The 1990s A Decade of Firsts in Ag

Of course, there are lots of firsts in ag, the first steam engine tractor, the first use of drones, and the first futures markets. These are all beneficial for ag, but are they? 

Let’s look at the consequences of some of the major firsts in ag in the 1990s. There are a lot of contradictions. And that’s what’s interesting to me. 

Two Lanes in Ag

One is all about control, and the other is all about cooperation. But it’s not quite as clear-cut as that may sound.

The Lane of Control

It’s the lane that embraced GMOs and precision ag practices.

Let’s Look at GMOs

GMOs (or bioengineered crops) are defined by the USDA as “those that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through certain lab techniques and cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature.” (1)

The introduction of GMOs commercially around 1990 was all about creating crops that were resistant to insect damage and plant diseases as well as tolerating herbicides for weed control. 

GMOs were solutions to farmers’ problems so it’s easy to see why they were so readily embraced. Pressures of all kinds; weeds, insects, and diseases all decreased yield.  Lower yields have always meant lower farm profits. (We’ll examine that belief when we look at regen ag) 

One of the goals of GMO research was to create crops that could withstand herbicide sprays that would kill weeds. They succeeded, for a while. Weeds just evolved resistance to herbicides so farmers used more. They also used herbicides that had different modes of action. The result was more ways to kill weeds and more chemical-resistant weeds.

Nature always wins. 

There is also a dark side to GMOs. The proprietary nature of GMO seed stock and the problem of genetic drift. Farmer dependence on seed companies to supply GMO seed. There was a time when a farmer saved seeds from the best plants. But that’s hard to do on a 10,000-acre monocrop farm.

The arguments for GMOs throughout the world are tied to pressures from weeds, insects, and diseases. Many consumers and producers perceive health risks associated with GMOs. Risks to humans and livestock haven’t been fully studied and there is a great deal of unease felt by many around this technology.

Technology and Precision Ag

Precision ag embraces modern technology such as GPS, drones, variable rate fertilizers, and weather predictions. It does appear to make farming more predictable. Pest management practices are a large part of precision farming practices. Pests are weeds, insects, and diseases.

But that’s management in the control mindset.  The Food Quality Protection Act in 1998 tasked the USDA with keeping track of pesticides and farm practices. In the survey for 2021, the USDA found that the top four methods of pest management in 2021 were:

• No-till or minimum-till
• Rotation of crops
• Use weather data to determine effective pesticide application windows
• Use pesticides with different mechanisms of action so pests won’t become resistant to the pesticides

Those same questions have been asked of farmers since 2009. In 2016 the top four methods of pest management were:

This is quite a difference in farming practices. The larger the acreage (and US farms have gotten larger) the less the farmer actually knows about the land. 

GPS and drones are making it possible for a farmer to see the land without walking it. The measurements gathered from these sources are far more accurate than a farmer walking the field in 1916. But is the dataset more accurate or just different?

The use of chemicals on fields as a preventative for disease and pest damage makes it unhealthy for a farmer to literally walk the fields. The rate of many cancers is much higher among farmers than the general population. Is it because of pesticides or is farming inherently dangerous? (2)

21st-century technology creates a large database for a farmer to use to determine the best farming practices for the future. But in a future of unpredictable weather is a record of the past very useful?

The Lane of Cooperation

It’s difficult to look at a monocrop of corn or soybeans in Iowa and see how that could support any biodiversity. Driving through Iowa this summer I experienced the loss of biodiversity firsthand. 

After driving for 4 hours, I stopped for gas and a stretch – but didn’t need to clean my windshield. NO BUGS! That means no pollination services.

That’s okay for the corn because it’s wind-pollinated, but not for those thousands of acres of soybeans. Oh, I forgot, most hybrid soybeans are bred to be self-pollinating. However, studies from Iowa State have shown soybeans have higher productivity with the aid of pollinators. (3)

To have insects there has to be a habitat and a conscious effort to use fewer synthetics. But those corn or soybean fields that stretch to the horizon have no habitat so pesticides are necessary. What’s the solution? 

Greater diversity? Some hedgerows? Perhaps a reexamination of the benefits of organic and regen ag?

Organic Certification

That brings me back to some important firsts in ag in the 1990s. The legislature created the Organic Food Production Act in 1990. Producers that followed the rules could label their products ”organic” and sell at a premium. 

Organic farms tend to be more diverse. Hedgerows and rewilded areas are habitats for beneficial insects and birds. Diversity also makes it less likely a hoard of insect pests will take out the entire farm production.

There has been a lot of fanfare about Organic Certification. But, in 2023, less than 1% of all US farmland was certified organic. There’s plenty of demand. According to the USDA, the value of imported organic food in 2021 was $2.7 Billion. The “organicness” of these products could be questioned. The guidelines of the USDA state: 

“Importers of organic products must be either USDA-certified or belong to a trading partner with an organic recognition agreement with the United States, which allows foreign governments to accredit certifying agents to USDA organic standards.” (4)

I don’t know about you, but this is vague enough to allow for farming practices that don’t quite live up to the USDA Organic Standard. And I’m not all that excited about the National Organic Standard to begin with. 

Organic certification is costly, requires lots of paperwork, and has a 3-year window of transition. During the transition, a farm may suffer a loss of yield, profit, and reliable market. This is what keeps farmers from transitioning to organic.

On the upside, a farm without chemicals will have greater soil health, more insects (both beneficial and pests), and a wider range of crops. 

That’s in theory. In practice, an organic farm may differ from a  conventional farm only in the types of chemicals applied (natural vs synthetic). Weed control is an ongoing issue on large organic farms, primarily because they tend to be modified monocrops. The dominant weed control for thousands of acres of organic produce tends to be tillage.

There has to be an obvious answer to growing food and making a profit on a modern farm. I think there is.

Thoughts About Regenerative Ag

Regen ag isn’t new. It’s been practiced by many cultures over the centuries. Indigenous peoples have worked with the land, instead of “on” it for millennia. But it’s only been since the 1930s that “working with the land” has been labeled regenerative. The term was coined by Robert Rodale. It was a very different way to explain agriculture compared to the dominant (and still dominant) American monocropping system. (5)

Regenerative ag requires a systems mindset. Just as each social or political problem has many factors that must be considered, so does proper stewardship of a regenerative farm. It’s not that organic or conventional farmers aren’t stewards, or that they’re intentionally destroying their land. 

Science has taught us to break everything down into its constituent parts and solve the problem from there. That’s like trying to travel down the road with a car that only has a chassis and wheels. It needs all the parts (including the engine!) and they have to be connected properly. Only when all the parts are working smoothly as a system can you drive off into the sunset.

Holistic, or regenerative, farming requires a wider knowledge base and the willingness to be wrong. It requires a lot of observation. It’s mimicking nature as much as possible. 

Natural systems inherently have no waste and each part is necessary for the completion of the whole. Yield isn’t the only, and often not the most important, metric on a regenerative farm.  The ecosystem services that are supplied by soil biology, birds, rodents, crops, and humans in the community are all connected. 

Regenerative ag is about nurturing relationships. The interconnectedness of all things is an incredible idea to wrap your head around. To a farmer that flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught in college or on the farm. This is a mindset that, to the conventional farmer’s mind, is antithetical to farm profit. 

When you dig deeper all types of studies prove that over time, and especially during stressful weather periods, regenerative crops outperform conventional and even some organic. That’s because the soil contains more biomass and biology so it’s more resilient. When the soil is healthy it produces healthy plants – even during stress.

So why are there even fewer regenerative acres than organic acres on the American farm landscape? 

Perceived Risk

Anytime you step outside your comfort zone it feels risky. That happens even when your brain tells you the result will be beneficial. Humans don’t like to move away from the familiar. We get stuck in a rut that seems to be working fine. And we stay there.

But we only stay in our rut as adults. Are children risk-averse? If we were risk-averse as children we’d never walk, learn to talk, or chew on that yummy dog treat. Yet, there are some ways we don’t grow out of that risk-taking. We want to learn how to drive the new tractor, get married, and start a family (for most people – and these are the scariest, riskiest acts we’ll ever make). 

If you were sure regenerative ag would be more profitable would you step out of your comfort zone? Maybe, maybe not. If you’re comfortable with your profit margin now, why change? 

Is it about profit margins or something deeper? I think there is an ingrained notion that the parts are greater than the whole. I’ve heard many times that the hardest part of regenerative ag is changing the mindset. 

I’m absolutely sure this is true. I spent over a lifetime farming and maintaining other people’s gardens. I pulled every weed, mulched, and used my rototiller faithfully on my organic farm. I received a premium for my produce but my soil needed amending every year.

I was still extractive, even with mulching. Like many would-be regenerative farmers, I tripped over regenerative ag many times before I saw it. As I observed it, read about it, and examined my farming practices I realized the damage I was causing to my small farm. 

The lightbulb moment came when I discovered a lush bed of volunteer seedlings of a plant I’d been trying to grow for years. I’d lost the plant in weeds that I’d not been able to quite get to to pull up. As far as I was concerned, that plant had died long ago. But it was putting all its efforts into repopulating itself. The flowers were smaller but the seeds were plentiful.

That weedy spot had also been my dump spot for all kinds of small tree limbs, plant cuttings, and compost on those winter days when I didn’t want to go all the way out to the compost pile. My mistake, I created the most fertile spot on my property. 

What will be your lightbulb moment? Are you in the control or the cooperative lane? And if you’re in the cooperative lane are you sure you’re looking at the entire ecosystem? It’s a big leap for most of us to think in terms of a system. 

And it’s a system that includes us and the entire social and political context. We think we’re adults, but we’re toddlers who are learning for the first time to pull ourselves up and stand. To reach our fullest potential as stewards of the land. Isn’t that thought exciting?

The 1990s were full of contradictions. 2024 can be a year of systems vision, a  banner year of firsts. Will this be the year you first use cover crops, stop tilling, or look at and identify insects?

Regenerative ag and brands, industrial hemp, and biochar are the future of bounty and abundance. There is so much we need to do and so much we can do to create the future we want for ourselves and future generations. At 3 Pillars Marketing our team is passionate about creating a world where we do good for the planet, people, and make money. Join us on this exciting journey!

1. Establishing the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard | USDA
2. Cancer risks in a population-based study of 70,570 agricultural workers: results from the Canadian census health and Environment cohort (CanCHEC) – PMC (nih.gov)
3. Pollinating insects can help soybean yields • News Service • Iowa State University (iastate.edu)
4. USDA ERS – Chart Detail
5. Regenerative Organic Agriculture – Rodale Institute