WHY AGRICULTURE IS A PRACTICE AND NOT AN INDUSTRY?
Jon Williams provides a fascinating insight into the development of chemical farming, the super-importance of calcium and magnesium, and the limitations of using PH as a guide to fertilising. He ends with a useful soil sampling suggestion With the increasing awareness of At the end of the second World War if the UK was taken as one large farm there was rationing in the UK and the it is out of balance with the intensive impending climate change with rising Government edict to agriculture was to livestock areas having too much organic temperatures and more unpredictable expand food production and farmers matter averaging 9.5% (the results of weather patterns it is imperative that we transform our agricultural practices quite rightly responded to that call over 900 soil samples in Wales). quickly. as they always do and particularly in For good soil structure, nutrient times of crisis. This has been recently holding capacity and good water To achieve this transition as quickly as highlighted with the Covid Virus raging retention the ideal levels need to be possible we need to follow the Albrecht the country and the shut-down of most between 5 % and 7% and farmers are Philosophy of soil analysis which is the industries but agriculture remained increasingly becoming aware that they result of 36 years of research into soil resolute and carried on producing food need to rebuild this organic matter chemistry and along with soil texture can for the nation. with the introduction of cover crops be used to amend the soil to improve However there is a major difference and re-introducing grassland as part soil structure and the aerobic nature of between agriculture and other industries of a rotation with livestock, as well as soil. This method of soil analysis results and food production from our soils reduced tillage. in a picture being formed of the effect needs to be re-classified as “The Practice of past management on the soil and This rebuilding of soil of Agriculture”. can be used as a management tool to organic matter levels take the farm forward for improved Why is this so? crop performance and at the same time includes the sequestration Firstly it is important to understand sequester carbon. that companies such as ICI were very of carbon as it contains Having carried out nearly a 1000 powerful at the end of the war as they 55% Carbon and moisture of these tests there are several issues had produced all the raw materials used which are being highlighted and the for bomb making such as TNT (Nitrogen) retention levels improve, first and possibly most important is and Potassium from their mined resource up-to 170,000 of extra the realisation that every field can be at Cleveland. different according to its past cropping water per hectare being The call for increased food policy and this is why we need to production resulted in these bomb held within the soil per 1% consider agriculture as a practice and making ingredients being used for increase. not an industry. food production. The drive for more With the emphasis on public good The realisation that the soil sampling and cheaper food is the ethos we have along with food production this can be method is holding back the development followed ever since and has resulted termed as “Regenerative agriculture” as of this approach to food production is in a more industrial approach to we develop systems to rebuild soil as key to building a more resilient business agriculture involving inputs and outputs well as produce food it is likely farmers and that the two nutrients required in and the margin of cost between these who have this intention will receive greatest volume in soil - Calcium and two regarded as success or failure of financial benefits alongside building a Magnesium - need to be raised up to the farming methodology principals more resilient business. 80% on the clay colloid with the balance followed. The increasing supply of fertiliser between the two dependent on soil This approach to agriculture has was encouraged by ICI when they set texture. This incidentally raises the PH resulted in ever tighter margins of up a company still operating today and so it is not PH that is the key indicator production as the costs of the inputs to carry-out basic soil analysis which for successful crop performance but the have risen, and the yields have was a guide for farmers as to which level of these two major nutrients that stagnated. This has been made worse as fertiliser to purchase and a PH reading governs the response of other elements the hidden cost of the depletion of the for liming requirements to ensure a and enhances crop performance natural assets of the soil such as Organic better response to that chosen applied matter have not been accounted for. fertiliser. Today it is important to pH can be at optimum for ever! The result of this is soils used for understand that this was a tool to be The choice of liming material can be done cropping only, being depleted of organic used to purchase fertiliser only and it when a detailed soil sample is carried matter to the extent that 70% of all is now time to consider a more detailed out and I suggest that all purchases of arable land in the UK has now less look into soil analysis for building lime from a quarry need to come with than 3% organic matter remaining. This resilience in the food production a full analysis as the soil amendment needed may be for Calcium limestone or situation obviously cannot continue and process. 42 DIRECT DRILLER MAGAZINE
ISSUE 11 | OCTOBER 2020
