ONE DEFINING SUSTAINABLE IAGRICULTURE n agriculture less is sometimes more Just ask ranchers Dan and Jeanne Carver owners Lof the Imperial Stock Ranch in Shaniko Oregon On their 30 000 acres 12 000 ha of rangeland the Carvers raise 600 cattle and 240 ewes per year The Carvers make a good living from their ranch But one of their major goals is to rejuvenate the land which was badly eroded and compacted when they bought the property in 1988 Soil had also Washed into the ranch's streams destroying the trout habitat They rejuvenate the land by taking care of the soil largely by leaving it alone and letting nature take its course For example they use no till farming on their 3 000 acres 1 200 ha of grain In no till farming the soil is not turned over with a plow or disk Rather A tractor with a no till drill plants soybeans in Iowa seed is drilled directly into the ground through the residue of previous years crops Growing grain without
tilling the soil helps the Carvers too It saves them 20 000 per year in fuel costs and the crop residue saves them 40 000 per year in calf feed To maintain the rangeland they practice a technique known as intensive grazing management They graze each of the ranch s 70 fenced pastures no more than three weeks per year In addition to constructing fences to control where the stock goes they built watering holes to keep their cattle from further damaging the ranch's 150 miles 240 km of streams These methods promote grass growth and protect riparian or riverbank areas Since implementing these techniques steelhead trout have made a comeback and beef production has tripled Ron Carver is not surprised I like the concept of conservation he says I've seen the results of 100 years of doing it the wrong way Every time you do something with your livestock you should be thinking about the health of the land The Carvers certainly use modern technology as needed but they do not rely on flashy equipment They use brainpower common sense and a deep understanding of farm and rangeland ecology Their approach is called sustainable agriculture and it can be applied to any type of farm Take for example Don Bustos of Santa Cruz Farm in New Mexico Bustos has also been farming since the 1980s when he took over the struggling farm his family has owned for 300 years Small but Sustainable Bustos owns only 3 5 acres 1 4 ha of land along with 10 000 square feet 930 sq m of greenhouses He has organic certification which proves his farm meets United States Department of Agriculture USDA regulations for organic food production He produces 72 different fruit and vegetable crops year round including asparagus blackberries and strawberries Bustos s sustainable farming methods are a mixture of old and new The solar panels he installed in 2005 cut his greenhouse heating costs
A worker harvests lettuce in a greenhouse whose electricity comes from solar power from 2 000 per year to zero enabling him to grow salad greens all year this increased his yields by 30 to 40 percent Water conservation is vital in dry New Mexico Bustos uses mulches to conserve water and prevent erosion and he is a member of an acequia or community owned drip irrigation project To overcome poor soil fertility Bustos practices a number of techniques First he uses intensive crop rotation He also plants cover crops which are crops grown specifically to protect and benefit the soil rather than for sale In addition Bustos uses mulches made with organic alfalfa hay This material
