Is rganic’s
soil based
standard all
washed up?
Dr. Michelle Wander ([email protected])
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental
Science, University of Illinois
Commoditization
• process that gave birth to a specific category of goods called ‘primary commodities’, clearly different from manufactured goods.
• the construction of product homogeneity – a necessary condition for pure and perfect competition (Marshall, 1890) – is the core of the process of commoditization (ready trade)
• good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price
• typically products are inputs for manufacture or production of other goods, require standardization to facilitate supply by multiple vendors
• Commoditization occurs as a goods or services markets lose differentiation across its supply base
Darnhofer et al. 2011
What’s in a label?
• Holistic
• Biodynamic
• Regenerative
• Organic
• Permaculture
• Natural
• Regenerative
Regenerative Organic Certification
Soil Health
Animal Welfare
Organic
Social fairness
Organic Agriculture's Ongoing
Contribution to Soil Health and the
Oeconomy
Soil as the foundation for health
A legacy of Natural Philosophy wherein notions theoeconomy, which referred to the divine government of the natural world, saw a system that matched needs in an efficient if not perfect manner (Worster 1977).
Nature-based conceptualization of the Oeconomy that connects nutrient cycling to societal health. (Balfor, Howard, Steiner, Holmgren, Albrecht etc.)
IFOAM norms promote adoption of environmentally, socially, and economically sound systems based on organic principles of health, ecology, fairness and carethat explicitly link the health of individuals and communities to the health of ecosystems and clearly state that the development of living soils is the foundation of organic production.
Organic Soil Stewardship
Paradigm- framed in 1946
Soil and soil management is the foundation of organic production.
Organic growing systems are soil based, they care for the soil and surrounding ecosystems and provide support for a diversity of species while encouraging nutrient cycling and mitigating soil and nutrient losses.
IFOAM Norms, 2002
Sustainability standards for agriculture
Sustainable Ag History in US
1962 1989
1940s-present
1985
2012
19951985-2008
2007
Organic certification
means?
1. Food purity
2. Environmental protection
3. Social responsibility
4. All of the above
5. Other
Organic Systems Plan
• Avoid use of synthetic pesticides
• Avoid use of synthetic fertilizers
• Avoid use of genetically engineered crops
• Maintain or enhance soil health, limit erosion
• Use crop diversity
• Use organic sources of fertility
• Maximize use of local on/farm resources
• Protect off farm land, water resources
• Protect biodiversity
1992 Organic Food Production Act
• Does not explicitly state soil and its care are foundational to organic systems.
• Does explicitly call for use of practices that foster soil fertility by managing soil organic matter using ‘proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring’
• Requires producers to consider ‘site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity’.
Soil Defining Moments
• Soil is a natural body formed in place through the effects of edaphic and environmental factors that include climate, biology and relief acting on parent material over a period of time.
• Soil-based production practices literally ground agriculture, allowing good soil stewards to ‘pay it forward’ in places where they are applied.
• NOSB Crops Committee in their 2010 recommended Production Standards for Terrestrial Plants in Containers and Enclosures asserted growing media should be considered ‘soil’ because most soil dwelling organisms can thrive in a well-made compost
NOSB Task force on hydroponics 2016
"Observing the framework of organic farming based on its foundation of sound management of soil biology and ecology, it becomes clear that systems of crop production that eliminate soil from the system, such as hydroponics or aeroponics, cannot be considered as examples of acceptable organic farming practices. Hydroponics" “...cannot be classified as certified organic growing methods due to their exclusion of the soil-plant ecology intrinsic to organic farming systems and USDA/NOP regulations governing them.”
?????????????????????
Not clear what will happen at the 2019 Fall NOSB meeting
‘Organic’ is an aspirational standard achieved
through soil stewardship
A. Soil Fertility- The relative ability of a soil to supply
the nutrients essential to plant growth.
B. Soil Productivity- The capacity of a soil to produce
a certain yield of crops or other plants with a
specified system of management.
C. Soil Quality- The capacity of a soil to function
within ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological
productivity, maintain environmental quality, and
promote plant and animal health.
Change ‘open’ systems with rapid cycling and large fluxes to systems that
simultaneously retain and supply more from internal reserves
Mineral
forms
Organic and
occluded forms
-
Use rotation, crop, and management choices to
change the nature of nutrient and water cycles
Mineral
and
gaseous
losses
Mineral
and
gaseous
losses
Principles of organic soil stewardship
• Biologically based fertility- not organic by substitution
• Emphasis on biologically sourced N through N fixation and judicious use of
manures and composts- system dependent!
• Use of plants to liberate nutrients from organic and inorganic sources
• Facilitate plant-microbe associations (beneficial microbes)
• Reduced reliance on external inputs
• This promotes self sufficiency
• Local purchasing benefits community
• Reduces cost of production
• Create a healthy system
• Produce superior products
• Promote disease and pest suppression through rotation and cultivar selection
(management should be proactive rather than reactive)
• Judicious use of inputs (what, when and where) can promote plant and animal
health by maintaining balance and efficiency
Rodale Research Center’s FST; Left is organic plots, right is a BMP, corn/soy
rotation no cover crops, in drought year. Photo courtesy of Evian Bitan
Performance: Yield Stability, Resistance
to Drought
Resistance to erosion, improved drainage
DOK plots, organic compost v conventional
Photo
courtesy
of Evian
Bitan
Reductions of Nutrient Export
Average Nitrate-N Concentration by Crop
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
10.00
Corn Soybean Small Grain Green Manure
Co
ncen
tratio
n (m
g/L
or
pp
m)
Conventional
Organic
Same Crop - Same Year
Nitrate-N Concentration Comparison
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Site 1 Site 1 Site 1 Site 1 Site 2 Site 2 Site 2 Site 3 Site 3 Site 3 Site 4 Site 4 Site 4 Site 5 Site 5
'98 Corn '99 Soy '02 Corn '03 Soy '99 Corn '00 Soy '03 Corn '98 Soy '01 Corn '02 Soy '00 Soy '02 Corn '03 Soy '97 Corn '98 Soy
NO
3-N
Concentr
ation (m
g/L
or
ppm
)
Conventional
Organic
Greg McIsaac, Organic Agronomy Day 2005
How to increase water and nutrient use
efficiency
Samples collected from Illinois farm fields
CT; conventional corn soy
RT; conventional corn soy
R-CT; diversified, 3 of 4 were organic
Nissen and Wander, 2003
Leached N
(g m
-2)
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
1.25Fertilizer-derived N
Soil-derived N
b a b
ab b a
A
AA
CT NT R-CT
Bio
mass N
(g m
-2)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
a b ab
abb
A
AB
B
CT NT R-CT
Kg N ha-1
fertilizer
0 75 150 225
Bio
mass (
g)
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
No till, short rotation
Conventional till, diverse rotation
Conventional rotation
Credibility: organic conventional comparisons
• Biologically based fertility
• Emphasis on biologically sourced N and judicious use of external inputs
• Use of plants to liberate nutrients P, K others from organic and inorganic sources
• Facilitate plant-microbe associations (beneficial microbes) and suppress pest
• Reduced reliance on external inputs
• This promotes self sufficiency
• Local purchasing benefits community
• Reduces cost of production
• Create a healthy system
• Produce superior products
• Promote disease and pest suppression through rotation and cultivar selection (management should be proactive rather than reactive)
• Judicious use of inputs (what, when and where) can promote plant and animal health by maintaining balance and efficiency
Average Nitrate-N Concentration by Crop
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
10.00
Corn Soybean Small Grain Green Manure
Co
ncen
tratio
n (m
g/L
or
pp
m)
Conventional
Organic
Doc plots, FST from Evian Bitan; NO3 leaching from
Greg McIsaac, Biodiversity Deb Letoureau
Effect of Cropping Systems on SOM
Depth of sampling (cm)
0-10 0-15 0-20 0-30
SO
C r
esp
on
se r
ati
o
0.9
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
Organic Cons-Till No-TillUgarte et al. 2014
)(controlalconvention
practiceealternativr =
Nature and the Oeconomy
Phlogiston and humus
theories
Rational agriculture
4th Century
BCE Aristotle
On Generation and
Corruption
29 BCE Virgil The Georgics
1563
Bernard
Palissay Recette Veritable
1924
Rudolf
Steiner
Spiritual Foundations
for the Renewal of
Agriculture
1940
Lord
Nortbourne Look to the Land
1949 Aldo Leopold
A Sand County
Almanac
1977
Wendell
Berry
The Unsettling of
America: Culture and
Agriculture
1985
Masanobu
Fukuoka
The Natural Way of
Farming: the Theory
and Practice of Green
Philosophy
1996
Mohan
Deshpande
Organic Farming wrt
Cosmic Energy
1661 Robert Boyle Skeptical Chemist
1804
Nicolas de
Sassure
Chemical Researches
on Vegetation
1813
Sir Humphrey
Davy
Elements of
Agricultural Chemistry
1826 Carl Sprengel
About Plant Humus,
Humic Acids and Salts
of Humic Acids
1840 Justis von Leibig
Organic Chemistry in
its Application to
Agriculture and
Physiology
1860 Louis Pasteur
Expériences Rrelatives
aux Générations Dites
Spontanées
1862 Louis Pasteur
Note Remise au
Ministère de
l’Instruction Publique
et des Cultes, Sur sa
Demande
Conceptual framing soil stewardship paradigm
1809 Albrect Thaer Principles of Rationale Agriculture
1881
Charles
Darwin
The Formation of Vegetable
Mould Through the Action of
Worms
1910 Cyril Hopkins
Soil Fertility and Permanent
Agriculture
1911 F.H. King
Farming of Forty Centuries in
China, Korea, and Japan
1938
William
Albrecht
Loss of Organic Matter and its
Restoration” in ‘Soils and Men’
1942 Lady Balfour The Living Soil
1943
Albert
Howard An Agricultural Testament
1945
Jerome Irving
Rodale
Pay Dirt: Farming and Gardening
with Composts
1947
Ehrenfried
Pfieffer,
Soil Fertility, Renewal and
Preservation: Bio-Dynamic
Farming and Gardening
1947
Ehrenfried
Pfieffer
Soil Fertility, Renewal and
Preservation: Bio-Dynamic
Farming and Gardening
1975
William
Albrecht The Albrecht Papers
Soil Centrism Widespread
“Decreasing food quality
with distance from the soil
Unfortunately consumer
and producer do not meet
each other, nor do their
separate desires meet
through the common
market
Quality is remembered
long after the price is
forgotten “
W. Albrecht
Soil Health as a Business Imperative
• Soil Health Institute
• The Fertilizer Institute
• Soil Health Partnership
• The Nature Conservancy
• Farm Foundation, Soil Renaissance
• National Association of Conservation Districts
• Conservation Technology Information Center
• Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Soil and Water Conservation Society
• Tri-Societies
• Global Soil Security
Dynamic Soil
Health Landscape
• a private nonprofit research entity initiated by the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and the Farm Foundation (Stott, 2018)
• 2017 the SHI and key partners (the Nature Conservancy, and the Soil Health Partnership), received $20M to advance soil health goals. Half of the funds were provided as ‘matching funds’ by General Mills, Wal-Mart, the Walton Foundation and other private partners for dollars provided by USDA through the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR),
• FFAR a public nonprofit established by the 2014 Farm Bill (USDA, 2014) to foster public-private partnerships by matching public money.
‘Organic’ is an aspirational standard achieved
through soil stewardship
A. Soil Fertility- The relative ability of a soil to supply
the nutrients essential to plant growth.
B. Soil Productivity- The capacity of a soil to produce
a certain yield of crops or other plants with a
specified system of management.
C. Soil Quality- The capacity of a soil to function
within ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological
productivity, maintain environmental quality, and
promote plant and animal health.
Soil Quality ≠ Soil Health ≠ Soil Fertility
• For any soil quality or soil health effort to be legitimate it will need to ensure that indicator scoring and integration steps do not allow users to trade off environmental or cultural services in favor of productivity (Baveye 2017; Greiner et al. 2017).
• Must contend with subjective aspects of indicator interpretation raised by Sojka and Upchurch (1999) and Sojka et al. (2003)
• Very few studies have established direct (quantitative) links between soil quality indicator status and environmental outcomes or soil services beyond productivity
Rin
ot
et
al.
20
18
(In
form
ed
by A
nd
rew
s e
t a
l., 2
00
4).
Natural Capital’s Link to Economy
Robinson et al. 2011
Soil Fertility/Productivity/Quality
Biological *Chemical Physical Active Carbon pH Texture
Potenitally mineralizable N EC Bulk density
Soil respiration N,P,K Depth of rooting
Yield Organic Matter Infiltration
Water holding capacity
Tilth
Proposed Minimum Data Set to measure ‘soil quality or
health’ builds on standard soil tests (*Chemical measures)
NC-ERA-59: Soil Organic Matter: Formation,
Function and Management 1996
Soil Health Assessment
Tier 1
Physical:
• Texture, Water Stable Aggregates, Bulk Density, Penetrometer, Visual Erosion Rating
Chemical:
• Standard fertility tests (N, P,K, micronutrients, pH, CEC, Base Saturation), EC, protein
Biological:
• Respiration
Tier 2
– Micro-aggregate stability
– Enzyme activity- beta
glucocidase activity
– Permanganate oxidizable
carbon
Measuring Soil Health
Tier 1 Soil Health Institute Indicators NCR-59 Minimum Data
Set from 1994
PhysicalTier 1 Indicators
Texture, water-stable aggregation (3 sieves,
separating macro- and micro-aggregates), bulk density,
penetration resistance, visual rating of erosion
Texture, Bulk Density, Depth of
Rooting, Infiltration, Water
Holding Capacity, Soil Structure
Chemical
Routine chemical analysis (N, P, K, micros,
pH, CEC, %BS, EC), soil organic C
pH, N,P,K, EC, Soil Organic Matter
Biological
Short-term C mineralization (respiration during 3-4 day
incubation), N mineralization, crop yield
Active C, Potentially Mineralizable
N, Soil Respiration, Crop Yield
Cornell Soil Health Test
Comprehensive
• Physical
– soil texture
– available water capacity
– field penetrometer resistance
– wet aggregate stability
• Biological
– organic matter content
– soil proteins
– respiration
– active carbon
• Chemical
– macro- nutrients
– micro-nutrients
Additional Indicators
• Biological– root pathogen pressure
– potentially mineralizablenitrogen
• Chemical– salinity and sodicity
– heavy metals
– boron
• Basic= $ 60
• Standard = $110
• Extended = $170
----------------Management Category---------------- --ANOVA-
-
Dynamic Soil Property Conventional Conservation Organic Mgt3
----------------Mean ± Standard Error---------------- --P value--
Total organic C (gC.kg-1) 18.45 ± 0.85 b 20.28 ± 0.89 a1 20.29 ± 0.85 a <0.010
Total N (gN.kg-1) 1.63 ± 0.06 b 1.72 ± 0.06 ab 1.75 ± 0.06 a 0.030
Soil C:N ratio 11.34± 0.27 a 11.96 ± 0.30 a 11.59 ± 0.27 a 0.244
POM-C (gC.kg-1) 1.47 ± 0.07 b 1.62 ± 0.08 ab 1.73 + 0.07 a 0.014
POM-N (gN.kg-1) 0.10 ± 0.01 b 0.11 ± 0.01 ab 0.13 + 0.01 a0.002
POM C:N ratio 14.83 ± 0.46 a 14.94 ± 0.50 a 13.8 ± 0.45 a 0.088
P min N (mgNH4.kg-1) 34.47 ± 0.11 a2 37.34 ± 0.11 a2 39.65 + 0.11 a2 0.124
FDA (µg FDA g-1 soil hr-1) 27.94 ±0.07 a2 29.67 ±0.07 a2 30.88 ± 0.06 a2 0.189
Soil pH 6.23 ± 0.07 b 6.24 ± 0.08 b 6.52 ± 0.07 a 0.006
Bray-1 P (mgP.kg-1) 20.04 ± 2.26 a 20.16 ± 2.48 a 19.71 ± 2.23 a NS4
Bulk density (g.cm-3) 1.4 ± 0.07 a 1.42 ± 0.08 a 1.4+ 0.07 a NS
Soil Indicators: Illinois farm fields (30-cm)
1Means followed by different letters within the same row are significantly different at α<0.10. 2 Standard errors are presented as untransformed natural logarithm values. 3 Refers to Conventional, Conservation, and Organic Management. Significance tests for Crop
and Management X Crop were not significant with α>0.25. 4 Not significant with α>0.25.
Ugarte et al. 2017
Measuring, monitoring, interpretation
Implementation of Standards
Aspirational (eg: organic) vs technocratic (eg: commodities)
metrics as guide posts. Use reflective versus quantitative
approaches.
Rotation Planner
Standards for Ag Performance
Goals Practices Indicators (my tier 1)
Efficient use of resources Rotation SOM and C/N ratios
Promote ecological
balance Organic fertility sources % SOM in Active C
Conserve biodiversity Judicious cultivation Aggregation/strength
Protect soil and water
resources Nutrient budgeting Infiltration and runoff
Recycle matter and
energy Planning tools (OSP, IPM) Water holding, porosity
Minimize waste Edge of field mgt Plant available N
Precautionary principle Cultivar selection Nematodes (food webs)
Perennialization Functional genes
Pollinator habitat Root health ratings
Wildlife refuges
Tier 3 Indicators: Biology, the
Circular Economy and Health
Care for the Organic Standard
• Keep asking important questions
• Take steps forward to remain a
leader in the soil health
movement
• Embrace and articulate how soil
centrism advances the circular
economy
• Use planning and visualization
tools to link practices to
aspirational goals