National Ag News
Farmer says soil/water issues ecological problems
The push for improving soil and water health, an organic dairy farmer says, is because of the flawed cropping system in the U.S. that needs correcting.
Francis Thicke, who operates Radiance Dairy in Fairfield, Iowa, says fixes like bioreactors are just Bandaids, “We’re putting these bioreactors, what somebody’s called ‘conservation diapers’ at the bottom of the field because we haven’t done it right on the field. You know, our ecology’s flawed so now we have to use an engineering solution at the bottom of the field.”
Thicke, who was on a panel at the University of Missouri Agroforestry Symposium, says the corn and soybean rotation is inherently “leaky and flawed”, “Because there are no live roots in the soil for only about five months of the year.
Continue reading Farmer says soil/water issues ecological problems at Brownfield Ag News.
