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Should No-Till Farming Be Adopted by All to Help the Earth?
Should No-Till Farming Be Adopted by All to Help the Earth?
Farmers around the world are looking for innovative methods to save water, reduce costs and produce higher yields. No-till farming is a popular practice to improve soil quality and reduce soil erosion. Instead of using a plow to disturb soil before planning, it employs a drill or alternative equipment to grow crops without breaking the ground.
Is no-till growing as great as it’s made out to be? Should it be adopted by all to help the Earth? The answer is yes and no. What it really comes down to is the type of no-till farming, and whether it is being used in collaboration with other environmental conservation practices.
In the United States, most no-till cultivation is conventional and uses a drill to plant monocultures like corn and soybeans. This method actually requires more herbicides than regular tillage.
However, there is another type of no-till farming that depends more on supporting the natural ecosystem and minimizing disruption to the soil. Regenerative agriculture is all about returning carbon to the ground instead of farming it out.
Excessive tilling harms soil and causes all sorts of issues, including waterway pollution, nutrient loss and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. If more farmers instituted no-till growing in conjunction with other erosion control methods, the environmental impact of agriculture would be much less.
What Is Tillage?
In conventional agriculture, farmers use a plow to break up soil 8-12 inches down to prepare the land for planting. If you compare this practice to how you ready raised beds for a garden, you might think breaking up the soil would make it easier to plant crops, including vegetables and grains. However, this releases large amounts of carbon, disrupts vital microorganisms in the ground and causes soil erosion.
How No-Till Works
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No-Till Farming For Healthier Soil and Lifestyles
NO-TILL FARMING FOR HEALTHIER SOIL AND LIFESTYLES
Masanobu Fukuoka, the late Japanese farmer, developed a unique farming system he called “Natural Farming.” Trying to replicate what he saw in Nature, Fukuoka´s no till system allowed the soil to continually grow in fertility. Through the use of mulch and cover crops, this system effectively allows for continuous harvests of crop rotations, eliminates weeds and builds healthy top soil allowing for organic food production that is ecologically sustainable.
PROBLEMS WITH TILL AGRICULTURE
Farmers have been tilling the soil for 10,000 years. It is what exemplifies the occupation of those who make their living from the land. Tilling the soil allowed humanity to produce higher concentrations of food in one place giving rise to the denser populations of city centers and eventually the development of modern civilization as we know it. However, tilling the soil also brought with it a whole host of undesirable effects, including erosion and the loss of the microbial life of the soil. Some studies have linked the fall of major civilizations such as the Mayans of Mesoamerica to the over farming of the land which eventually led to a decreasing soil capacity.
By tilling the soil year after year, the microscopic life of billions of creatures in the top three inches of the soil is essentially killed off. What’s left over is a barren, lifeless medium incapable of offering the nutrients plants need to grow and offer us their fruit. Furthermore, the more we till the soil, the more we leave the precious humus that is the life-sustaining “skin” of our planet vulnerable to the elements of wind and rain. The erosion of top soil caused by tilling and the “baring” of the soil has led to soil compaction, loss of fertility, poor drainage, and problems with plant reproduction.
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