A Permanent Agriculture

GRASS IN THE NATION'S LIFE

And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle that thou mayest eat and be full.

DEUTERONOMY 11:15

OUR AIM: AN INTRODUCTION

P. V. Cardon

OUR GOAL is permanency in agriculture an agriculture that is stable and secure for farm and farmer, consistent in prices and earnings; an agriculture that can satisfy indefinitely all our needs of food, fiber, and shelter in keeping with the living standards we set. Everybody has a stake in a permanent agriculture.

It is attainable but only through the wise application of our expanding knowledge about the use of land, capital, and labor in production and distribution. It does not deny full use of the land to any generation of owners. It does require that each generation, in its turn, observe land-use practices that insure sustained production.

Perhaps no farmer has yet developed a permanent agriculture even within his own fences. It is still a goal to be achieved by communities, districts, or regions. No nation has it; no group of nations has done more than to recognize hazily the need for permanency in agriculture and to consider general ways of cooperating to meet that need.

Yet permanency in agriculture is a goal to be sought always by all people, everywhere. It was never more clearly recognized than during the past sad decade. To lose sight of it is to invite the specter of tragic want the end product of soil depletion.

So, in the wake of war and in the glow of our unprecedented production, this country looks to the future and considers again the land and its management this time, as never before, in terms of grass. For around grass, farmers can organize general crop production so as to promote efficient practices that lead to permanency in agriculture.

Grass, as a family (Gramineae), includes the great food crops, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, sorghum, millet, barley, oats. It also includes the many species of sod crops which provide the cured forage or pasturage for all types of farm animals.

But grass in the concept of grassland agriculture is not limited to the grasses; it embraces also their common associates of the legume family (Leguminosae) the clovers, lespedezas, alfalfas, and many others.

Grassland agriculture is a commonly accepted term in most European countries and is coming into wider use elsewhere. Grassland conferences have been conducted the past quarter century in different countries of Europe, and several met in the United States in 1939 and 1940. Renewed interest in such conferences here and abroad followed the end of the Second World War. There have been four International Grassland Congresses. The fifth is scheduled for 1949 in Holland.

A decade ago I noted America's trend toward a grassland agriculture. The war modified that trend to accommodate emergency crop requirements, but its general direction continued. Today it is even more pronounced because experience has shown that good grass can enhance efficiency of production at the same time that it tends to insure permanency in agriculture. Recognition of the intrinsic value of grass itself of grass as a farm crop it pays to grow has elevated it to a plane that more and more people have come to appreciate.

Grassland agriculture does not mean necessarily extensive agriculture. In some areas it is very intensive as much so as vegetable farming.

Inseparably linked to livestock production, grassland agriculture under good management may equal or increase the production of digestible nutrients to the acre and reduce materially the labor needed to grow and utilize a given amount of those nutrients. It may also lower significantly the cost of supplying the protein often bought as concentrates required for high levels of animal nutrition. Grassland agriculture envisions the use of grasses and legumes alone or in combination or rotation according to systems of management best suited to land use under various environments, with ample provision for root crops, leafy. vegetables, fruits, fibers, forests, and specialty crops as needed.

Thus grassland agriculture differs from other types of farming chiefly with respect to the emphasis placed on grasses and legumes. They are dominant in a flexible pattern designed to conserve the land and its productivity but at the same time keep it adjustable to emergency needs.

To be fully effective, grassland agriculture, like agriculture by any other name, is subject to modification by the sweeping influence of social and economic change. It cannot deny or ignore the effects of varying systems of land tenure, the requirements of sound credit, the impact of shifts in national policies, or the political trends resulting from these and other factors that affect the lives of people on the land. But conceived and advanced as nearly as possible in harmony with known physical and biological principles, grassland agriculture better than any other type of agriculture will continue in the face of economic and social change to conserve the land and insure a food supply of the desired quantity, variety, and quality.

Soil and climate in the various sections determine the intensity of grassland farming that is most likely to prove satisfactory, and even they must be considered in terms of more specific physical, biological, and managerial factors that govern species, cultural and grazing practices, and the place of grass in the cropping system. Thus grass in Aroostook County in Maine may be of different composition and managed differently from grass in Pointe Coupee Parish in Louisiana. So also grassland agriculture in Tama County in Iowa may differ widely from that of Woodward County in Oklahoma, and both may differ from that of Cache County in Utah, Snohomish County in Washington, or the Salt River Valley of Arizona.

But regardless of variation in the degree of intensity of the grassland farming suited to different regions, underlying principles to be observed are much the same everywhere. Those principles relate to the productive capacity of the soil the factors that conduce to its deterioration on the one hand, or its improvement on the other and to the control of factors that soil management can exert.

What the soil will produce or may be made to produce this year or next is of immediate importance in terms of current food supply and demand. How the soil may be used to insure sustained production is of continuing importance to national welfare. How to use his soil for his immediate purposes and yet keep it usable indefinitely is the user's responsibility and trust.

Knowledge of his soil and of what he can do with it prompts the farmer to design or adopt management practices that make for high yield at low unit cost, with minimum reduction in the productive capacity of the soil which is his heritage.

Productive capacity, defined by R. M. Salter and his associates in Ohio as "the inherent potential capacity of a soil to produce," depends upon in-fixed characteristics that can be modified only slowly; major changes may require several years. But productive capacity is responsive to management. A high productive capacity with good management approximates the ultimate, but even high productive capacity responds poorly to poor management. And a low productive capacity can be made to respond surprisingly to good management.

The farmer makes his arable soil from the natural soil. His cultural practices may increase its productivity or decrease it. Large areas of soil in western Europe and the eastern part of the United States, for example, are more productive now after years of careful mixed farming than the original acid, leached soils under the natural forest. On the other hand, many soils are poorer by use, especially the dark-colored soils developed under natural grassland.

A primary factor is the reduction of organic matter and nutrient elements. Organic matter is reduced through microbiological activities, which are stimulated by the aeration incident to cultivation. For that reason, organic matter in soil under intertilled crops is lost at a higher rate than in the same soil under crops requiring less tillage.

Contained in the soil organic matter is nitrogen, an important nutrient element. A loss of nitrogen, therefore, accompanies the destruction of organic matter. An example : The loss of nitrogen in various cropped soils in Ohio in 50 to 75 years averaged 35 percent of the nitrogen present in comparable virgin soils.

Along with the decline in organic matter and nitrogen, tilth declines.

Loss of tilth (which is most apparent on heavier soils, but is present also in lighter soils) is principally a physical phenomenon involving the proportion of solid material to pore space in a given volume of soil. Since pore space may be filled with air or water or occupied by roots, a fair proportion of it is essential to crop growth in any soil. The proportion of pore space declines with the loss of organic matter, and there is a larger proportion of solid matter, so that the soil becomes heavier and tighter and in consequence less productive and more susceptible to erosion.

Since deterioration of productive capacity in soil accompanies loss of organic matter and nutrient elements, it follows that deterioration might be halted and the soil-improvement forces stimulated through the addition of organic matter and nutrient elements to the soil.

The addition of the organic matter takes place to some extent with incorporation of roots and crop residues into the soil. This is true even with intertilled crops but to a lesser extent than with sod crops. The application of barnyard manure and the plowing under of green-manure crops are ways of supplementing organic matter in roots and crop residues.

The addition of organic matter restores nutrient elements in some measure to the soil but seldom in sufficient quantities to retain productive capacity. Even the nitrogen in organic matter usually must be supplemented, as is the case with phosphorus, potash, and other mineral elements hence the importance of adding fertilizers.