According to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agriculture is directly or indirectly responsible for over a quarter of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture has also been bad for the soil, wetlands, coastal waters, forests, wild habitat, and biodiversity. To make matters worse, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is predicting a future characterized by increasing scarcity, diminishing quality of land and water resources, and persistent food insecurity – if food and agricultural systems remain on their current path. The challenge, then, is to grow more food on less land while reducing the negative environmental impacts of farming. In other words, to intensify agricultural production sustainably - that is, while maintaining soil health, managing water wisely, minimizing air, water, and climate pollution, and promoting biodiversity.
Sustainable farming includes such practices as planting cover crops, rotating crops, reducing or eliminating tillage, and using precision technologies to apply fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides. You can’t do these things without the cooperation of farmers. Not an easy task, given that farming is a low margin, high-risk affair. Over half the farms in the US lose money every year - especially small farms. Now consider that sustainable farming practices typically requires time and money, often involving high initial investment with uncertain payoff. If you were a farmer teetering on the edge, would you just go for it, because it’s the right thing to do?
Sustainable practices can also come with undesirable side-effects. In the case of corn-soybean farmers in Michigan, winter cover crops can delay or complicate spring planting; land that is not tilled for years might be invaded by difficult-to-control weeds; reducing fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide use may sacrifice crop yield and boost the risk of herbicide-resistant insects and weeds. These are real concerns in a low-margin business.
Lecturing, guilt-tripping, or trying to scare farmers into sustainable practices will not work and is likely to invite resistance - especially in the US, where there’s already a lot of bad blood between the farming community and environmental activists. Forcing farmers to change their ways with new laws and regulations could very well backfire come the next election cycle. Nope, advancing the cause of sustainable agriculture requires an attitude of respect and a solid understanding of farmer priorities, constraints, and concerns. And that requires getting answers to a bunch of questions, such as:
How much is maximizing profit a strong motivation for the farmer?
How much is protecting the natural environment a strong motivation?
How much is minimizing risk a strong motivation?
What is the farmer’s time horizon for managing the farm?
What is the farmer’s financial situation?
Is the farmer under severe financial constraints?
How easily can sustainable practice ‘x’ (from now on: “the practice”) be trialed on a limited basis before the farmer feels ready to make a decision to adopt it on a larger scale?
Will the farmer need to develop substantial new skills and knowledge to use the practice?
What is the up-front cost of the investment relative to the potential annual benefit from using the practice?
Can adoption of the practice be reversed?
How much will use of the practice likely affect the profitability of the farmer’s business in the years that it is used?
To what extent would the use of the practice affect the net exposure of the farmer’s business to risk?
To what extent would use of the practice affect the ease and convenience of the management of the farm in the years that it is used?
Who should be asking these questions? Anyone trying to help farmers adopt sustainable practices: government agents, environmentalists, fellow farmers, friends, and family.
Reference:
Kuehne, G., R. Llewellyn, et al. (2017). "Predicting farmer uptake of new agricultural practices: A tool for research, extension and policy." Agricultural Systems 156: 115-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2017.06.007