The Soil Health Principles
Q.
Could poor water infiltration, salinity, soil compaction, disease, loss of earthworms, erosion, decline in OM%, herbicide resistance & year-after-year insect infestations all be individual and unrelated problems? Perhaps they are better looked at as symptoms of a deeper, underlying problem?
Figure: Canadian net farm income and gross revenue, inflation-adjusted, net of government payments, 1926-2016. Source: Darrin Qualman
Our mission here is to help improve profitability for farmers & ranchers across Western Canada. We’ve learned that one of the best ways to do that is by following the 6 Soil Health Principles.
“To this point, the solution to our problems have been an expensive seed variety with a new trait, an extra fungicide pass, more tillage, 10 more Ibs of nitrogen fertilizer and on and on. The results of this system have been a transfer of wealth from farms and small communities to large corporations.
As we deplete the health of our soil, we depend more and more on these expensive inputs.” ~Joseph Gardiner
What if we tried to mimic the natural system in how we farm? The productive soils we farm today weren’t built by monocultures, heavy tillage & synthetic fertilizer but by ruminant animals, grazing diverse grasslands. So how can we transition our farms back to the natural system?
Limit chemical, physical, and biological disturbance
Keep the soil covered
Add diversity of plants and insects
Keep a living root in the soil as long as possible
Integrate animals into your system
Join Connor English, Joe Gardiner & Dakota Odgers as they explain how they are implementing these principles into their own operations to improve soil health & farm profitability.
SOIL HEALTH PRINCIPLE
Keep The Soil Covered
Soil Armour is one of the most important principles for healthy soil. Connor English, farmer from Bradwardine, Manitoba recently compared corn yields between crops that were just 4 rows apart and discovered a noticeable difference between the size and appearance of corn grown in covered soil compared to the ones grown without cover.
#1 Agronomic Benefit: Soil Erosion
SOIL HEALTH PRINCIPLE
Animal Integration
In conventional farming, animals continue to play a reduced role in the synergistic cycle between plants, soil, and animals. The transition to large-scale grain farming is no doubt to blame.
Dakota Odgers, a farmer from Spy Hill, Saskatchewan, shares how he is integrating livestock on his grain acres to improve soil health & utilize grazing days on the cattle side. A win-win for both the grain land and the cattle.
SOIL HEALTH PRINCIPLE
Minimize Disturbance
Tillage introduces oxygen deep into the soil, accelerating the microbial decomposition & slowly, over time, depleting Organic Matter.
Joe Gardiner, farmer from Clearwater, Manitoba shows us how he is implementing this principle on his own farm with the corn & forage soybean intercrop.
SOIL HEALTH PRINCIPLE
Increase Diversity
Monoculture Environment: plants are all competing for the same sunlight, moisture & nutrients - all at the exact same time. This is competition.
Multi-Species Environment: Plants are forming symbiotic relationships with rhizobium bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, and other soil micro-organisms to fix, solubilize & share nutrients (and water). This is collaboration.
Connor explains how he is taking this principle to the next level and focusing on the importance of Farm Diversity to minimize risk & improve profitability in the long term.
SOIL HEALTH PRINCIPLE
Green Living Root
When do you see bare soil in Nature? A fundamental principle to achieve healthy soil is to keep a green living root in the ground as long as possible. Specifically in the shoulder seasons (spring and fall)
This ensures soil biology (livestock) are being “fed” as long as possible in the form of root exudates. Connor shares how he is implementing this principle on his own farm & the benefits that follow.
Soil Health Principle
Farm Context
Written by: Ray Archuleta, Understanding Ag
What would a world without context be like?
Navigating a world without context is like trying to find your way out of a dark room. It’s disorienting, confusing and problematic.
Information is important, but knowledge is “information in context,” giving us a way to accurately and effectively “connect all of the dots” in any given situation. Context is everything that exists outside of a specific idea, thought, event or situation. Context includes the circumstances—the situational factors—that can help us form specific ideas, solve problems or recognize situations that may spiral out of control.
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Unfortunately, most of us ignore context in our day-to-day lives and management decisions. It is easier to maintain a sense of simplicity and order that way. It is easier to reduce our information and circumstances into smaller, singular events versus viewing our world in holistic, multi-dimensional, interconnected ways. We often ignore the bigger picture because by doing so we believe we can “solve” a problem quicker, move on and forget it ever happened. However, this kind of thinking stifles our thinking and blurs our perspective.
While some behavioral scientists have labeled it a fundamental human tendency, more recent research suggests that the failure to take note of context is particularly pronounced in American, European and other Western cultures. Eastern cultures tend to be better in considering and viewing context before westerners.
In his book, Situations Matter: Understanding how context transforms your world, Sam Sommers writes, “Context has a dramatic influence on how we think, how we act, who we are as people and how we impact our environment.”
It is important for farmers, ranchers and all humans to recognize that our actions are influenced by our ecological, cultural, social and financial context.
Giving Soil Health Principles Context:
In the last two decades, soil health educators have taught five basic ecological soil health principles that are based on Biomimicry (to mimic life). All-natural, healthy soils function with five principles that:
Limit chemical, physical, and biological disturbance
Keep the soil covered
Add diversity of plants and insects
Keep a living root in the soil as long as possible
Integrate animals into your system.
These self-healing, self-organizing and self-regulating principles enable ecosystem health and functioned long before humans were on earth.
As farmers/ranchers become more conscious, more observant of the ordinary, and more self-aware, the more critical “context” plays a role in understanding our relationship to the natural system. From a human perspective, without the principle of context, the other five principles have no purpose. Humans are deeply interconnected to the natural system—a relationship that cannot be separated.
Yet our Western mindset wants to isolate, delineate and reduce our relationship with nature—absent context. This axiom brings out this point more clearly: “The problem with ecologists—they separate the human from the natural system. The problem with economists—they separate the human from the ecology.” This thought process creates a world of confusion.
For this reason, the Soil Health Academy and Understanding Ag, LLC recently added “context” to the original five soil health principles. The principle of context gives farmers, ranchers and agriculturists a framework to understand human nature and to be more situationally aware overall. Context helps us understand our ecological, economic, community and spiritual situations that may prevent us from healing our soils on our farms or ranches.
While not intended to be definitive or exhaustive, the following list provides an overview of some of the ways you can consider context in your farming and ranching operations:
Ecological Context:
How much rain or humidity you get in a year? Without moisture, soil biology does not function, no matter how healthy your soil is.
Nature uses the energy it needs and relies on freely available energy. Does your ranch or farm capture enough sunlight, or does it run on ancient sunlight (gas, diesel, etc.)?
Do the crops or animals fit and function to the local environment? Example: Are you farming out of ecological context? Are you growing dryland corn in Western Kansas with very limited rainfall? Have you adapted your animals to your local environment? Can the type and shape of animal function in your local environment?
Nature recycles all materials. Does your farm or ranch? Example: Take a waste product like grain screenings to feed hogs.
Nature rewards cooperation. Is your farm or ranch function in cooperation like nature?
Nature functions through diversity. Does your ranch or farm maximize diversity?
Is your farm or ranch locally attuned and responsive to your area? What local vegetation or animals do well in your area?
Nature builds using abundant resources, incorporating rare resources only sparingly. Nature is efficient and does not waste energy or resources. Every organism has purpose. Does your ranch or farm curb excesses within?
Nature uses chemistry and materials that are safe for living beings. Does your farm or ranch?
Nature is locally attuned and responsive. Is your farm locally attuned and responsive? Are you adaptive in your management?
Does your ranch or farm run on information? Do you have a basic understanding of ecology? Do you observe and understand the patterns and principles of nature? DNA is information. Are you using the correct breed and type of animals in your operation?
Community Context:
What are the cultural and social norms for farming or ranching in your area?
Is farming or ranching in nature’s image your goal or does the local community form your mindset and set your goal unconsciously for your operation?
Are you socially conditioned by your local education and experience?
Did you learn a majority of what you know about farming and ranching from your family and friends?
Economic Context:
Do you operate on borrowed money? To what extent do your creditors restrict or adversely affect your decision-making ability?
Nature is resilient to acute disturbances. Is your ranch or farm resilient to ecological and economic disturbances?
Nature provides mutual benefits. Does your ranch or farm have multiple streams of income? Do you provide just one product or service?
Nature tends to optimize rather than maximize. Do you focus on yield or profit?
Spiritual Context:
What is your spiritual understanding about earthly stewardship?
What is your “Why?”
What is the spiritual mindset of your local community?
Did you grow up in Amish, Mennonite, Christian, Native American, Islamic, Hindu, or a non-religious context? What you believe impacts your context.
Summary
In life, context informs everything around us. Understanding how the world works and how people act comes down to context. A world without context is meaningless and lifeless. Context, on the other hand, provides design and purpose.
In short, context is critically important, and it comes into play in more areas of our lives than one might initially think. By paying more attention to context, we can better perceive the world around us, connect ALL of the dots and make better decisions in our lives and in our farming and ranching operations.