Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Martin Naylor <martinwnaylor@yahoo.com.au>]

I am AS i am

 

So what are you but a farmer

 

Be Happy in that

 

There is nothing to loose

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

> Rachel's Democracy & Health News #906
> Thursday, May 10, 2007
> http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_dhn070510.htm
> From: Culture Change ......................................[This story
> printer-friendly]
> April 10, 2007
>
> PEAK SOIL
>
> [Rachel's introduction: This long, detailed essay builds a strong case that
> biofuels, like ethanol from cellulose, are unsustainable and a threat to
> America: "We need to transition from petroleum power to muscle power
> gracefully if we want to preserve democracy."]
>
> by Alice Friedemann**
>
> "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself."
>  -- President Franklin
> D. Roosevelt
>
> Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt.
>
> Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our
> topsoil.
>
> Nineteenth century western farmers converted their corn into whiskey to
> make a profit (Rorabaugh 1979). Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), a large grain
> processor, came up with the same scheme in the 20th century. But ethanol
> was a product in search of a market, so ADM spent three decades
> relentlessly lobbying for ethanol to be used in gasoline. Today ADM makes
> record profits from ethanol sales and government subsidies (Barrionuevo
> 2006).
>
> The Department of Energy hopes to have biomass supply 5% of the nation's
> power, 20% of transportation fuels, and 25% of chemicals by 2030. These
> combined goals are 30% of the current petroleum consumption (DOE Biomass
> Plan, DOE Feedstock Roadmap).
>
> Fuels made from biomass are a lot like the nuclear powered airplanes the
> Air Force tried
>  to build from 1946 to 1961, for billions of dollars. They
> never got off the ground. The idea was interesting -- atomic jets could fly
> for months without refueling. But the lead shielding to protect the crew
> and several months of food and water was too heavy for the plane to take
> off. The weight problem, the ease of shooting this behemoth down, and the
> consequences of a crash landing were so obvious, it's amazing the project
> was ever funded, let alone kept going for 15 years.
>
> Biomass fuels have equally obvious and predictable reasons for failure.
> Odum says that time explains why renewable energy provides such low energy
> yields compared to non-renewable fossil fuels. The more work left to
> nature, the higher the energy yield, but the longer the time required.
> Although coal and oil took millions of years to form into dense,
> concentrated solar power, all we had to do was extract and transport them
> (Odum 1996)
>
> With every step
>  required to transform a fuel into energy, there is less and
> less energy yield. For example, to make ethanol from corn grain, which is
> how all U.S. ethanol is made now, corn is first grown to develop hybrid
> seeds, which next season are planted, harvested, delivered, stored, and
> preprocessed to remove dirt. Dry-mill ethanol is milled, liquefied, heated,
> saccharified, fermented, evaporated, centrifuged, distilled, scrubbed,
> dried, stored, and transported to customers (McAloon 2000).
>
> Fertile soil will be destroyed if crops and other "wastes" are removed to
> make cellulosic ethanol.
>
> "We stand, in most places on earth, only six inches from desolation, for
> that is the thickness of the topsoil layer upon which the entire life of
> the planet depends" (Sampson 1981).
>
> Loss of topsoil has been a major factor in the fall of civilizations
> (Sundquist 2005 Chapter 3, Lowdermilk 1953, Perlin 1991, Ponting 1993). You
> end up with a country
>  like Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, where 75% of the
> farm land became a salty desert.
>
> Fuels from biomass are not sustainable, are ecologically destructive, have
> a net energy loss, and there isn't enough biomass in America to make
> significant amounts of energy because essential inputs like water, land,
> fossil fuels, and phosphate ores are limited.
>
> Soil Science 101 -- There Is No "Waste" Biomass
>
> Long before there was "Peak Oil", there was "Peak Soil". Iowa has some of
> the best topsoil in the world. In the past century, half of it's been lost,
> from an average of 18 to 10 inches deep (Pate 2004, Klee 1991).
>
> Productivity drops off sharply when topsoil reaches 6 inches or less, the
> average crop root zone depth (Sundquist 2005).
>
> Crop productivity continually declines as topsoil is lost and residues are
> removed. (Al-Kaisi May 2001, Ball 2005, Blanco-Canqui 2006, BOA 1986,
> Calvino 2003, Franzleubbers 2006, Grandy 2006,
>  Johnson 2004, Johnson 2005,
> Miranowski 1984, Power 1998, Sadras 2001, Troeh 2005, Wilhelm 2004).
>
> On over half of America's best crop land, the erosion rate is 27 times the
> natural rate, 11,000 pounds per acre (NCRS 2006). The natural, geological
> erosion rate is about 400 pounds of soil per acre per year (Troeh 2005).
> Some is due to farmers not being paid enough to conserve their land, but
> most is due to investors who farm for profit. Erosion control cuts into
> profits.
>
> Erosion is happening ten to twenty times faster than the rate topsoil can
> be formed by natural processes (Pimentel 2006). That might make the average
> person concerned. But not the USDA -- they've defined erosion as the
> average soil loss that could occur without causing a decline in long term
> productivity.
>
> Troeh (2005) believes that the tolerable soil loss (T) value is set too
> high, because it's based only on the upper layers -- how long it takes
> subsoil
>  to be converted into topsoil. T ought to be based on deeper layers
> -- the time for subsoil to develop from parent material or parent material
> from rock. If he's right, erosion is even worse than NCRS figures.
>
> Erosion removes the most fertile parts of the soil (USDA-ARS). When you
> feed the soil [with organic matter], you're not feeding plants; you're
> feeding the biota in the soil. Underground creatures and fungi break down
> fallen leaves and twigs into microscopic bits that plants can eat, and
> create tunnels air and water can infiltrate. In nature there are no elves
> feeding (fertilizing) the wild lands. When plants die, they're recycled
> into basic elements and become a part of new plants. It's a closed cycle.
> There is no bio-waste.
>
> Soil creatures and fungi act as an immune system for plants against
> diseases, weeds, and insects -- when this living community is harmed by
> agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, even more chemicals
>  are needed in
> an increasing vicious cycle (Wolfe 2001).
>
> There's so much life in the soil, there can be 10 "biomass horses"
> underground for every horse grazing on an acre of pasture (Wardle 2004). If
> you dove into the soil and swam around, you'd be surrounded by miles of
> thin strands of mycorrhizal fungi that help plant roots absorb more
> nutrients and water, plus millions of creatures, most of them unknown.
> There'd be thousands of species in just a handful of earth -- springtails,
> bacteria, and worms digging airy subways. As you swam along, plant roots
> would tower above you like trees as you wove through underground
> skyscrapers.
>
> Plants and creatures underground need to drink, eat, and breathe just as we
> do. An ideal soil is half rock, and a quarter each water and air. When
> tractors plant and harvest, they crush the life out of the soil, as
> underground apartments collapse 9/11 style. The tracks left by tractors in
> the soil
>  are the erosion route for half of the soil that washes or blows
> away (Wilhelm 2004).
>
> Corn Biofuel -- Especially Harmful
>
> Corn Biofuel (i.e. butanol, ethanol, biodiesel) is especially harmful
> because: Row crops such as corn and soy cause 50 times more soil erosion
> than sod crops [e.g., hay] (Sullivan 2004) or more (Al-Kaisi 2000), because
> the soil between the rows can wash or blow away. If corn is planted with
> last year's corn stalks left on the ground (no- till), erosion is less of a
> problem, but only about 20% of corn is grown no-till. Soy is usually grown
> no-till, but [leaves] insignificant residues to harvest for fuel. Corn uses
> more water, insecticide, and fertilizer than most crops (Pimentel 2003).
> Due to high corn prices, continuous corn (corn crop after corn crop) is
> increasing, rather than rotation of nitrogen fixing (fertilizer) and
> erosion control sod crops with corn.
>
> The government has studied the effect of
>  growing continuous corn, and found
> it increases eutrophication by 189%, global warming by 71%, and
> acidification by 6% (Powers 2005).
>
> Farmers want to plant corn on highly-erodible, water protecting, or
> wildlife sustaining Conservation Reserve Program land. Farmers are paid not
> to grow crops on this land. But with high corn prices, farmers are now
> asking the Agricultural Department to release them from these contracts so
> they can plant corn on these low-producing, environmentally sensitive lands
> (Tomson 2007).
>
> Crop residues are essential for soil nutrition, water retention, and soil
> carbon. Making cellulosic ethanol from corn residues -- the parts of the
> plant we don't eat (stalk, roots, and leaves) -- removes water, carbon, and
> nutrients (Nelson, 2002, McAloon 2000, Sheehan, 2003). These practices lead
> to lower crop production and ultimately deserts. Growing plants for fuel
> will accelerate the already unacceptable levels of
>  topsoil erosion, soil
> carbon and nutrient depletion, soil compaction, water retention, water
> depletion, water pollution, air pollution, eutrophication, destruction of
> fisheries, siltation of dams and waterways, salination, loss of
> biodiversity, and damage to human health (Tegtmeier 2004).
>
> Why are soil scientists absent from the biofuels debate?
>
> I asked 35 soil scientists why topsoil wasn't part of the biofuels debate.
> These are just a few of the responses from the ten who replied to my
> off-the-record poll (no one wanted me to quote them, mostly due to fear of
> losing their jobs): "I have no idea why soil scientists aren't questioning
> corn and cellulosic ethanol plans. Quite frankly I'm not sure that our
> society has had any sort of reasonable debate about this with all the facts
> laid out. When you see that even if all of the corn was converted to
> ethanol and that would not provide more than 20% of our current liquid fuel
> use,
>  it certainly makes me wonder, even before considering the conversion
> efficiency, soil loss, water contamination, food price problems, etc."
>
> "Biomass production is not sustainable. Only business men and women in the
> refinery business believe it is."
>
> "Should we be using our best crop land to grow gasohol and contribute
> further to global warming? What will our children grow their food on?"
>
> "As agricultural scientists, we are programmed to make farmers profitable,
> and therefore profits are at the top of the list, and not soil, family, or
> environmental sustainability".
>
> "Government policy since WWII has been to encourage overproduction to keep
> food prices down (people with full bellies don't revolt or object too
> much). It's hard to make a living farming commodities when the selling
> price is always at or below the break even point. Farmers have had to get
> bigger and bigger to make ends meet since the margins keep getting
>  thinner
> and thinner. We have sacrificed our family farms in the name of cheap food.
> When farmers stand to make few bucks (as with biofuels) agricultural
> scientists tend to look the other way".
>
> "You are quite correct in your concern that soil science should be factored
> into decisions about biofuel production. Unfortunately, we soil scientists
> have missed the boat on the importance of soil management to the
> sustainability of biomass production, and the long- term impact for soil
> productivity.
>
> This is not a new debate. Here's what scientists had to say decades ago:
> Removing "crop residues...would rob organic matter that is vital to the
> maintenance of soil fertility and tilth, leading to disastrous soil erosion
> levels. Not considered is the importance of plant residues as a primary
> source of energy for soil microbial activity. The most prudent course,
> clearly, is to continue to recycle most crop residues back into the
>  soil,
> where they are vital in keeping organic matter levels high enough to make
> the soil more open to air and water, more resistant to soil erosion, and
> more productive" (Sampson 1981).
>
> "...Massive alcohol production from our farms is an immoral use of our
> soils since it rapidly promotes their wasting away. We must save these
> soils for an oil-less future" (Jackson 1980).
>
> Natural Gas in Agriculture
>
> When you take out more nutrients and organic matter from the soil than you
> put back in, you are "mining" the topsoil. The organic matter is especially
> important, since that's what prevents erosion, improves soil structure,
> health, water retention, and gives the next crop its nutrition. Modern
> agriculture only addresses the nutritional component by adding fossil-fuel
> based fertilizers, and because the soil is unhealthy from a lack of organic
> matter, copes with insects and disease with oil-based pesticides.
>
> "Fertilizer
>  energy" is 28% of the energy used in agriculture (Heller,
> 2000). Fertilizer uses natural gas both as a feedstock and the source of
> energy to create the high temperatures and pressures necessary to coax
> inert nitrogen out of the air (nitrogen is often the limiting factor in
> crop production). This is known as the Haber-Bosch process, and it's a big
> part of the green revolution that made it possible for the world's
> population to grow from half a billion to 6.5 billion today (Smil 2000,
> Fisher 2001).
>
> Our national security is at risk as we become dependent on unstable foreign
> states to provide us with increasingly expensive fertilizer. Between 1995
> and 2005 we increased our fertilizer imports by more than 148% for
> Anhydrous Ammonia, 93% for Urea (solid), and 349 % of other nitrogen
> fertilizers (USDA ERS). Removing crop residues will require large amounts
> of imported fertilizer from potential cartels, potentially so expensive
> farmers
>  won't sell crops and residues for biofuels.
>
> Improve national security and topsoil by returning residues to the land as
> fertilizer. We are vulnerable to high-priced fertilizer imports or "food
> for oil", which would greatly increase the cost of food for Americans.
>
> Agriculture competes with homes and industry for fast depleting North
> American natural gas. Natural gas price increases have already caused over
> 280,000 job losses (Gerard 2006). Natural gas is also used for heating and
> cooking in over half our homes, generates 15% of electricity, and is a
> feedstock for thousands of products.
>
> Return crop residues to the soil to provide organic fertilizer, don't
> increase the need for natural gas fertilizers by removing crop residues to
> make cellulosic biofuels.
>
> Part 2. The Poop on Ethanol
>
> Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)
>
> To understand the concept of EROEI, imagine a magician doing a variation on
> the
>  rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick. He strides onstage with a rabbit, puts it
> into a top hat, and then spends the next five minutes pulling 100 more
> rabbits out. That is a pretty good return on investment!
>
> Oil was like that in the beginning: one barrel of oil energy was required
> to get 100 more out, an Energy Returned on Energy Invested of 100:1.
>
> When the biofuel magician tries to do the same trick decades later, he puts
> the rabbit into the hat, and pulls out only one pooping rabbit. The
> excrement is known as byproduct or coproduct in the ethanol industry.
>
> Studies that show a positive energy gain for ethanol would have a negative
> return if the byproduct were left out (Farrell 2006). Here's where
> byproduct comes from: if you made ethanol from corn in your back yard,
> you'd dump a bushel of corn, two gallons of water, and yeast into your
> contraption. Out would come 18 pounds of ethanol, 18 pounds of CO2, and 18
> pounds of byproduct --
>  the leftover corn solids.
>
> Patzek and Pimentel believe you shouldn't include the energy contained in
> the byproduct, because you need to return it to the soil to improve
> nutrition and soil structure (Patzek June 2006). Giampetro believes the
> byproduct should be treated as a "serious waste disposal problem and... an
> energy cost", because if we supplied 10% of our energy from biomass, we'd
> generate 37 times more livestock feed than is used (Giampetro 1997).
>
> It's even worse than he realized -- Giampetro didn't know most of this
> "livestock feed" can't be fed to livestock because it's too energy and
> monetarily expensive to deliver -- especially heavy wet distillers
> byproduct, which is short-lived, succumbing to mold and fungi after 4 to 10
> days. Also, byproduct is a subset of what animals eat. Cattle are fed
> byproduct in 20% of their diet at most. Iowa's a big hog state, but
> commercial swine operations feed pigs a maximum of 5 to 10%
>  byproduct
> (Trenkle 2006; Shurson 2003).
>
> Worst of all, the EROEI of ethanol is 1.2:1 or 1.2 units of energy out for
> every unit of energy in, a gain of ".2". The "1" in "1.2" represents the
> liquid ethanol. What is the ".2" then? It's the rabbit feces -- the
> byproduct. So you have no ethanol for your car, because the liquid "1"
> needs to be used to make more ethanol. That leaves you with just the ".2"
> --- a bucket of byproduct to feed your horse -- you do have a horse, don't
> you? If horses are like cattle, then you can only use your byproduct for
> one-fifth of his diet, so you'll need four supplemental buckets of hay from
> your back yard to feed him. No doubt the byproduct could be used to make
> other things, but that would take energy.
>
> Byproduct could be burned, but it takes a significant amount of energy to
> dry it out, and requires additional handling and equipment. More money can
> be made selling it wet to the cattle industry,
>  which is hurting from the
> high price of corn. Byproduct should be put back into the ground to improve
> soil nutrition and structure for future generations, not sold for
> short-term profit and fed to cattle who aren't biologically adapted to
> eating corn.
>
> The boundaries of what is included in EROEI calculations are kept as narrow
> as possible to reach positive results.
>
> Researchers who find a positive EROEI for ethanol have not accounted for
> all of the energy inputs. For example, Shapouri admits the "energy used in
> the production of... farm machinery and equipment..., and cement, steel,
> and stainless steel used in the construction of ethanol plants, are not
> included". (Shapouri 2002). Or they assign overstated values of ethanol
> yield from corn (Patzek Dec 2006). Many, many, other inputs are left out.
>
> Patzek and Pimentel have compelling evidence showing that about 30 percent
> more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon
>  of ethanol than you get
> from it. Their papers are published in peer-reviewed journals where their
> data and methods are public, unlike many of the positive net energy
> results.
>
> Infrastructure. Current EROEI figures don't take into account the delivery
> infrastructure that needs to be built. There are 850 million combustion
> engines in the world today. Just to replace half the 245 million cars and
> light trucks in the United States with E85 vehicles will take 12-15 years,
> It would take over $544 million dollars of delivery ethanol infrastructure
> (Reynolds 2002 case B1) and $5 to $34 billion to revamp 170,000 gas
> stations nationwide (Heinson 2007).
>
> The EROEI of oil when we built most of the infrastructure in this country
> was about 100:1, and it's about 25:1 worldwide now. Even if you believe
> ethanol has a positive EROEI, you'd probably need at least an EROEI of at
> least 5 to maintain modern civilization (Hall 2003). A civilization
>  based
> on ethanol's ".2" rabbit poop would only work for coprophagous
> (dung-eating) rabbits.
>
> Of the four articles that showed a positive net energy for ethanol in
> Farrells 2006 Science article, three were not peer-reviewed. The only
> positive peer-reviewed article (Dias De Oliveira, 2005) states "The use of
> ethanol as a substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor
> an environmentally friendly option" and the "environmental impacts outweigh
> its benefits". Dias De Oliveria concluded there'd be a tremendous loss of
> biodiversity, and if all vehicles ran on E85 and their numbers grew by 4%
> per year, by 2048, the entire country, except for cities, would be covered
> with corn.
>
> Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.
>
> The energy to remediate environmental damage is left out of EROEI
> calculations.
>
> Global Warming
>
> Soils contain twice the amount of carbon found in the atmosphere, and three
> times more carbon
>  than is stored in all the Earth's vegetation (Jones
>
> === message truncated ===

 

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