CONVENTIONAL VS BIOLOGICAL METHODS OF FARMING
‘As an urban
outsider
concerned with
the way food is
grown at scale, I
quickly discovered
two things: that
“conventional”
farming methods
are the go in the
Midwest and that
they are much
more nuanced
than I could have
imagined.’
Defining the words used around growing methods is fraught with problems. ‘Organic’ is
a word so diluted of meaning that I started using the term ‘biological farming’ as a way
of talking about techniques that concentrate on the life of the soil by boosting microbial
activity. In comparison, ‘conventional’ methods concentrate on boosting or suppressing
plant growth.
With biological farming, when the health and natural functioning of the soil is the main
aim and herbicides are not on the menu, then it is all about weed control. Weeds can be
ploughed back into the soil when they germinate after the first rain event of the season,
and then again if rain permits, but too much disturbance of the ground destroys soil
structure, so it is not advisable to keep ploughing. Weeds are formidable stayers, in that
they are capable of producing seeds which germinate after years of lying dormant in the
soil. Farming, like any business, is all about returns for investment so the added diesel and
labour needed for chemical-free methods must also be counted.
‘Conventional’ farming concentrates on pumping-up the growing capacity of the plants. At
the most extreme end of this spectrum lies no-fence broadacre cropping, a monoculture
that is a form of chemical hydroponics, where the inputs are designed to bypass the earth’s
natural processes and the soil is merely there to prop up the green matter.
As an urban outsider concerned with the way food is grown at scale, I quickly discovered
two things: that ‘conventional’ farming methods are the go in the Midwest and that they
are much more nuanced than I could have imagined.
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