{"id":12126,"date":"2011-05-25T09:48:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T15:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sustainablog.org\/?p=12126"},"modified":"2011-05-25T09:48:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T15:48:35","slug":"sustainable-wheat-production-through-intensification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/sustainable-wheat-production-through-intensification\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Wheat Production Through Intensification"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wheat<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week I had the honor of meeting Dr. Jason Clay, Vice President of the World Wildlife Fund. \u00a0We were on the same panel at CropLife America’s second annual\u00a0National Policy Conference<\/a>. \u00a0Jason got the opportunity to promote his main project which is influencing major commercial entities in the food chain to promote intensification of agriculture in ways that are good for both the environment and the food supply. \u00a0You can get the whole story behind this excellent WWF effort by watching Jason’s\u00a0TED Talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why Intensification?<\/h3>\n

For many years the promoters of “sustainable agriculture” have made the purely philosophical assumption that sustainable means “low input” and thus they favored things like Organic production. \u00a0What groups like WWF have realized is that if we are going to be serious about protecting wild habitat to maintain biodiversity, we need to grow more of our food on the land that has already been converted to farmland so that we can meet global demand without destroying the remaining wild lands.<\/p>\n

Big Companies Are Not The Only Ones Who Can Drive Rational Intensification<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this post I’d like to talk about a perfect example of sustainability through intensification that can be observed from historical data available from the USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA-NASS<\/a>). \u00a0 When biotechnology was introduced <\/a>in Corn, Soybeans, Cotton and Potatoes in 1996, Wheat became even more of an “Orphan Crop”<\/a> than it already was. \u00a0In many areas its planting declined as the other crop options became more attractive to farmers. \u00a0When biotech wheat was successfully blocked by a GreenPeace-driven scare campaign in Europe and Japan, wheat farming suffered even more. \u00a0I have tried to calculate that loss in a post called “The Cost of Precaution.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Going Against The Grain In Northwest Minnesota<\/h3>\n

However, the wheat growers of Northwest Minnesota (and also other areas) responded to all these economic drivers with a classic example of “agricultural intensification.”<\/p>\n

From talking with dozens of wheat farmers over the years I have learned that there are two perfectly viable economic strategies for growing wheat. \u00a0One is a “low intensity, low risk” approach. \u00a0The grower uses a minimal seeding rate (~60 lbs\/acre) of “saved seed” which is just part of last year’s harvest, maybe given a cheap seed treatment. \u00a0There is a single fertilizer dose at planting, little to no herbicide use except to burn down the weeds\/cover crop, and no fungicide or insecticide sprays during the season. \u00a0The yield is low but so is the investment. \u00a0If the crop is wiped out by hail or Fusarium<\/a><\/em> head blight <\/a>the farmer had only limited financial exposure. \u00a0This approach works for growers.<\/p>\n

A “high intensity” approach by US standards (European wheat growing is far<\/strong> more intensive”) means buying ~90lbs\/acre of certified seed,<\/a> giving it an elite seed treatment<\/a>, using a selective herbicide instead of tillage, doing a “split application” of the fertilizer with a larger total quantity, and making a fungicide application at flag leaf stage and\/or flowering to reduce disease damage. \u00a0Wheat yields in this scenario are typically 2 times as high as with the low intensity strategy (60 bushels\/acre vs 30 bushels\/acre). \u00a0Both strategies can work for the farmer, but obviously the later is better for the food supply and better for the planet by reducing the need to farm more land.<\/p>\n

You can see how the wheat farmers of NW Minnesota switched to this “intensity” approach in the biotech era. \u00a0The area planted to Spring Wheat actually has been declining since 1999 (see graph below).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, as more and more farmers switched to the more intense culture of wheat, the average district yield\/acre increased:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The net effect was that even with less wheat planted, the district delivered as much or more of the highly sought-after, high protein, hard-red-spring-wheat which is needed for artisan breads, pizza crusts and any other bread that needs high dough strength.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Footprint Analysis”<\/h3>\n

It is counter-intuitive, but the carbon, and energy footprints of the intensive approach to wheat farming are all better as long as one uses the appropriate denominator of yield (bushels per acre). \u00a0The graphs below demonstrate this for typical comparisons. \u00a0The 60 bushel\/acre farmer had a slightly smaller “footprint” per bushel than the low intensity, 30 bushel\/acre farmer. \u00a0The fertilizer rates here are based on University of Minnesota recommendations<\/a> and I am assuming a 0.8% conversion of applied nitrogen to nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Northwest Minnesota wheat farmers are not by any means the only example of this sort of rational intensification to achieve sustainability, but they are a classic example. \u00a0I think that Jason Clay and the WWF would applaud these growers, and so would I.<\/p>\n

Please comment here or email me at savage.sd@gmail.com. \u00a0My website is Applied Mythology<\/a>. \u00a0Wheat image from ReaA<\/a>. \u00a0USDA data from the NASS website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I had the honor of meeting Dr. Jason Clay, Vice President of the World Wildlife Fund. \u00a0We were on the same panel at CropLife America’s second annual\u00a0National Policy [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":12227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,21,13],"tags":[4953,18,133,904,4954,8512,1365,2734],"yoast_head":"\nSustainable Wheat Production Through Intensification • Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/sustainable-wheat-production-through-intensification\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sustainable Wheat Production Through Intensification • Sustainablog\" 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