Climate smart farming offers benefits for both the environment and — just as important for growers — for the health, quality, and productivity of a crop. But this movement goes beyond discussions about carbon credits and dealing with drought. Climate smart practices touch virtually every aspect of agriculture. To get a broader perspective of how these techniques are playing out in different segments of the industry, we reached out to experts in three areas: the soil biome, water/irrigation, and plant nutrition. Here are their takes on what you should be thinking about with climate smart farming.
Joy Youwakim, Agronomist, Biome Makers
How do you define climate smart farming?
Youwakim: The way that Biome Makers defines climate smart agriculture is really about looking at these sorts of problems through a holistic lens as a systems approach.
We know there are many different participants in the soil — we have bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and insects. But at the same time, we have rainfall patterns, people, budgets, and desires with our farms, so it's very multifaceted where theory meets application and agriculture. And we really are just amplifying, encouraging this access to knowledge at the microbiological level.
So, when people are thinking about how much they want to spend and what they need, and their yield goals — we need to empower them to know what's going on underneath, so that they can save time and money, and so they can work with the land instead of against it. It's not a silver bullet. There’s seldom a simple fix with agriculture, and there's nothing you can do overnight to really make a drastic change. But once you know what's going on in that community level in your soil, you're able to make more informed decisions about how you want to manage your farm.
How are some of the leading-edge soil testing technologies helping growers make better decisions on their crops that also fit with the climate smart perspective?
Youwakim: Biome Makers is a functional genomics company. DNA testing is just the first bit. We take that information from the soil, and then we run it through our database, with over 17 million taxa. We use machine learning that informs the relationships we're seeing. We're talking about biodiversity, functionality, resistance to stress. We look at all the microbes that are in the soil sample, and then we look at their ability to protect against pathogen risk, protect against soilborne illness. And we look at many other variables, such as sequestering carbon nitrogen, or turning nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium into soluble forms for plant uptake.
Once you have tested and identified the microbes present in the sample, the next step is looking at functionality. What do these microbes do?
They are a community. I like to use the analogy of a town. Who are your chefs? Who are your artists? Who are your policymakers? What are they doing? Do you have too many policymakers, and not enough chefs?
The key is taking this data and applying it to adopt solutions to problems you’re having in the field.
You need this community to function and be diverse. It helps you protect against disease, and also fits all the roles that you need for successful plant growth. So, we're looking at the diversity there and the skills that these microbes have. A strong soil sample will show we're solubilizing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium very well. We're sequestering carbon. We have really strong pathogen resistance, and we have a strong, diverse community of bacteria and fungi. We're also looking for balance with bacteria and fungi because they work together harmoniously.
People might come to us and say, “I did a soil test, and I did a plant tissue test. The soil is full of phosphorus and full of nitrogen. However, the plant tissue analysis shows that the plant isn't taking it up. And we've spent all this money on fertilizer, and no matter how much we add, it’s not getting to the plant.”
So that's really where you do a test, and you can look at the community functions. You can see you're lacking the microbes. You're feeding so much, but you don't have anyone there to consume it and the nutrients are not going to get up to the plant.
So, what can you do? If you're not cover cropping, that will help, for example. We know that cover cropping, especially with legumes, fixes nitrogen, and you can have that there in the soil, and you strengthen that community. Understanding the data can be that missing piece to help you succeed.
Are growers considering the potential benefits of technology and tools and services like this looking at it more from a sustainability focus, or their bottom line? Or is it some combination?
Youwakim: I definitely think it's both. They're not mutually exclusive. Farmers have to make a living. Everyone does. It's very important. However, I've never met a farmer who wasn't a proud steward of their land. They want to leave something for future generations to have.
So, I really think it's all encompassing. They're coming with both interests in mind. The more that we know, the more that we can reduce herbicide, pesticide, fertilizer, the more we can reduce runoff, and improve water systems… It really goes beyond agriculture. Look at how it's better for everyone, not just the growers themselves. It's their communities as well.
Kathleen Glass, VP of Marketing, AquaSpy
Glass: That's a huge question. It's really about ways that we can help better fix or restore the carbon nitrogen cycle, because right now we're not recapturing the carbon that we need to. The essence of climate smart agriculture is: How can we capture or retain more of the carbon in the soil? And that's part of restoring a process that's been broken as we have overfertilized and overwatered the soil. A downside of that old way of thinking is that the soil is becoming less soil-like. It's just becoming dirt or a substrate. The water doesn't penetrate. It doesn't soak in and so not only are we not capturing the carbon, but we’re also having a harder time growing the crops.
How is technology helping growers make decisions about their irrigation and water management in climate smart ways?
Glass: There is an interesting group of companies emerging that are looking at managing water, but in a much different and more technical sort of way. AQUA4D is a partner of ours. They have been doing all kinds of interesting projects and studies, but at the root of it they're looking at irrigation in a holistic sort of way.
They examine how a grower irrigates by asking questions. Are you using pivot? Are you using drip? Are you going out and making sure that your system is as efficient as it can be, repairing drips and ensuring you’re not wasting water? Are you irrigating when you know the crop needs it? Or are you just watering every third Wednesday, or whatever that cycle was that we got into in the past?
Before we were climate smart, especially in the Midwest, the commodity crop farmers believed, “I put on as much fertilizer and as much water as I can, and that's going to maximize my yield.” Climate smart rolls a lot of that thinking back and focuses more on, “How can I minimize the use of these nutrients, fossil fuels, and scarce water?”
How deep are you irrigating? Are you getting it down into the active root zones? And what are you irrigating with? Another thing that's been happening is that our waters are becoming more saline, meaning our ground is also becoming more saline. If you're watering with just irrigation water, that's got nitrogen and salts and all kinds of things that you've got to really accommodate for, which is an interesting challenge all in itself.
One of the things that AQUA4D said at the output of that initial report was by the second year, they expect to see additional water savings as you get used to the system and adapt your process control.
One of the projects AQUA4D worked on looked at all of these variables, and asked a question: Can I control when I'm irrigating and maintain a similar amount of yield? They found that by paying attention to all of these factors, we can actually learn how to apply less water and still get a good yield. In this project they were able to recognize a 20% or 30% savings.
And that could improve over time. One of the things that AQUA4D said at the output of that initial report was by the second year, they expect to see additional water savings as you get used to the system and adapt your process control. Now you have that historical data. From that first year you're going to be able to do a lot better with tuning, and you're going to be a lot more confident the second year.
So, this isn't just kind of a “one and done.” It is an evolutionary process through process control improvement and changing your behaviors.
What do you see as the driver for more growers adopting a climate smart mindset, especially with water? What are some of the benefits?
Glass: We're not as progressive in the US about regulating these kinds of things, but a lot of countries — Israel, New Zealand, Australia, a couple of different Northern European countries — have fairly strict carbon regulations. They're really enforcing that farmers take innovative steps to reduce their carbon footprints, and very aggressively in the next decade. So, sometimes the farmers will be “Okay, I have incentives to conserve. I have regulations I need to meet. I need to get on this.” Other times the thinking is, “Hey, I really need to conserve because I either I can't get the water, or it's not coming out of the sky, or it's too expensive.” A lot of farmers were faced with this when energy prices went up. It became really expensive to pump the water from lower in the ground.
In the end, climate smart agriculture approaches need to look at a lot of different aspects of farming, but water is a huge part of it and repairing the soil is tied directly into improving our water utilization.
So, we know this could be reactionary, responding to regulations. And some of it is proactive, because a grower really needs to control costs.
In the end, climate smart agriculture approaches need to look at a lot of different aspects of farming, but water is a huge part of it and repairing the soil is tied directly into improving our water utilization. It's a continuous cycle: The more we can improve the soil, the better the soil will actually make use of the available nutrients and moisture. That's it — these are all the things that that will lead back to climate smart agriculture. It really is interesting.
Chapman Mayo, President, Agro-K Corporation
Mayo: In my mind I'm looking at it more as trying to be proactive from the plant management of abiotic stress, because, as the climate changes, we know plants are going to be exposed to more events — and more severe events — in a given growing season than in previous decades. It's really about trying to minimize climatic stress in advance. It’s been demonstrated that biological tools like biostimulants and bionutrition can significantly impact abiotic stress in a positive manner, so we're at the starting point of really framing nutrition management from a climatic stress standpoint.
Well, increased climate stress is just one more factor to consider, and I think there are things we can do nutrition-wise that have more focus on reducing climatic stress
We've always focused on trying to minimize stress, whether it be biotic or abiotic, for crop quality and yield reasons. Well, increased climate stress is just one more factor to consider, and I think there are things we can do nutrition-wise that have more focus on reducing climatic stress — and that hopefully should also lead to improvements in quality and yields as well.
How are you seeing that idea manifest in field production at this point?
Mayo: We know from decades of work and our experience, particularly with seaweed-based compounds, that they do help manage abiotic stress and can aid the plant in managing heat stress better. That's one area that we focused on for a long time. But it's always been more reactive: [The short-term forecast shows] there's going to be a heat event, so let's make an application to try to minimize the stress. Maybe a better option is being proactive on an annual basis and saying, okay, we know that at some point this is definitely going to happen this year. Let's have a plan in advance to try to get out in front of it — more of a seasonal approach.
Convincing growers to use tools like biostimulants and sometimes biocontrol proactively and preventatively has sometimes been a bit of a challenge, because seeing the results is not always a clear picture. Is that a challenging mindset to have to work through?
Mayo: A short answer is probably yes. The longer answer is, I think the bionutrition and biostimulant arena is still certainly very chaotic right now. There are a lot of new technologies and new compounds and microbial solutions that are coming onto the market space, so there's a lot of noise. Growers are hearing a lot of messages from a lot of different angles.
It’s always a hurdle to get growers to understand and accept that what we're going to do is going to help. And so documenting things from a quality and yield standpoint is critical to ensuring that you can demonstrate to the grower that what you did resulted in value.
But there are certain things you can demonstrate to a grower. Take sugar beets, for example. When the heat really comes on, the leaves kind of just collapse in the afternoon.
However, if you're focusing on that acre and you're applying products that allow that sugar beet plant to manage the heat stress better, those leaves stay up much longer after untreated plants shut down photosynthesis. When the grower sees the leaves standing up, they recognize that the plant is still functioning, photosynthesis is happening, sugar is being produced. The beet is growing, and tonnage and hopefully sugar content comes along with that. So, there are some visual effects that you can demonstrate on certain crops that show applications to manage heat stress from a climatic standpoint can be effective.
So, climate smart farming is becoming more common among growers but are they doing it with sustainability in mind? Are they doing it with a bottom-line focus on quality and yield? Or is it some combination of factors?
Mayo: I think growers are sincere about sustainability, but I still think at the end of the day it's about the economic return. Farming is a business after all. If they can frame a sustainability message around their field practices, all the better.
But I do think there’s been a gradual shift in terms of focusing on soil health. We know a soil that's functioning better can hold more carbon. Being able to use products that can help with nutrient cycling and improving microbial activity within the soil does lead to improvements in moisture-holding capacity, soil tilth, and all that, so the soil can hold more moisture and carbon essentially. Obviously, that's good for carbon sequestration, but it's also good for the health of the plants and the crops. That's a long-term thing, and growers are definitely looking towards doing things in a more sustainable manner. It doesn't necessarily have to be strictly organic, but using products that improve the residue management, which is a storage of nutrients as well as carbon, and managing that more effectively — those things certainly can improve the grower’s bottom line and are better for climate smart ag as well, too.
For many years that was not as much of a concern for growers. It was basically how much can you grow, and how quickly can you grow it? But I do see a shift there, and the distributors that are catering to the growers are also more focused on sustainability. From the distributor’s perspective just from a logistics standpoint, if you can reduce the amount of base fertilizers that you're handling on a regular basis, that's a time savings, and can be money savings — and they can make up that profitability on biologicals and other crop inputs that help achieve sustainability as well as improve grower profitability. This approach is good for the growers and the distributors.
