Sustainability in Farming

Many farmers initially reach out to us as a way to increase their yields and profits. Over time, more of them take pride in the increased sustainability associated with our approach to farming. They discover the benefits for their farms, families, and community.

Farms across the country are facing new and tougher regulations to restrict the leaching of elements into waterways, especially phosphorus. By increasing nutrient efficiency and building healthy soil structure, we help farmers ensure that nutrients are either taken off the field in the form of food, or stored in the community of soil microbes. This keeps phosphorus out of water sources.

The same is true with nitrogen. By increasing nutrient efficiency, we help farmers apply less nitrogen per unit of food grown. This results in significant reductions in carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and soluble nitrate. We also help farmers increase organic matter in their fields — the equivalent of drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and embedding it back into the soil.

We can help you meet your sustainability requirements or goals. Contact us for an assessment.

Farmers as Part of the Climate Solution

The biggest impact a typical row crop farm has on climate change, by far, is connected to the use of nitrogen. The production of nitrogen is energy intensive and results in significant carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, excess nitrogen in the soil results in the atmospheric release of nitrous oxide — a substance nearly 300-fold more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide. By reducing the level of nitrogen being used on the farm, a grower can cut the farm’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Nitrogen drives yield with most crops, so suggesting that you use less is not a best-case scenario. We need to shift the conversation to nitrogen efficiency. Our focus is on increasing yield through stabilizing nitrogen in the soil through our recommended practices.  The farmer saves money through nitrogen efficiency, and the climate benefits through reduced emissions per unit of food grown.

Less Nitrogen per Unit of Food Grown

Midwestern BioAg constructs fertilizer blends and soil amendments with an eye toward engaging soil microbes, cycling nutrients and feeding plants. When producers use our climate friendly farming system for multiple years, ample evidence shows their nitrogen use per unit of food grown is reduced. Corn grown on our system can require only 0.5 to 0.7 pounds of synthetic nitrogen per bushel; the average recommendation in the Midwest is roughly 1.2 pounds. We do this by optimizing nitrogen fixation through specific rotations, fixing and capturing unused nitrogen through cover crops, and making that nitrogen available via highly biological soils.

In 2015, we worked with a major food company to see if we could grow oats with greater nitrogen efficiency. We identified 47 fields, with a total of 2,070 acres, all of them on farms that had been using our products for multiple years. The food company’s supply chain typically sourced oats produced with 0.8 to 1.0 pounds of nitrogen per bushel. Our customers produced oats with 0.44 pounds of nitrogen per bushel — a 45 percent savings in nitrogen use.

Embedding Carbon in the Soil

Our approach consistently builds soil organic matter (SOM) by increasing biological activity, such as microbes, which accelerates crop residue decomposition. SOM is crucial for farmland productivity, reflecting healthy soil life and enhancing water retention—every 1% increase in SOM allows an acre to hold an additional 20,000 gallons of water. This also has climate benefits, as a 1% SOM increase embeds 15 to 20 tons of CO2 equivalents in the soil, potentially generating revenue through carbon markets. The data from our soil samples consistently shows increases in SOM, with examples of a 1% rise in as little as three years. That change typically takes about ten years! Every 1% increase adds approximately 20,000 pounds of carbon per acre.

Healthy Soils, Healthy Wildlife

Many of us are hunters, anglers or birders. Others among us hike, ski or paddle through the wild spaces wedged between the farms we service. We care about the farms. We also care about the wild spaces — the habitat sustaining the diverse wildlife populations that bless our communities.

When it comes to healthy wildlife habitats, part of the calculation is simple. As farmers increase their productivity on existing croplands, it becomes more likely that poor-performing lands can be reclaimed into viable wildlife habitat. In some cases, large expanses of marginal farmlands have been fully restored to natural conditions. As our yields per acre increase, we also reduce demand for new farmland, thereby protecting wildlife habitat that might otherwise be cultivated.

Farmers who consistently increase their production per acre can know they are working in ways that ultimately protect wildlife — in their own community or elsewhere. In some respects, farmers chasing yields allow others to chase pheasants.

The nutrients used in agricultural production — including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur — are essential to the yield increases that help protect habitat. But when used inefficiently, these nutrients can harm wildlife. Excess phosphorus can cause eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems, with algae blooms that shut off oxygen to the trout, bass and pike we pursue. Compacted soils from anhydrous ammonia application slow development of the worms, grubs and insects that sustain migratory birds. Over-application of nitrogen can lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, adding to the climate stress already affecting habitats and wildlife everywhere.

With our focus on nutrient efficiency, we reduce the likelihood of wasted nutrients. Our focus on soil life leads to a process where healthy farming and a diverse community of soil microbes cycles the applied nutrients into the soil web food chain. This keeps the nutrients in the soil and, ultimately, in the plants and food. It also keeps those nutrients out of the air and water.

For us, everything we do starts with soil health. And, it turns out, that’s the case with most living things in the wild. When the soil is healthy, when their food chain thrives from bottom to top, they tend to thrive as well.

Effective Water Movement and Storage

We take pride in helping you improve your soils to allow quicker water infiltration and reduce ponding. Our clients find their soils retain moisture for longer, enabling less frequent irrigation. The primary reason is soil structure. Healthy soils have high levels of particle aggregation — small materials clumping together. The increased surface area on these microscopic clumps provides more opportunity for water molecules to bind to the soil, and more open space to hold water. This allows these soils to look a bit like a piece of cake — spongy material that breaks up easily. Soil microbes play an important role in this process. The aggregation happens when healthy microbe populations secrete exopolysaccharides that cross-link soil particles. In addition, they produce glomalin, a protein which also has glue-like properties. Calcium flocculates the soil when it binds with other nutrients, a process that helps break up tight soils. Our cover crops also help build soil structure — for example, tillage radishes open the soil as they grow and then decay over winter. Additionally, our products and processes lead to increased carbon embedded in soils from decaying plant and microbial material. Carbon tends to hydrate; retained carbon causes the soil to release water more slowly.

A Money-Making Solution to Nutrient Runoff

Runoff of phosphorus or nitrogen is a major issue just about anywhere nutrients are applied. Farm communities, dairies and individual farms have even been the target of lawsuits. In some cases, water districts are alleging that nutrient runoff is tainting their water supplies, and they are seeking financial judgments to help pay for more advanced water treatment facilities.

We see a more cost-effective and risk-averse solution, one that also works to your advantage: use phosphorus more efficiently on the farm so that it ends up in crops and not in rivers. By building healthy soils, your applied nutrients will end up in the food, not in the water supply. In this process, yields can increase and the quality of the crops and forage grown can improve. Rather than experiencing the financial repercussions and stress of a lawsuit, you can see increases in margins and protect your legacy.