Regenerative Agriculture - a discussion
Eric Jelinski - Ed O’ConnellApril 9, 2023
Question: Ed O’Connell
Can regenerative agriculture be economically and practically feasible?
Videos and articles on regenerative agriculture.
Answer: Eric Jelinski
The answer to these two questions is a resounding YES.
My brief explanation is:
The Regenerative aspect is in the details of how regeneration is completed, and there are many ways and not one method in detail works for every farmer for every crop and crop rotation sequence.
1. The molboard plow and heavy cultivator and disk machinery is used much less and even down to zero use by many farmers now.
Farmers are now learning the biology of soils and the interaction of bacteria and fungi with nutrient transfer through to the plant roots, and along with this, being able to tap more of existing minerals in the soil, hence using less fertilizer. The previous methods of only doing mineral analysis for calculating fertilizer applications is not that useful anymore.
The problem with heavy plowing and cultivation leaves the soil to dry out in the sun and that kills bacteria and fungi in the topsoil.
2. Using various cover crops, builds carbon food for bacteria and fungi, holds water/moisture necessary for the crop, helps bacteria with nitrogen fixation ie.
N2 in air is 80% but useless to pants until converted to nitrite and nitrates. In addition, some of the cover crops chosen may be legumes, eg. clover and other species that take N2 from air and deposit nitrates into their root nodules, and that nitrogen is available to the cash crop that is planted in a subsequant year, reducing fertilizer needs. Other cover crops having deep tap roots can bring up minerals from the subsoil.
Furthermore, cover crops can suppress and even eliminate weeds and the need for weed spraying. Some varieties harbor beneficial insects and can eliminate the need for spraying toxic herbicides. Keep in mind for the past ~50 years we have sprayed billions of gallons of herbicides and pesticides, and not eradicated any one weed or pests, yet our foods now contain elements of those poisons being fingered for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autism.
Cover crops prevent soil erosion by wind and rains.
Having a cover over winter months means less freezing of bacteria and fungi.
Avoided dust bowl of the 1930’s
Regeneration basically means turning dead clay/sand soil that has been abused for the past 50+ years into living soil that enhances growth of better, more nutritious food. Regeneration really is adopting nature's processes, eg. using multiple species of plants instead of mono-cultures.
3. On economics:
less heavy machines required for plowing, disturbing the soil, less wear and tear on machines and tractors.
much less fuel consumed,
much less fertilizer, Using plants to create fertilizer from air and subsoil.
healthy soil ---> healthy food ---> healthy people ---> less healthcare costs ---> less cost for expensive drugs ---> but less profits for big pharma and the big farm chemical companies.
Hope this helps, Eric
Eric Jelinski M. Eng. P. Eng.Marric Gardens
https://www.facebook.com/flowersandveggies/ 11450 Simcoe County Road 10
RR1 Stayner Ontario
L0M1S0
706-795-1921 Eric's cell
eric_jelinski@sympatico.ca
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-jelinski-5157a212/?originalSubdomain=ca
PS: I am also a ‘retired’ nuclear engineer, and I teach a graduate level nuclear engineering course at the University of Toronto.
Eric Jelinsski’s opinions on agriculture are based on:
1. Having learned how to farm from my father in the 1950’s and 60’s before chemicals. My father had learned Agriculture from the University of Warsaw before WW2.
2. I read voraciously from books, peer reviewed in eg. Science Direct and Google Scholar. My U of T employment and alumni library card offers me the ability to obtain literature from almost around the world. I have found some very old books on agriculture that describe the regenerative practices of today.
3. On my 50 acre farm in southern Ontario, I practice what I read, on cover cropping and allelopathy in approx one acre sections with some important game
changing observations. Eg. that pollinator plants, some better than others, attract beneficial insects that will eat the larvae of potato beetles, therefore eliminating the need for spraying against the Colorado Beetle. I’ve planted this combo for over 5 years as a test to confirm. Excited, I approached people I know at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and University of Guelph, a prominent school of agriculture, they were not interested. The reason I assume is that they are embedded with financing for R&D by the big chemical companies, a large stream of research and teaching professors, PhD students, post Docs all dependent on industrial grants. They are stuck in their own silos guided by their model for financing. With my solution, the above industrial education stream gets wiped out by selectively co-planting with additional bags of commercially available seeds.
4. In a nutshell, I observe we have been lied to by the big chemical companies, eg. Monsanto claiming that the shikimate pathway does not exist in humans and in cattle, and that was the basis for government approval of glyphosate, a chelating agent, eg. Roundup(tm) WRONG!, Our intestine tracts contain some of the same bacteria as in soil, and these bacteria have the same shikimate pathway for transfer of nutrients in our gut. It is no wonder, glyphosate is found in human and cattle blood streams and urine. Having this chelating agent in our system we may infer that uptake of minerals is impeded and thus links to modern health issues. The recent rise in probiotics to promote gut health is very interesting.
On a larger scale, ~8 billion people grow to approximately 100 kg over a ~20 year timeframe, from the joining of an egg and a sperm, i.e.. 100 kg mass from nil mass over 20 years and then continue for the lifetime of ~60 to 80 years. All of the above mass of the population of the earth came from oxygen, water and soil that grows the plants using minerals from the soil, water, carbon dioxide at above a minimum suitable partial pressure, and sunlight at the temperature suitable for photosynthesis ~ 6 to 29 deg C based on earth’s proximity to the sun, not on Mars, not on Venus. This is an awesome combination of physical, physics, chemistry, and biology. Yet when I publish the above on social media, people react with derision and close my accounts.
I recommend reading, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations: Montgomery, David R.: 9780520272903: Books - Amazon.ca
Harvesting plants to feed people and prehistoric armies failed tests for knowledge even up to today. Raping of the soil for many years results in malnutrition and nations collapse because they cannot feed themselves and succumb to diseases, and health care
systems unable to cope, and they fail to remember “Let Thy Food be Thy Medicine” spoken ~2500 years ago by Hippocrates.
When countries fail, iInstead of food crops, weeds emerge, and will over several centuries regenerate the soil. Ah, there is that word, ‘regenerate’, if only we learned how to regenerate the soil while annually planting and harvesting.
Eric Jelinski M. Eng. P. Eng.
Marric Gardens
https://www.facebook.com/flowersandveggies/
11450 Simcoe County Road 10
RR1 Stayner Ontario
L0M1S0
706-795-1921 Eric's cell
eric_jelinski@sympatico.ca
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-jelinski-5157a212/?originalSubdomain=ca
