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Knee-High by the Fourth of July

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Back when Scott Marpe's grandfather grew corn, farmers boasted knee-high corn by the 4th of July, and an acre of land in Iowa yielded about 40 bushels of corn. Today, Scott can produce close to 200 bushels on that same acre and by the 4th of July expects his corn to be nearing the height of an elephant's eye.

The dramatic increase in productivity is due to the increased mechanization, use of fertilizer and pesticides, and changes in corn-breeding techniques that have occurred, for the most part, since the Second World War.

When I, a northeastern city girl born and raised, came out to Iowa in early June, there seemed to be an inevitability to this landscape. Miles and miles of cornfields, abandoned farm houses, and depressed rural towns signaled the dominance of an agriculture concerned only with the production of lots and lots of very high-yielding corn. Yet with the recent flooding in Iowa and the corn crop being at least three weeks behind, the weaknesses of a high-input, industrial system of production have emerged.

Contrary to farm-country mantra, corn should not be planted ‘fence row to fence row'; do that and you must plant in (and destroy) the very flood plains, riparian areas, and wetlands that absorb those heavy rains. Instead of feeding the plant, we should be feeding the soil; fertilizers (plant food) degrade soils and water quality, whereas compost and cover crops (soil food) create healthy soils with greater water-holding capacity. And planting acres and acres of the same corn variety at the same time means that you're putting all of your eggs in one basket; we, farmers or not, all know the dangers of doing that. Industrial agriculture, in the name of short-term high productivity, has removed our and our ecosystems' ability to cope with unpredictable and severe weather - the wildest card of all. From the cornfield to the grocery store, Americans will be feeling the effects of the Midwestern floods of '08 for quite some time, and we're running out of tricks.

2008 will not be a record-breaking year for the corn harvest. The heavy rains and subsequent flooding that hit Iowa earlier this month have delayed, ruined, and crippled this year's corn crop, bringing it to our knees. Scott, instead of boasting, will be saying that this year's corn is only knee-high by the 4th of July.

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Comments

Sue Castle wrote on September 10, 2008, 05:06PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

Thank you Ariane for bringing this issue of farming to people's attention. I wonder if you might elaborate on why fertilizers can harm the soil. I have read that the soil organisms are destoyed, but do not understand the mechanism.
Tarek Firzli wrote on September 10, 2008, 09:59PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

"Thank you Ariane for bringing this issue of farming to people's attention. I wonder if you might elaborate on why fertilizers can harm the soil. I have read that the soil organisms are destoyed, but do not understand the mechanism."

The basic reason that micro-organisms and worms etc, are needed are what I said, basic. Pretty much they 1. Break down waste into nutrients, 2. they till the soil by moving it and thus air it out.

So besides chemicals likely poisoning the soil and possible ruining it by only merit of "burning" the nutrients they kill the mechanisms that till the soil through moving and who give it nutrition and air in the soil.

Never over think farming, it is basic on many levels but people don't think about it.

I would reccommend Masanobu Fukuoka's "One Straw Revolution" for natural farming info it is inspirational and also very philosophically enlightening