids. Now each grocery store has a full service pharmacy to provide drugs to supplement the poor quality food. Plus, there are a lot of other large drug stores conveniently located around town to keep everyone propped up with their medications. And they keep building new drug stores all over town.

In looking at the statistics for individual illnesses and diseases, the percentage of the population that has a particular illness or disease has significantly multiplied in the last 50 years. Plus there are many new diseases that were unheard of 50 years ago. The health care industry has grown to be the #1 industry in America. People are seriously sick! One Walmart we saw in Virginia had 32 handicapped parking spaces and many of them were filled – a testimony to the poor nutritional quality of their food. Cheap food has led to poor results.

There is a solution, and there is hope. Organic is a step in the right direction, but organic does not necessarily mean that the organic farmer has added any more calcium and trace minerals to his soil than what the conventional farmer has. The solution is to either grow as much of your own food as you can, or buy it from a farmer who you know has added the calcium and trace minerals to his soil.


The open pantry shelves in Cathy’s kitchen hold a sampling of each of the canned fruits and vegetables in the cellar. Everything came from our gardens except for the apples and peaches. A few of the jars are from last year.
Top shelf: Peach Jam, Salsa, Grape Jelly, Grape Syrup, Pizza Sauce
Second Shelf: Pumpkin Butter, Raspberry Jam, Bread and Butter Pickles, Apple Butter, Cucumber Relish, Peach Jam, Pickled Banana Pepper Slices, Pepper Relish, Zucchini Relish, Ketchup
Third shelf: Tomato Juice, Apple Pie Filling, Peaches, Stewed Tomatoes, Dilly Bean Pickles, Pumpkin, Dill Pickles, Pizza Sauce.
Forth Shelf: V8 Juice, Pickled Beets, White Grape Juice, Green Beans, Zucchini, Purple Grape Juice, Pickled Okra, Apple Sauce
Not pictured: Chicken Broth, Chili Peppers, Chunked Tomatoes.

Contrary to popular advice, it is possible to reuse regular canning jar lids if you are careful not to bend the lids when you remove them. We have had a very low failure rate in reusing lids.

Pantry Paratus Radio, Episode 019: Interview at Jehovah Jireh Farm

From homesteading to professional farming
Myron and our son Joel were interviewed for a podcast on Pantry Paratus Radio. It is a good overview of our farming philosophy, teaching children how to work, homesteading, how to produce food in the middle of winter if you don’t have any stored up, principles of growing healthy plants, etc. It runs almost an hour in length and might be something to listen to on your commute to work.

http://pantryparatus.com/blog/podcast_jehovah_jireh_farm

To Plow or Not to Plow, That is the Question!

By Myron Horst

Note: Whether you garden or farm or not, I believe that you will find this article interesting. The subject “To plow or not to plow” is a much more important subject than what most of us realize. There is a surprising conclusion.

In farming and in gardening there are opposing voices, those saying that the ground should not be plowed or tilled and others saying that the soil should be plowed. Both methods appear to work, but which one is the best? One of the challenges in life is discerning the best solution to take.  There are many things in life that “work” and highly educated people promote them as being the answer, but in the end there are consequences or side effects that outweigh the good. It is also important to ask the question: “It is better as compared to what”. For our family, we are not just interested in producing food to eat, we also want to produce the most nutrient dense food that we can.

No-till farming has been growing in practice here in the U.S. The method used by most farmers today is to spray Roundup to kill the cover crop or weeds that have grown in the stubble of the previous crop. The new crop seeds are planted with a special no-till planter through the dead plant mat that is left on the ground. No-till farming has enabled farmers to be able to farm a considerably larger number of acres because all they have to do is spray and plant. No plowing and no cultivating.

For me, the subject to plow or not to plow came up again this past winter when we watched the video “Back to Eden.” It was a documentary of a man who had an impressive looking garden. The documentary had excellent pictures of beautiful plants. Most of the shots were close up and it looked impressive. He did not plow or till, but used a mulch layer on the ground to suppress the weeds and build a rich black soil. He had been gardening this way for a number of years and was getting good results. The method of gardening was presented as God’s method, and as an almost no work garden. I was convinced enough to try it on some of our vegetables.  A lot of Bible verses were quoted throughout the video. But is he right?

I found a website, called “Farming God’s Way”. It is an organization that is teaching African farmers how to farm and to provide for their families. They too advocate not plowing and putting down a layer of mulch. They call the mulch layer “God’s blanket”. They intersperse the teaching on the farming method with Bible verses. It sounds like a very Biblical method. But are they right?

The voices cautioning that the ground should not be plowed or tilled have been around for a long time. Newman Turner and Ruth Stout from years ago both strongly recommended that the ground should not be plowed.

About six years ago, our family went to visit the Rodale Institute’s organic research farm in Pennsylvania for their farm open house. I was very interested in their no-till system that appeared to be a real answer. They had developed an organic no-till system that did not use chemicals. They invented a large roller that would roll the cover crop and kill it by crimping the plants. The roller was mounted on the front of the tractor and a no-till corn planter was pulled behind the tractor for a one pass planting. The cover crop created a mat, or mulch layer that helped conserve moisture and provided nitrogen for the crop. I was impressed with the system and we went back the next year to learn more. That year I was not as impressed. There were a number of problems that they had not been able to fix and the yields were not as good as conventional tilling.

On the other side of the subject is the teaching of Carey Reams. Reams stressed the importance of plowing to reverse the calcium and phosphates in the soil. Calcium tends to move down in the soil which is evidenced by stalactites and stalagmites in caverns. Phosphates tend to rise to the top where they can be washed into streams and rivers. By turning the soil over, the calcium is kept in the topsoil layer and the phosphates are buried back in the soil. Calcium is an important element in producing nutrient dense, high brix food.

So which method is best, to plow or not to plow? For me as a farmer in researching a farming method, I like to go to the oldest agricultural book, the Bible, and see what it says. On this subject it opened a window into a totally new perspective for me, that enabled me to see the collision course that farming is on today.

About the Garden of Eden it says this: Genesis 2:15 “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

  • The Hebrew word translated “dress” means to till. Even in the garden of Eden it was necessary to cultivate.

In Ezekiel 36:34-35a it says that plowing and cultivation was an important part in the land becoming like the garden of Eden. “And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. 35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden”;

  • Tilling, or plowing appears to be an important part of creating a fertile and very productive field or garden.

Isaiah 28:23-26 It says this: “Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. 24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? 25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? 26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.”

  • Plowing produces clods of earth. Cultivation breaks up the clods.
  • This passage says that God’s method is to plow the soil – the opposite of what the Back to Eden film said, and the Farming God’s Way states. In my research, on almost every subject, I have found Christians saying and believing opposite things to be true. It can be confusing and misleading if you take what one person says without checking things out yourself.

The oldest agricultural book has some strong words about no-till farming and this is what opens the window to a bigger perspective of the subject.

Proverbs 12:11 He that tills his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that follows vain person is void of understanding.

Proverbs 28:19 He that tills his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that follows after vain persons shall have poverty enough.

  • Plowing and cultivation are important for success in farming and in gardening to produce an abundant crop.
  • “No-till” is following “vain” persons who think that they know and have the answers, but in the end it results in poverty.

So, is the old agricultural book right? Is no-till following vain persons? Does no-till result in poverty? There are some interesting things that have come out recently.

Rodale Institute, about a month ago, released the yield data for their 2011 yield trials of conventional tillage and their no-till system. The conventional tillage system yielded 95 bushels of corn per acre and 39 bushels of soybeans per acre. The no-till system yielded less than half the yield of corn even though more seeds had been planted per acre – only 40 bushels of corn per acre. The no-till soybeans only yielded 20 bushels per acre. Only half the yield with no-till is a sure way to poverty. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20120627_challenging-yields-challenging-weather

In conventional farming, no-till comes in a package. It requires the use of lots of chemicals – Roundup to kill the grasses and weeds, GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds to resist the Roundup, pesticides and fungicides to kill the bugs and fungus because the crops are so low brix that the bugs and fungus try to eat it up to return it to the soil. No-till is a method that is promoted by the Monsanto Corporation who gives huge donations to many of the big university agricultural departments. So, of course, the no-till trials show the no-till advantage. But one thing to remember is to ask the question: “No-till is better as compared to what?”. They are not comparing no-till to properly remineralized, plowed, and cultivated soil, and they are not looking at the long term effects of the whole no-till system. They are looking primarily at short term crop yield comparisions.

The no-till revolution has resulted in a very high percentage of conventional soybeans and corn being genetically modified to resist Roundup. A New York Times article talking about GMO Roundup Ready crops says: “Those crops made it so easy for farmers to control weeds by spraying glyphosate [Roundup] that Roundup Ready crops now account for about 90 percent of soybeans and around 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States. And use of glyphosate skyrocketed, at the expense of rival herbicides.” They go on to say how super weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup, and Dow Corning is looking for approval for their GMO corn that is resistant to 2,4, D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) so that 2,4,D can be sprayed after the corn comes up, instead of Roundup to control the Roundup resistant super weeds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/energy-environment/dow-weed-killer-runs-into-opposition.html?pagewanted=all

We can see, that at the heart of the GMO controversy is actually the question, “To plow or not to plow?” No-till has resulted in GMO seeds being used in a high percentage of our crops. What is the effect of GMO grain? Does it improve health or destroy it? Just released this fall is a French study on the long term feeding of GMO grains to rats. The rats grew huge tumors and 70% of the females died. If you have not seen the pictures of the rats, the pictures are worth a thousand words. You can see the pictures at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html

Last week Russia halted all imports of GMO grain after the French study came out. http://rt.com/business/news/russia-monsanto-corn-ban-005/

We see a progression of following “vain” persons promoting no-till. No-till requires the use of herbicides, such as Roundup. The use of Roundup results in the need for GMO crops. GMO grains have the potential of resulting in cancer. But that is not all. There are more consequences of following “vain” persons:

The United Nations in a report states that the suicide rate for farmers worldwide is higher than for non-farmers. In the Midwest of the U.S. where most of the corn, wheat, and soybeans are grown, suicide rates among male farmers are two times higher than the general population! This is a sad and telling statistic. No-till farming has not resulted in grain farmers becoming more successful. They have become more dependent on the big corporations and the chemicals and seeds that they sell. The more dependent that they have become, the more it drains their wallet. Finally, in despair and financial hopelessness they commit suicide.
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/PF/presentations/farmers_relief.pdf

The suicide rate among farmers dependent on Monsanto is highlighted by the suicide problem among farmers in India. The Infowars.com website reports that in India every 30 minutes another farmer commits suicide. Over 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India alone in the last 16 years! They often committed the act by drinking the same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with. http://www.infowars.com/monsantos-gmo-seeds-contributing-to-farmer-suicides-every-30-minutes/

The Hindustan Times reports: “India’s Bt cotton dream is going terribly wrong. For the first time, farmer suicides, including those in 2011-12, have been linked to the declining performance of the much hyped genetically modified (GM) variety adopted by 90% of the country’s cotton-growers since being allowed a decade ago. Policymakers have hailed Bt cotton as a success story but a January 9 internal advisory, a copy of which is with HT, sent out to cotton-growing states by the agriculture ministry presents a grim scenario. ‘Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The state of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers,’ says the advisory.  Bt cotton’s success, it appears, lasted merely five years. Since then, yields have been falling and pest attacks going up.” http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Business/Ministry-blames-Bt-cotton-for-farmer-suicides/Article1-830798.aspx

As I reflect on the above information, I realize that what that old agricultural book said: “He that tills his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that follows after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” is more accurate and not as radical as what it first sounds. The long term results of no-till is not sustainable because of its heavy dependance on chemicals and GMO seeds and the poverty that they bring with them, not only to the farmer, but also to those who eat the GMO grains. Healthcare costs have skyrocketed in recent years and are draining the wallets of the consumer, bringing them poverty and dependance on the government to supply healthcare.

It is helpful to be able to step back and see the bigger picture. In the end, the big corporations such as Monsanto and Dow Corning will fail because their products are not sustainable and end in poverty. It all goes back to a subject that at first appears to be relatively unimportant – To Plow or Not to Plow — That is the Question!