Scaled Up Sustainable

 Making the move from a ten or fifteen acre conventional growing farm to a sustainable operation is neigh  impossible. There are few who would even try. This is because the supports needed for scaling up to a system like No-till, from acres to ten acres, does not make it seem as simple as a surface survey would indicate. This article is about the issues presented in making the move from conventional farming to a regenerative system possible. But before you decide to follow my advice, know this: It will be an entirely new thing. New things are rarely successful at first. New things come with new problems. And new things fail about eighty-five percent of the time.

But also know that if it can be done, the result will be heroic and potentially game changing for farming.  So let's discuss, in broad terms, three ways someone might, some day, change a large monocropping farm over to a sustainable large vegetable or monocrop farm using regenerative methods, no-till methodology, and some akin to Ruth Stout methods. These seem to me those which hold the most promise for going large.

Large Scale Regenerative Farming

Regenerative Farming on the smaller scale vegetable farm seeks to replace chemical inputs with organic inputs, change the way the land uses water and machinery, and seeks to use the land without herbicides or pesticides. In truth, regenerative farming is much the same as conventional farming practices. The factors of soil preparation change and some change in planting schedules are important. 

 In the smaller scale this change is relatively easy. Bringing in mulch and compost to replace many chemicals, while at the same time switching over to organic fertilizers. Targeting a cropping effort using only the fertilizers a soil test indicates would reduce input costs, but it is the soil organic matter added to the soil which becomes the basis for regenerating the biome throughout the cropping cycles. And this key component is the basis for regenerative success.

Assuming that an acre of compost spread two inches deep, per year, would require somewhere near twelve yards of compost spread evenly over each acre. Spreading this amount  might be accomplished with a wheel barrow and rake at the smaller scale, fifteen acres would require something more of a purpose built machine to do the work. A manure spreader perhaps would do the job, but efficiency would require a purpose built spreader capable of becoming a tractor towed implement. Twenty-five, eight yard, units of compost would be delivered in nine twenty yard trucks, which is not too large for a compost staging area, but would conceivably cost $5400 per year and require a yearly renewal. There are few suppliers in the world able to handle this amount of clean compost for use as soil organic matter today, yet alone source the factors required to produce it. So let us leave this aside as we ponder creating new companies to make what we will need.  One caveat might be that above ground plant matter would become the fodder for large on-site compost piles, leaving the demand for large amounts of imported compost slowly reduced. But plants do not live on compost alone, especially in the early going.

The amount of Complete Organic Fertilizers required to sustain the regenerative model  could be tailored to the mono-cropping needs sustainable systems require as dictated by by soil testing. The same testing now done to choose the proper inputs would be roughly the same, but the bags of fertilizer types would necessarily be completely different.  Custom mixing of fertilizers on the scale of a fifteen acre farm would be quite large, though not difficult. Spreading is as simple as using the machinery available and in use today, so the change requires is really quite small and very attainable. The cost increase is par for the course for switching to Organic and progressively lower as growing seasons come and go. Compost inputs, as the are incorporated into the soil, takes over providing nutrition from fertilizing inputs.  The lack of sustainable pesticides would require more intensive uses of micro-biome inputs, such as targeted nematodes, to keep pest populations down. 

Machinery requirements, except in the area of compost distribution, would be largely the same. Row sizes and tractor widths would not change. Crop choices would also be largely unchanged, though seed drilling would necessarily go a bit deeper to make a viable soil contact target in much lighter soils.  Watering would slightly increase in Spring, but decrease as the seasons wear on and so eventually reducing watering costs a bit. Harvesting would require the same tools used in other larger sized monocropping efforts. 

The cost therefore of changing from conventional chemical/machine farming at scale would, for the most part, be the addition of composting, the additional cost of fully organic fertilizers, and the loss of market profit in the short term.  There would be a slight decrease in harvest in year one, less so in year two, but full harvests should be attainable in year three as fertilizer and composting  costs decrease yearly. While regenerative farming will not  replace lower quality cropping, such as fodder for animals, because of higher costs, it would likely score a higher per acre price organic as and sustainable produce is usually of higher value. Break even on non-regenerative practices might occur in a five year plan no matter the crop. But the type of crops available to the farmer would increase significantly. 

Ultimately it seems quite plausible to change over from conventional  farming to organic cropping using regenerative farming practices. The issues stopping many from considering the change are largely the availability of sufficient amounts of clean compost and development of tools capable of efficiently spreading compost. Fertilizing, other than the move away from petrochemicals, is a matter of creating large operation supplies. Watering is essentially the same at first and decreasing slightly year over year as the soil becomes able to hold more water nearer the surface. Planting and harvest are largely unchanged, but crop prices would rise as crop quality rises.

Large Scale No-till 

For  a farmer wishing to switch over to no-till systems there would be some larger changes necessary to make it happen than found in a change to regenerative farming. Some of the change would be the same as in Regenerative Farming at the same scale. 

No-till requires large amounts of compost and much the same fertilizers of regenerative systems, but there is additional requirements to soil quality which would require new tools be created to implement the system. Soil aeration is needed in the early going as soils are created using natural processes, such as vermiculture, to mix the soils and impart sufficient biologicals. So of this could be accomplished by adding these biologicals directly to the soil in the first year and then carefully  protecting it as the microbes and fungi colonies are well established. . A farmer might take the three years to develop the soil so that no-till works simply by planting the right cover crops and mowing them carefully so as not to compact the soils, but this is not likely since farming is a business. But a farmer might transition from low quality land uses like grass farming by using a series of crops that do not need herbicide application.

Compost is not mixed into the soils in a truely no-till environment, but allowed to sit on the surface and become incorporated by vermiculture and this would present certain challenges at larger scale. Tools needed to loosen the soils without seriously degrading soil structure would need to be developed with larger axel widths and row sizes.

Cover cropping would used to protect the soil during off season in large no-till farming, and mulch covers are used to prevent weed infiltration and contain water. So a clean source of mulch, with a very low seed load, would become of paramount importance. Some loss of planting spaces would be necessary to keep tractor tires of all sizes off the planting spaces. Soil compactions in no-till is the chief problem no-till faces.

Fertilizer requirements would be lower in the shorter and longer termed projects. No-till is not suitable for low value crops, but especially suitable for higher value vegetable crops when special tools can be created for labor to use when moving through the rows. Compost application will slowly be a decreasing need and fertilizing requirements would be reduced over time to replace the loss of nutrition removed to markets. Fifteen acres of tomatoes, is a very high value crop, usually accomplished in greenhouse the whole year around would be a high value crop and any grass farm could theoretically be made suitable for high value cropping in a few year's time. 

Large Scale Deep Tilth Farming

This method, on the smaller scale, seeks to replace soil entirely with plant materials left to degrade over time. Though very common and multi-faceted, Ruth Stout often gets credit for the method. The plant materials used are most often termed either Hay or Straw, but nearly any leaf matter will work to make new soil for plants to grow in. Depending on the cost of materials, the initial cover should be at least fourteen inches deep and allowed to sit on the land through a Winter Season before planting.  Simply put, this is the entire thing. The plant matter breaks down, is taken down by worms, composts on the surface of the soil, and is covered over in thick mulch. Scaling this up might be as easy as rolling open hay rolls on the land and continuing until the depth target is reached. 

THere are no soil amendments in this method and it takes whatever time it needs to come fully into use. The soil below, once the surface degrades sufficiently, is very light and does not hold roots well. Staking becomes more important, but plants which spread over the ground like squash and potato. 

This method might be scaled up to the size of a potato farm easily and renewing the soil is simply laying more hay on top of the soil column. The worms work the system from below and faster metabolizing air breathing microbes work the soil at the surface. Soil compaction is not an issue in deep tilth for the most part.  Watering requirements are higher at first, but like most Sustainable Farming methods the water requirements decrease over time.