Science to the rescue - goodbye fertilizer!

[DerGolgo]

Well, not entirely goodbye, only goodbye to 88% of it.

I found this and, while Science and PNAS disagree, I think this is very important. I wouldn't say I have nightmares about food production, but whenever something, anything changes in the grocery store's selection, my first thought no longer is "guess no one was buying the other stuff" or "they are trying some new stuff" but "guess ingredient x is getting scarce so they have to try something else".
After all, we all eat, the food production is getting strained and we have already thoroughly fucked up our environment.
I thought that, consequently, this warranted sharing.
So it should be welcome news to some (me included, as I'm slightly surprised to note) that organic isn't the answer, either!
I know it's only a blog and hence not a reputable source by definition (or so I've been told by "proper" journalists) it's a blog published by the paper of record, so I'll go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... -for-food/

The longer rotations produced better yields of both corn and soy, reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides by up to 88 percent, reduced the amounts of toxins in groundwater 200-fold and didn’t reduce profits by a single cent.

Artificial fertilizer is, I believe, a biggie for the use of oil in agriculture, so reducing that is a good thing just for that, regardless of reducing chemical pollution.
Also, ammonium fertilizer greatly increases methane release from crops (rice most notably, but others also), methane being a super-powerful greenhouse gas, and nitrous oxide coming out of fields fertilized with nitrogen fertilizers is the third most important greenhouse gas, after methane and carbon dioxide. And it fucks up the ozone layer, too, so reducing that is a VERY good thing.
They don't give figures on any pesticide reduction, but they do mention pesticides would be affected, so maybe that would be a good step there, too. Considering what pesticides appear to have done to the bees.
It even involves cattle in growing crops. Healthier beef while, at the same time, taking care of all that manure that's a problem in the big feedlots.
Also, less toxins in groundwater would surely help with the US's ongoing drought situation, no? After all, this would decrease how much water is unusable.
Even labor would be affected, with profits being the same as in the current agricultural model, more labor is involved. Creating jobs, that's a good thing, also!

Good old fashioned crop rotation and letting the livestock crap where it may. Who'd a thunk it?
Now, if they could/would be allowed to work hemp in there...

After China, Europe and India, the USA is the world's biggest agricultural producer, unlike the other's it's not a developing nation nor a chaotic cabal (where three-field and more rotations are used already anyway, in Europe I mean, if I remember elementary school correctly), so it's the first address to consider implementation of such new techniques. The article mentions the USDA would probably not dare to make Monsanto et all unhappy by pushing this.
But considering that it involves considerably more labor with identical profits, I see a possibility for the department of labor, maybe? Or state governments that may want to fix rural unemployment/fucked rural economies?
Regardless of why, I do hope this news makes the rounds and enough farmers at least try that new stuff out.

[EIF]

The article mentions the USDA would probably not dare to make Monsanto et all unhappy by pushing this.

If the EPA's strength of spine was not correlated to political pressure and contribution, Monsanto would have more to worry about than the reaction of the USDA.

Nice post.

[kitkat]

Ok, here are the problems with a four-year four crop rotation they did vs. a two year rotation they presented as current practice--if the former *were* adopted to the extent that the latter currently is then:

1) corn production would be halved (going from net one crop every other year to net one crop every four years-- acreage is constrained, of course). Doing this would create a 30-40% shortfall in needed domestic production of corn alone, considering we export only ~20% of our annual corn crop. Why do we need/use so much corn? To feed livestock ~40%, for ethanol production ~30% and corn sugar ~10%. We eat a LOT of meat here and corn is the most cost effective feed there is.

2) The current subsidy structure supports only corn and soybeans out of the crops in the study's four year rotation scheme. Subsidized crops are preferentially planted of course.

3) Corn demand is trending to rise globally--(China is eating more meat and they have recently become a net corn *importer*.)

Now you know why we have a two crop rotation system here--it is all about maximizing corn production to avoid the need for importation vis a vis *current usage*. The second crop, soybeans, there is wiggle room because about 1/2 of the nations soybean crop is exported and the subsidies are much lower than for corn.

So the only thing that could make a decrease in domestic corn production do-able (and thus the multiyear rotation scheme practical) is a significant net decrease in the nation's meat consumption and/or consumption of ethanol.

[Bigshankhank]

So the only thing that could make a decrease in domestic corn production do-able (and thus the multiyear rotation scheme practical) is a significant net decrease in the nation's meat consumption

She's a witch! Burn her!

and/or consumption of ethanol.

OK, that's fine.

[DerGolgo]

Well, they do mention letting livestock forage in the fields, it's tied in there.
Also, while you'd get a corn crop only every four years, yields are supposedly higher than with the current system, so the shortfall wouldn't be quite as enormous.
At the same time, you'd reduce the amount of land that becomes plain uneconomical to farm because of over-farming.
As for producing ethanol, there are alternatives to that.
Shell have produced some scenarios how the next couple of decades will play out as cheap oil goes away. With those in hand, they are investing heavily in oil alternatives. True, their cellulosic ethanol plant is no more. But they have quietly built another plant in Texas where they aren't producing ethanol, but bio-gasoline, or drop-in biofuels as it's also called. Basically gasoline, none of that ehtanol mess. Not just from sugar, but they are looking into non-food cellulose, which you can get from, I believe, algae. Or any old grass.
Technological alternatives to ethanol from corn exist, heck, alternatives to the black stuff from the ground. Over here, the EU is currently debating limiting the amount of ethanol that may be used in fuel, because of food prices world-wide rising, so that technology will need replacing at some point anyway.
Changing over a country's agriculture won't happen overnight, likewise, changing our energy sources won't happen over night. But if they happen in a balanced manner, it can be done, of that much I'm certain.
And maybe the age of dirt-cheap meat is simply over. Or some free-marketeers might figure out how to produce efficient cattle feeds from other crops. Soybeans have 11g/100g of carbs vs. 19g/100g for corn, while they've got 6.8g/100g of fat vs. 1.18g/100g for corn. Calories for soybean is 618 vs. 360 for corn.
As for oats? Carbs are 66.3g/100g, fat is 6.9g/100g, calories are 389 per 100g. More fat and more carbs and slightly more calories than corn, and it's used as cattle feed already. Heck, most of the oats produced in Germany, and we produce a lot of oats, does go just there.
Alfalfa? It's grown as forage for cattle anyway, and letting cattle forage is one of the points of the article.
I recall some documentary or clever article or something which made a point of cattle being fed corn not just because it's efficient at making 'em fat, but because corn was so dirt-cheap with all the subsidies. Over here, they also grow corn. But the animals don't get much of it, we feed 'em oats. So the efficiency superiority of corn can't be THAT big.

Use oats and alfalfa to replace the lost corn in regards to the cattle, get out of food-feedstock ethanol with the new technologies coming around, I think it's doable. While creating more jobs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the fossil stuff consumed in fertilizer production. I did some looking up, I must admit, artificial fertilizer isn't dependent on crude oil, I was wrong there. Nitrogen fertilizers are made from ammonia, however, and ammonia is produced from natural gas. While natural gas prices had hit a low with fracking, it's not exactly becoming more plentiful and, if we're gonna ruin one landscape after the other to get it out of the ground, reducing the demand for it doesn't sound like a bad idea with the oil running out and all that.
So, doable I believe, and necessary, I'm sure. If, like the article claims, profits aren't affected by the change, but more jobs are created, it may just happen as a slow groundswell which, eventually, some ballsy politicians can lean on while making reforms happen to push this techniques.
One thing to start with on a national level, eventually, might be to add the words "also oats" to the existing corn subsidy laws. Not take away any subsidy from those who rely on it, but add another crop to equally subsidize so that farmers have a choice. It's more freedom, so more American!!
Once the price for oats would drop, as it would since ethanol isn't made from it (I think), someone would figure out what to do with it.
Darnit, you lot are American, not American't!

EDIT:
I just looked up the efficiency of corn vs. oats, someone did some science to it, they did.
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/archive/streeter ... backgr.htm

No significant differences were detected in average daily gain (P=0.2), dry matter intake (P=0., or feed efficiency (P=0.4) of naked oat hay vs corn silage-fed heifers.

So, with greater yield than currently, you'd get a crop of cattle feed every two years, as you do now. So even if the production of oats was fewer tons (or bushels or whatever) per acre than with corn, which I will look up next, you might just break even. As I say, doable.

Further Edit:
One acre yields about 125 bushels of corn while only between 40 and 50 bushels of Oats.
Oats, despite their nutritional value indicating otherwise, are indeed a slightly less efficient feed for cattle, see here:
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1238w.htm
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1020w.htm
But, if you phase out ethanol from corn, take into account the science mentioned above, you'd still have plenty of feed. Like I said, over here, it's less corn than oats, and while we may eat less meat than you Americans, YOU eat less than the Luxemburgers. The Spanish and Austrians aren't fare behind ya.
http://vegetarian.procon.org/view.resou ... eID=004716
US meat consumption per capita has been declining slightly since 2001, too (maybe it's the baby-boomers dying off?).

[kitkat]

Good arguments but there is this one 'little' catch...the 30% increase in world population forecast (the *median* forecast by the UN) by 2050.

Forage in fields would require a massive jump in transportation costs. In the feedlot scheme transportation costs are minimized..they ship the feeder cattle to the lots, they fatten them up and ship directly to the processor. Dispersed field feeding would be a net (efficiency) loss because of the increased transpo costs.

Ethanol offers some hope re; reduction of corn as an energy crop replaced by cellulose crops. The tech isn't there yet but likely will be relatively soon. Currently it comprises 25% of the US transpo fuel usage and that is just going to rise as oil tightens.

Beef consumption is (incrementally) down a bit but pork is up. Beef will likely continue to fall in the future which could provide some relief.

But there are still those ~3 billion extra mouths to feed coming on-line to deal with, regardless. Of course there is always the possibility that the industrialized world will just turn their collective backs on the third world portion of this scenario, if it reaches a 'them or us' type scenario...

Forgive my pessimism but on the whole it seems more than warranted. Humanity's ecological footprint *today* is considered by some to be 50% in excess of what the planet can sustain. (Wackernagel and Rees ;University of British Columbia) And although agri-efficiency has increased a great deal over the last 20-30 years, that productivity rate increase has now leveled off to (depending on the data source on uses) less than the population growth rate. Not exactly 'good news'...

Bottom line to me is 'too many people'. Period. Engineering any sort of 'soft landing' in the future is an enormous challenge. I am not betting on it happening. The very nature of our species argues strongly against it.

[DerGolgo]

Consider the population increase then.
More mouths to feed means rising food prices, meat and otherwise, and consequently greater demand for fertilizers, which we manufacture from a diminishing resource, natural gas.
Ignoring the global warming and other ecological aspects, a method of farming which both brings greater yields and reduces the demand for fertilizer is what would be the thing to do to deal with that.
With consequently rising food and fertilizer prizes, it would even be what the markets would demand.
Compared to the current agri-industry, it's infinitely better suited to a soft landing strategy. Because fertilizer gets less and mouths get more, both situations are addressed by this. As is unemployment, to a certain degree, so that's good, too.
Over here, as I said, we eat a lot of meat. I'm not sure about meat prizes in Luxemburg, but considering how tiny that country is and what neighbors it has, I seriously doubt they are significantly, if any, lower than here in Jerryland. I'm not in the top 1%, heck, not even in the top 10% or top 20% of income earners, I just looked it up and I'm actually pretty much dead on average, income-wise.
And I eat more meat than most people I know, avoiding the carbs and all that. And I don't shop for cheap meat or anything, more often than not I pay a little more than I absolutely have to to either get better products or for the convenience of microwave or oven-ready stuff. And still I've got money left over at the end of the month, enough for the bike, enough to pay off my student loans, enough for anything I needed, actually. So even if meat prizes rise a little, as they would with a situation where cattle are more difficult to feed and food becomes more expensive anyway, you 'mericans could probably stick to your current diet for quite a while to come.
As for the transportation costs of meat, well, that only really applies for centralized food processing industries, where you'd gather up all the distributed cattle for centralized slaughter and processing. For centuries, farmers cut up their own livestock (you should hear the stories my mother tells, still the norm over here in the 40s and 50s), over here every larger city has it's own slaughterhouse (or five), even though most meat you buy in stores isn't local anymore. With modern cold-chain technology, ever cheaper electronics to manage goods, ever more efficient refrigeration and better insulation material (aerogels are slowly getting cheaper, apparently), there's little reason that those locally foraging animals could be slaughtered locally.
With digital technology developing as it does, there's little reason why a cut of beef thus produced could not get a quick-check for quality from a standardized machine, an item code, and then get thrown into a shipping and distribution system that bring it to whoever ordered it. Yes, not as easy as the old centralized and mass-production system. But, like the post system, doable. A rise in cost, which surely would, in part, end up as a drop in profits rather than a pure rise in prices, but you'd get that crop rotation system working right, get rid of the disease-breeding feedlots (less antibiotics in the cattle, that'll be nice), less pollution from the feedlots and you'd actually get a lot of cuts of beef ending up not where someone made a sale between two provides, but where someone ordered that quality of meat. It's a commodity anyway, so instead of company a selling x hundreds of sides of beef to company b, company b would order x hundred generic sides of beef and they'd come from whichever farms are closest.
This would, of course, involve quite some stuff to ensure product recalls can work and the like, but with modern inventory management systems, I think that, too, is doable.

Considering the alternative, keeping up an inefficient crop-production and centralized hyper polluting meat-production, such a scheme would fit far better, both morally and economically, into a world where more people want food and the ingredients for making that food (natural gas for ammonia) become scarcer.

[kitkat]

More good argument!

I am not particularly worried about the first world being fed. I am looking at world demand and the innate market push for production to meet that increasing demand as long as possible. The innate market impetus to meet demand *includes* export demands and that alone would be sufficient to sustain the all-out drive towards increased efficiency at any ill-formed distant environmental cost. Global capitalism does not focus nor function locally. That's probably why the study got no play--because *no* one in a position to influence agri-policy cares about such ideas. I would guess they see the very idea of sustainable agriculture that is not GM based as 'quaint'.

Decentralization of meat processing cannot be as efficient (profitable) as centralized production over here-- which is precisely why it no longer exists on any scale. The reason is that population is too uneven...and the places where population is least is exactly where the meat is primarily produced--1000 miles from the majority of the major markets in any direction you choose. Now perhaps as you say a modernized distribution network *could* be created (from scratch in our case) but what would provide the impetus for agri-biz to do so? Creating the requite infrastructure would be an astronomical expense and, in their eyes, for what? Improved long term ecological responsibility? Sustainability? lol! The markets will never push in that direction..towards decentralization, de-amalgamation. Quite the opposite, as has been the trend all along and if anything accelerating today. No, the only way to "re-make" this industry would be creation of a command economy. You know what that's called...

2% of global natural gas supply is currently used for fertilizer production. We have a long ways to go to get to a resource critical mass in that regard.

Higher prices for staples (energy food shelter) are not the concern of producers either; they make their margins regardless of price--look at the energy industry--4, 6, 12$ a gallon, price doesn't factor--demand does. That the masses have to gradually readjust expectations and their consumption is expected-- and is accepted by the masses themselves. Look at energy prices today compared to a few decades ago. People pay up, cut back or go without, largely without complaint of consequence. That this compliance will continue producers have every reason to assume, as long as the decline to lower living standards can be maintained at a *gradual* pace. (Crashed and explosions freak people out after all, but they are just compliant frogs in a pot otherwise.)

I get where you are coming from, trust me. (I'm an anarchist after all.) Capitalism will never go there-- but perhaps some new form of market economy may emerge after its collapse that would.

[DerGolgo]

I disagree that capitalism wouldn't go there. It doesn't have to got there, but it may.
This is not just about sustainable agriculture, this is about higher yields. Higher yields are what you need to feed more mouths. If food prices keep climbing with a growing world population, while an ever growing population also means labor gets cheaper, even in the US (since more things can be made abroad cheaply and jobs are exported), using a farming system that results in higher yields may become attractive to farmers, regardless of the price of fertilizer. They market their product on what is, after all, a global commodities market, mouth to feed in China drive the price just as much as the equal number of mouths in Kentucky. It's currently equally profitable to the previous system, despite higher labor requirements, because of the higher yields. If food prices rise and labor cost drops, it may just become more profitable, actually.
If enough farmers start adopting this four year rotation scheme to get higher yields, this will impact the economics of feeding cattle with corn. Corn is getting more and more expensive anyway, so at some point, the cost difference of raising cattle the traditional way or including cattle in that new scheme may become small enough to no longer make a big difference. A difference, yes, but if that difference is small enough, and the farmer don't just raise the cattle for sale but also to help their crops along as in the scheme described in the article, that difference my become small enough for cattle production in that manner to become widespread. Not replace the current model entirely, but widespread enough to start making a difference.
On top of which, politicians faced with voters complaining about rising food prices, rising beef prices even, may just come up with beef subsidies to help the feedlots pay for their corn feed. Which would also help the farmers raising cattle in the above mentioned manner.
Yes, creating a distribution system for meat like I described from scratch would be a near impossible challenge. But you don't have to create it from scratch. All it takes is some clever businessmen starting this out with farmers who, say, live and work near railroads. If they already raise cattle in the decentralized manner, someone will want that beef, after all. Hang freezer cars on a few trains and have a gang of traveling butchers comb the appropriate countryside to butcher locally and then get the beef to the point of sale by train. It could be the next major city or some large food processing businesses, whoever finds it difficult to satisfy their demand with what corn-starved feedlots can supply at the price which would make the decentralized beef equally cheap. From which it might grow. Consider the private parcel services, like UPS or Fedex. These days, they got their own dam mailboxes in places, they had to compete with existing postal systems, they actually had to come up with a superior service to survive. But they managed to do it, because it was profitable. With food becoming scarcer and more expensive, I think this might also eventually become profitable. I'd prefer a change over within a few years, of course, but even if it takes a few decades, it might just work. I don't much like capitalism, but sometimes, it manages to overcome ridiculous odds.

[kitkat]

You are still talking command/planned economy, cart before the horse.... In an open global market, corn prices go up (or are sustained, all based on demand), then more (sustained) acreage yearly is planted in corn. Not less, as the multi crop rotation requires. The *only* way the market would make room for the multi-crop rotation scheme is if the bottom dropped out of corn markets (demand fall). And the only way *that* would happen is through overall decreased use of corn. That is the only way that a market driven system would see less acreage planted in corn annually. The increased yields associated with multi-crop rotation system in the study for corn (+4%) cannot make up for the production shortfall (50%). Usage of corn would have to change *first* to drive a change in production, not the other way around.

The question is: what could drive a decrease in the demand for corn>? One is a change int he primary energy crop used for ethanol. That may be coming but isn't here yet. The other would be a decreased global consumption of meat. That isn't happening either. Or a change in the role of corn as a feedstock for meat production. No sign of that occurring either. So until a _demand_ driver for a crop(s) other than corn comes along the multicrop rotation scheme is going to remain just where it is..in the files of the University of Iowa's agricultural dept.

[DerGolgo]

I'm not talking command economy at all. I'm just pointing out what might happen (or might not).
You say it yourself. If we get off of corn ethanol, that would be one thing that might lead to this new scheme being adopted.
And another crop being in demand. With the world population growing and the amount of arable land shrinking, global climate weirdness and all that, the price of oats is not likely to go down.
The new crop rotation system is already no less profitable than the old system as it is, with the corn demand what it currently is.
Yes, a few incentives to switch them over might help, but what does a farmer care what he gets his money for as long as he gets his damn money? He's a businessmen, the bottom line is the bottom line, whether he makes it with corn or pretty little flowers is of little worry to him.
So if, in fact, corn-ethanol goes dodo in the next few decades, the corn price thus not rising as dramatically as it otherwise might (perhaps even falling), this would still be an economically viable alternative for the farmers. Because, as it is, it's equally profitable with current prices. Maybe the price for oats will also start climbing? If everyone is growing corn, and a growing world population is hungry for oats, someone will put two and two together and maybe start planting oats.
Unless corn remains in use as a feedstock for ethanol and the corn price consequently explodes a heck of a lot further and keeps doing that, I don't see how the market pressures would have to act against a gradual adoption of this scheme.

This is all disregarding other incentives the farmers might have to adopt that new scheme. Maybe some states got tax breaks for people who hire more workers? Because it is more labor intensive, as the article pointed out. Maybe some farmers may want to create a few more jobs to hire some locals they know and would like to help out, maybe some farmers actually want to reduce the amount of fertilizer and herbicides they use. Unlikely, yes I agree, but worth keeping in mind.
Also, with the cattle, the point the article makes is that the cattle are an integral part in raising these crops. The farmer won't have to look to his cattle to make as much of a profit per head as the feedlots do, he's raising and selling his crops to make the lion's share of his profits. So raising cattle like this is less profitable, as long as the bottom line works out, what the fuck does the farmer care about the price of corn?
What I'm saying is not that the market will inevitably drive to the adoption of this scheme. I'm saying it's desirable, the increased yields may be even necessary with the rising world population, and that the inherent problems can not only be overcome, I'm certain there may well be enough incentives along the way, as I've explained, for the market itself to come up with solutions to such problems. Some government incentives would help, certainly, may even be necessary, but a gradual adoption is NOT necessarily something that can only be achieved in a command economy.

Yes, I'm expressing some bold wishes, especially regarding no longer using corn for ethanol, but the alternatives already works in the lab and major industrial companies are currently experimenting with mass production, so it's not even wishful thinking. But that being the biggie, this new technique is standing a chance, even in the market. Oats can be used for cattle feed, not as many bushels per acre but you can feed the cattle the hay, too, so the shortfall of feed that has to be made up for is not quite as big as 50%. The higher yields further slightly reduce that shortfall. A growing world population meaning more customers and lower labor costs would make such a higher yield system eventually more profitable than it currently is. Because it currently IS profitable, even with corn prices as high as they are, and corn being subsidized while oats aren't (!!), it's just as profitable as the old system.
Corn subsidies eventually going the way of the dodo, with runaway corn prices being what they are? NOT entirely unlikely, either.

Which brings me to a point I previously glossed over, really. It's just as profitable as the current system. Where the current system has a subsidized crop every two years, and the new system only has one every four. If corn subsidies were eliminated, or merely cut, my experience in juggling numbers for fun tells me the old system would suddenly look less profitable than it currently does. Compared to the new system, it would be doubly affected by any cut in corn subsidies, thus, if they are currently equally profitable, and market prices for the non-corn crops weren't changed, the new system would be more profitable. Which would give the market and farmers an incentive that cannot be denied, that is the whole point of the market. Profit. All without any command economy, actually, with a reduction in government intervention into the economy (reducing subsidies being a reduction in intervention).

[kitkat]

Oats cannot replace corn as animal feed. The bulk is too great and the energy level too low. Oats have 80% of the energy level of corn. And it can only be used as a 25% supplement with corn for various reason explained at length tin the following. (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/an031" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1020w.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

Then there is a lack of cattle for the "manure" part of the program. Grain farmers typically are not that into livestock..many, if not most, have no livestock whatsoever. Grain farmers who do keep a few cattle/pigs certainly do not keep sufficient numbers of them to serve to even begin to effectively fertilize the massive acreage they farm. Grain farmers i have known in the past *like* their time off...and don't want to have animals to hassle with every day, 7 days a week. That's why they run grain farms and not livestock operations.

The small, diversified farms of the past are about gone in the US. Specialization and massive holdings (factory farming) are what you see out in the country today. Corn country and cattle country are also two entirely different regions. Cattle are primarily raised to feedlot weights (finishing weight) on ranches not farms. Then they go directly to the feedlots and from there to the packing plants (which are typically co-located to a great extent as both kinds of facilities are highly regulated and expensive to locate.) It isn't like farming in Germany/Europe at all, I know, I lived there too for a number of years. If cattle grazing on cropland is an essential part of the plan?-- it breaks down fatally right there. The cropland grazing you used to see in small family owned diversified farms isn't coming back because it isn't as efficient--read profitable.

The kinds of small operations left where the three/four crop rotation scheme would actually work are most likely already doing just that! I worked on farms like that when I was a kid in South Dakota. But the reason such operations are dwindling is precisely because they cannot compete with the much more efficient (and profitable) factory farming operations.

Basically, the whole concept looks more attractive the *less* one knows about the realities of modern farming. Which makes the enthusiasm for the concept by the author of that New York Times article not a surprise at all--as he is a culinary writer.

[calamari kid]

[DerGolgo]

Oats cannot replace corn as animal feed. The bulk is too great and the energy level too low. Oats have 80% of the energy level of corn. And it can only be used as a 25% supplement with corn for various reason explained at length tin the following. (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/an031" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1020w.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

Then there is a lack of cattle for the "manure" part of the program. Grain farmers typically are not that into livestock..many, if not most, have no livestock whatsoever. Grain farmers who do keep a few cattle/pigs certainly do not keep sufficient numbers of them to serve to even begin to effectively fertilize the massive acreage they farm. Grain farmers i have known in the past *like* their time off...and don't want to have animals to hassle with every day, 7 days a week. That's why they run grain farms and not livestock operations.

The small, diversified farms of the past are about gone in the US. Specialization and massive holdings (factory farming) are what you see out in the country today. Corn country and cattle country are also two entirely different regions. Cattle are primarily raised to feedlot weights (finishing weight) on ranches not farms. Then they go directly to the feedlots and from there to the packing plants (which are typically co-located to a great extent as both kinds of facilities are highly regulated and expensive to locate.) It isn't like farming in Germany/Europe at all, I know, I lived there too for a number of years. If cattle grazing on cropland is an essential part of the plan?-- it breaks down fatally right there. The cropland grazing you used to see in small family owned diversified farms isn't coming back because it isn't as efficient--read profitable.

The kinds of small operations left where the three/four crop rotation scheme would actually work are most likely already doing just that! I worked on farms like that when I was a kid in South Dakota. But the reason such operations are dwindling is precisely because they cannot compete with the much more efficient (and profitable) factory farming operations.

Basically, the whole concept looks more attractive the *less* one knows about the realities of modern farming. Which makes the enthusiasm for the concept by the author of that New York Times article not a surprise at all--as he is a culinary writer.

Okay, you make valid points there.
However, the University of Iowa that did the study apparently found equal profitability.
They had to do something with the cattle in their test farms. With your valid points, I agree this will probably not, probably cannot replace the current farming system.
But, with profitability being equal, I still have hope this might become attractive for some farmers, maybe where soil conditions are no longer very amenable to the old system.
But apart from a bit of hope there, I bow to your superior wisdom.

I would like to describe why I have hope, though:
- It's equally profitable even with corn subsidies, so if those change, or corn ethanol goes, it may well become slightly more profitable.
- I didn't suggest replacing corn with oats, but supplementing it.
- From what I saw when googling this matter, oats are actually preferred to corn by some as the initial feed calves get before they are turned to corn later, which brings me to
- ranching. Raising calves to feedlot weight before putting them on a feedlot. Something an independent operator might do on a four-crop farm (or multiple farms). The farmer would get the benefit of manure without having to hassle cattle themselves, the farm-rancher might end up with healthier animals to sell to the feedlots. If they can find a way to make that work on a farm, where they'd need to use techniques different from those on a ranch. With rising food prices, which would include rising beef prices, someone might find a way to do that.

But, like I said, only hope, not certainty.

[kitkat]

I like hope. I hold a lot of hopes for the world post-capitalism. This would be among them--some scheme that is sustainable and keeps a variety of people busy...less mechanized, less *intense*. Not corporate.

Just thought i'd mention that i really enjoy these little conversations or whatever you might call such exchanges, with you. I always learn new things and i like that very much.

I think the study Iowa did was directed at the remaining *small* diversify-*able* farmers or smaller landholders for whom this sort of farming once was de rigueur but has since fallen from favor, as an attempt to show that done right it can still be profitable and perhaps get them to re-think about going *back* to this sort of scheme from leasing or contracting or whatever they went to instead. On a 1/4, 1/2 section farm..that is what *I* would try anyway. It would be pretty sweet. Make no mistake tho, keeping livestock is a gawdawful amount of work that never ends. Could be many just aren't up to it these lazy daze....

[DerGolgo]

Just thought i'd mention that i really enjoy these little conversations or whatever you might call such exchanges, with you. I always learn new things and i like that very much.

Likewise, absolutely!

Make no mistake tho, keeping livestock is a gawdawful amount of work that never ends. Could be many just aren't up to it these lazy daze....

Which is where I see potential synergy effects (gawd, how I both love and hate that term) for ranchers, who need land to bring cattle to feedlot readiness, and farmers who don't want to deal with the livestock themselves.
In the olden days (yes, very olden, not quite as olden here in Europe but still olden even here), shepherds would drive their sheep around, owning not a square inch of land, but being allowed to graze on pastures owned by farmers who got some manner of benefit form the sheep. Eating those little flowers that makes cows sick, what are they called again, fertilizing and moving the soil a bit. Likewise, with rising beef prices and dropping labor costs, some ranchers and four-crop-rotation farmers might figure out to do business with one another, in some way or another. The rancher looks after the cattle, getting the benefit of healthier animals to sell to the feedlots, the farmer gets shit on his fields and stuff.