I spent last Sunday doing what I normally do at the beginning of fall - putting up food for the winter. I roasted garlic and peppers in olive oil to use throughout the winter. I made yet another batch of spaghetti sauce and then made an apple pie for dessert for the week. I did this all while the temperatures outside were not the least bit fall-like for our region. At 3 pm the thermometer registered 86 degrees and much to my chagrin, we closed up the house and turned on the air conditioning, again. There is no denying that our planet is warming.
Many in the scientific community argue that industrial farming practices are big contributors to climate change. Remember that dust storm we had in May that killed seven people and injured 37 causing a 72-vehicle pileup on Interstate 55 in Illinois? High winds swept over newly plowed fields picking up soil and creating blizzard-like conditions. Large-scale, conventional farming focuses on intensive single crop production, mechanization, and depends on fossil fuels, pesticides, antibiotics, and synthetic fertilizers. While this system yields high production levels, it also contributes to climate change, pollutes air and water, and depletes soil fertility.
Currently farmers are hard at work harvesting corn and beans in the region. But they are also doing something that I have often called “recreational tilling” - working the newly harvested fields preparing them for spring planting. I suspect that many would argue that they need to loosen up the soil after driving heavy machinery over it and making the soil as hard as concrete. I grew up on a farm in southern Ohio and my dad didn’t do this. He practiced no-till. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion and may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil.
Central Illinois is home to some of the richest farmland in the nation; its endless fields of corn and soybeans are a marvel of modern agribusiness. Industrial agriculture originated in the 1960s when petrochemical companies introduced new methods of intense chemical farming. For farmers, the immediate effect was a spectacular improvement in agricultural production, hailed as the “Green Revolution.” However, we are now seeing the downside of industrial agriculture on a global scale.
One downside is massive soil erosion and degradation. According to a 2020 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, every year, U.S. croplands lose at least twice as much soil to erosion as the Great Plains lost annually during the peak of the Dust Bowl.
Much of that eroded topsoil ends up in waterways and lakes and — eventually — in the Gulf of Mexico. And that soil is laden with nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides used to keep pests and weeds at bay. Excess nitrogen in the waterways results in algae blooms that choke out the oxygen and deplete aquatic life.
Moreover, soil loss contributes to climate change. As soil degrades, it loses its ability to store carbon. In colder climates, like those found in central Illinois, where decomposition is slow, soils can store—or “sequester”— this carbon for a very long time. Degraded soils return carbon to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas causing climate change.
So, while it is obvious that climate change disrupts agriculture, there is no simple solution. Industrial agriculture is dependent on chemicals and is highly mechanized and energy-intensive, favoring large corporate farmers with sufficient capital, thus forcing most of the traditional single-family farmers with smaller holdings to the sidelines.
There are alternatives to industrial agriculture, which are easier on the land. These include ecologically oriented farming approaches, sometimes called organic farming, permaculture, regenerative farming, or sustainable agriculture. In recent years, the term agroecology has increasingly been used as a unifying term, referring to both the scientific basis and the practice of an agriculture based on ecological principles.
Agroecology includes practices like no-till farming and double cropping. The practice of cover cropping holds great promise, not only for preserving soil, but for enhancing it naturally, with less fertilizer — and for trapping carbon that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere. Yet, in Illinois less than 5% of farmed acreage is cover cropped.
Nearly a century ago, misguided farming practices collided with climate change to create the economic and social devastation of the Dust Bowl. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again. We can do better for the planet and our future.
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad is a Professor of Anthropology at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on collaborative action for sustainability.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the university or Tri States Public Radio.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.