Sue Lani Madsen: Never let a good crisis go to waste

Drought, flooding, market instability, inflation … to partially quote Rahm Emmanuel, “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” When conventional agriculture is facing multiple crises, it’s a good time to give a nudge to regenerative agriculture.

Civilization has been dealing with drought since before Joseph’s brothers packed him off to Egypt. Society today manages the impact of drought much the same way as Pharoah, setting aside in good years to carry through lean years, only now we call it crop insurance and cash reserves.

There is another path to drought resilience. When soil is treated as a living ecosystem, it absorbs and holds more moisture. Instead of cash reserves, the soil holds water and nutrient reserves. The key is changing management practices in agriculture, and several events in November intersected to inspire this column.

First was the state Department of Ecology seeking public comment on revisions to Policy 1025. Second was my husband’s enthusiastic reports from a weeklong workshop led by Nicole Masters, internationally recognized agroecologist. Third was the opportunity to interview Will Harris of White Oak Pastures, located in Bluffton, Georgia. And fourth was local farmers discussing the rising prices of fuel, fertilizer and herbicides.

Jimmy Norris, communications manager for DOE, said the POL-1025 update is simply an attempt to clarify a 1994 policy, not a substantive change. But the proposed edits consistently refer to historical ag practices. It’s like updating a policy on electronic communications clarifying how to use fax machines but ignoring email, social media and text messages.

There have been major advancements in range science and regenerative agriculture in the last 27 years. It’s been a topic of conversation since I met my future husband in 1993 and he educated me on the difference between dirt and soil. Dirt is dead, soil is alive.

One of the principles of regenerative agriculture is not treating soil like dirt. This is not the first time DOE water rules have come into conflict with ag practices, either historical or evolving. Local ranchers went several rounds with DOE on the science behind riparian grazing in Lincoln County a decade ago before DOE retreated.

POL-1025 refers to “stock grazing at or below the lands carrying capacity” and providing a stock tank to serve “no greater number of stock than historically ranged on that parcel.” It pays no attention to the health of the land or improving soil organic matter.

Which led to the interview with Will Harris, a leader in the regenerative agriculture world, where the focus is on increasing crop productivity and land capacity by using greater numbers and variety of crops and livestock.

“What we all should be doing is restarting the cycles of nature, and one of the cycles of nature is the water cycle,” said Harris. “When you restart that, the carrying capacity of your land increases dramatically.”

Over the last 20 years White Oak Pastures has seen soil organic matter increase from one-half percent to 5% as documented by a third-party report. “Increasing the organic matter 1% increases water holding capacity 20,000 gallons per acre, or about a 1-inch rain event,” said Harris.

The difference in runoff during a rainstorm between one of his regenerative fields and a neighbor’s field managed under conventional methods is obvious in a fence line video, but he also has hard research to back up the claim.

In a study published in February 2019 for General Mills by Quantis International titled “Carbon Footprint Evaluation of Regenerative Grazing at White Oak Pastures,” the conclusion was:

“By converting annual cropland to perennial pasture, and a monoculture of cattle to a diverse range of animals, they are regenerating the health of the soil that has been heavily degraded from years of tillage, pesticide use, and monocropping. They now raise sheep, goats, hogs, poultry and rabbits in addition to cattle in an integrated farming system.”

Harris pointed out the shortsightedness of saying a farmer cannot increase his stocking density to help pay for these ecological services, like the DOE policy freezing in place historical practices. “All of the cycles of nature are interconnected – water, carbon, mineral, microbial, energy and community. When you restart all the cycles of nature the carrying capacity of your farm increases, and we all should be doing that for our own economic reasons as well as to mitigate climate change.”

White Oak Pastures hosted the workshop where my husband enjoyed warm Georgia weather while I chased goats in the snow. Harris recently started a nonprofit called the Center for Agricultural Resilience, and hopes to hold more events to help teach others how to increase the health and carrying capacity of their land. The solutions will look different in every climate region and on every parcel, something statewide and nationwide prescriptive policies have a hard time accommodating, but the principles are universal.

And about that fourth inspiration, inflation. Since January 2021, the price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. has risen 40%. Petroleum-based inputs for agriculture have more than doubled, and are projected to double again before spring. For conventional farmers and anyone facing a crisis, the whole Emmanuel quote is good advice:

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.