70 years of regenerative and organic research

This was published in The Land earlier this year. - Tim By Tim King The Land Correspondent Kutztown, PA, Rodale Institute, which is headquartered on its seventy year old 333 acre research and education farm near here, has opened its Organic Crop Consulting Services based at its Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center near Marion Iowa. The Land talked to Dr. Andrew Smith, Rodale’s Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer, about Rodale’s expanded services in Iowa and about organic and regenerative agriculture in general. Smith is a former organic farmer and Peace Corps volunteer. The Land: Can you tell me about the Rodale Institute? Smith: We are a nonprofit research and education institution, in operation since 1947, headquartered on our farm near Kutztown Pennsylvania. We also operate six other sites in Pennsylvania, Iowa, Georgia, and California. Rodale Institute aims to grow the regenerative organic movement through research, farmer training, and consumer education. On our sites, we operate long-term research trials comparing organic and conventional methods, train beginning farmers, and hold educational workshops. TL: Rodale is expanding its presence in the Midwest, especially in Iowa and Minnesota. Why is that? Smith: At Rodale Institute, we’ve been researching organic methods for over 70 years. Our flagship research trial, the Farming Systems Trial, is in its 40th year, making it the longest running side by side comparison of organic and conventional grain cropping systems in North America. We’ve established ourselves as an authority and a resource on regenerative organic agriculture. However, most of our research has been conducted in Eastern Pennsylvania. Obviously, a farmer in California or Iowa does not have the same experience as a farmer in Pennsylvania.We realized that if we want to achieve our goal of increasing organic acres, we need to regionalize not only our research, but our resources. In 2016, Iowa was the fifth in the nation for the number of organic farms. Even though organic was clearly on the minds of farmers, there was a lack of widespread access to specific, regionalized research and training in regenerative organic agriculture in Iowa. In addition to providing regionally relevant research and education, part of our goal in setting up the Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center was to expand the capacity of our Organic Crop Consulting Services. We started this program in 2019 to provide one-on-one mentorship and to help navigate the process for farmers looking to transition their farms to certified organic. Currently all Rodale consulting services are free to farmers due to support from the State of Pennsylvania, OXO, Cargill, and other private funders. TL: You use organic, regenerative, and regenerative organic in your answers. Are they all the same? Organic is defined and regulated by the USDA while regenerative’s definition is not currently regulated. The national organic program has set a minimum set of standards that farmers must comply with in order to be certified organic. From the farm perspective these standards are mostly based on land management and elimination of toxic pesticides and other inputs. While compliance with these standards usually leads to improved soil health and biodiversity, it’s not required for certification. Also, the national organic standards do have some requirements for livestock but they are mostly silent on animal welfare and social fairness issues such as how employees are treated. Regenerative organic certification, a new certification created by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, includes these two components. Here’s how it works. Regenerative agriculture is a form of agriculture that is based on continuous improvement and leads to restoration and regeneration of the health of the land, people, populations, communities, countries and the world. It is more than an environmental ethic and it is more than carbon sequestration. For example, we can remove carbon from the atmosphere and put it in the soil in a number of ways. Some ways use toxic chemicals, pollute the environment, and make people sick. This can’t be called regenerative. Therefore, at Rodale Institute we always use the words regenerative and organic together. Regenerative organic goes above and beyond the organic label. While organic prohibits synthetic chemicals and GMOs, regenerative organic adds two more qualifications: animal welfare and social fairness. That means we want to farm in a way that protects the planet, keeps animals free from harm, and ensures that the people planting, picking, and processing our food are treated fairly. The Regenerative Organic certification includes two other components to ensure continuous improvement. One, is a soil health test submitted with a farm system plan to measure soil improvement over time. There is a scale starting from bronze, moving to silver and ultimately gold. A farm must show improvement over time and move from bronze to silver or they will lose their Regenerative Organic Certification. This encourages and incentivizes farmers to farm in a way that sequesters carbon in the soil, improves soil health, increases biodiversity and reduces energy costs. Today, most farms will not be able to achieve the gold standard, but through research and innovation it will be achieved by many farmers over time. Continuous improvement, not maintaining the status quo, is what is meant by regenerative. TL: There’s a lot of talk about carbon sequestration, or carbon capture, and regenerative agriculture. Isn’t carbon what we called organic matter a generation ago?  Smith: Yes, organic matter is carbon based and a good indicator of soil health but it’s complex. Organic matter is made up of components like plant residues and living microbial biomass, detritus, and humus. When we talk about carbon sequestration, we’re really talking about removing carbon dioxide from the air. Plants do this by trapping the carbon dioxide they consume during photosynthesis. They use solar energy to extract carbohydrate molecules, or sugar, from carbon dioxide. Those carbon-based sugars are extruded from the plant’s roots, feeding bacteria and fungi in the nearby soil. In turn, these microorganisms symbiotically transform soil minerals into nutrients that feed plants and help them fight disease and pests. During this exchange, the sugars that get consumed by soil bacteria and fungi are converted into more stable materials that trap carbon in the soil. Plants and healthy soil do this naturally, but the bacteria, fungi, and other components that help stabilize that carbon are not supported by conventional agricultural practices that use pesticides, intensive tillage, and limited crop rotations. Regenerative agriculture uses green manures, cover crops, and compost to cut down on these practices and build the strength of the soil not only to improve organic matter but to ensure that the carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere stays in the soil. TL: Politicians are now talking about carbon farming. The market has encouraged us to mine the soil carbon for a long time. How can we become carbon farmers? Smith: Any farmer who farms in a regenerative way is a carbon farmer by default. When you enhance the soil’s capacity for carbon sequestration you are locking away carbon. The question now is how do we incentivize farmers to adopt regenerative strategies? A soil carbon market would be an incentive to encourage farmers to think about how the way they’re farming is impacting our climate. It would reward them for taking advantage of every opportunity to trap carbon in the ground while growing food. We ask farmers to do a lot. Not only feed an unsustainably growing population but also clean the air, water, and to tackle issues like climate change and human health. We must provide incentives for farmers to put regenerative practices into place on their farms. In reality, society has been robbing farms for centuries and the soils, and the spirits of the farmers, are nearing exhaustion. Society has received cheap food which is what we told farmers we wanted. In turn we have gotten pollution, global warming, and poor human health. The price will be paid one way or the other. One path leads to the planet’s peril and the other path is regeneration and restored human and planetary health. Farmers and scientists such as Aldo Leopold, Albert Howard, Rudolf Steiner, William Albrecht, Rachel Carson, Sandra Steingraber, Theo Colburn, and many others have been shouting this from the rooftops for years but few have listened. It seems the time has finally come and people are paying attention. Authors note: Rodale has two consultants in the Midwest. One is in Minnesota. More information about consulting can be found at: rodaleinstitute.org/consulting. Interested farmers can email Consulting@RodaleInstitute.org or call 610-683-1416.