The fertile plain
It’s not drought that kills crops; it’s soil infertility
By Krystle Chung
December 28, 2007
In early December, the New York Times ran an article about how the impoverished African country of Malawi was suddenly growing healthier crops than ever before. The shocking secret? Fertilizer.
As we’ve pointed out on Culinate, dirt and water alone aren’t enough for healthy plants; they need nutrients. And that’s also the conclusion of an article, written way back in 2000, by a soil scientist named William Albrecht; it’s available on the website of Acres USA, a magazine dedicated to sustainable agriculture.
The article, titled “The Drought Myth,” focuses on the idea that droughts cause crop disasters. According to Albrecht, drought does cause the upper parts of soils to dry out, encouraging plant roots to grow deeper in search of water. The deeper they go, however, the fewer nutrients are available. Once that happens, water’s not the limiting factor anymore. Now the plants are hungry, not thirsty.
But if farmers fertilize far down into the soil, then drought is less of a threat. To back up his point, Albrecht cites data from a research farm in Missouri during the summer drought of 1953. Plants growing in unfertilized soil used up 14 inches of water and yielded 18 bushels per acre. Plants growing in fertilized soil, however, used only two more inches of water and produced a whopping 79 bushels per acre.
One question remains, however: What kind of fertilizer goes into that soil? The New York Times article on Malawi didn’t say what the locals were tilling into their fields, although the accompanying photographs showed large bags of fertilizer being unloaded. Compost and other organic fertilizers, obviously, are more environmentally friendly than inorganic chemical derivatives. But farmers have to start somewhere.
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There are 4 comments on this item
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1. by Farmer de Ville on Jan 4, 2008 at 9:15 PM PST
Inorganic chemical fertilizers are part of the problem. They are to the life of the soil as a sugar based diet is to the human body - toxic. Just as sugar provides us with energy, chemical fertilizers do provide plants with energy.
The whole thinking behind narrow spectrum chemical fertilizers is deeply and tragically flawed. We don’t need soil on life supporting chemicals, we need soil which is fully alive with fungi, with earthworms, with micronutrients, with humus.
Injecting the soil with petrochemicals to achieve a short lasting imitation of fertility is counterproductive. Let’s see where things are in Malawi after thirty years of chemical agriculture.
Chemical fertilizers are not a start to farmer’s using sustainable techniques, they are a start down the path of ever more chemical fertilizers.
Of course soil fertility is key to robust crops. But suggesting that chemical fertilizers can help us to achieve soil health is a dangerous buy-in.
Pumping petrochemical based fertilizers into the fragile web of the soil is no more a sound and sustainable approach to agriculture health than a diet of Butterfinger bars augmented with Flintstones vitamins are a sustainable approach to human health.
- Farmer
2. by anonymous on Jan 10, 2008 at 6:50 PM PST
To build on that comment, it’s important to note that Albrecht (who contributed to the 1939 USDA Yearbook: Soils and Men, and wrote this article decades ago) shows us that the key to soil fertility to providing the raw materials (generally in the form of ground up rocks and good soil husbandry) to allow soil biology to balance soil chemistry in a way that these salt fertilizers never can (they trick plants and soil life both into thinking soil biology isn’t necessary, creating the continuous and rapacious demand Farmer de Ville describes).
3. by Farmer de Ville on Jan 10, 2008 at 7:36 PM PST
Exactly. Thank you.
- Farmer
4. by Krystle Chung on Jan 30, 2008 at 1:40 PM PST
I completely agree that raw materials are the most effective way to encourage soil health in the long run. But, I’m not sure it would be economical or feasible for Malawi’s government to fund a more sustainable approach to soil fertility, at least not at first.
If raw materials are not affordable, then the next best thing would be for Malawi to jump-start their agricultural economy with chemical fertilizers (which are cheaper, more accessible, and more convenient) and use the excess income to fund more sustainable (usually more expensive) methods ASAP.
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