Farmers need to plant more cover crops, need to sequester more carbon, need to change their tillage practices.
They need to do this, need to do that.
In Europe, an ambitious proposal by lawmakers aims to cut greenhouse gas pollution by 90% by 2040 from 2019 levels.
European farmers tired of the governmental interference — including previous recommendations for citizens to eat less meat and calls to reduce chemical pesticide application — now throw manure at riot cops and eggs at a European parliament building. From Germany to France to Spain to Belgium, they defy their governments, blocking busy roads inside their tractors just to make a point.
“Do you like bread, meat or fries?” a slogan read, per The Guardian. “You won’t get them without farmers.”
U.S. farmers are experiencing similar situations, where national organizations and companies continue to ask them to do more. Yet, for Michigan farmers, there’s more opportunity for collaboration and common sense, industry leaders say.
“You could call it regenerative ag; but it also goes by many other names,” Drew Afton, an agronomist for Nestle-Gerber’s Sustainable Agriculture Development, told Michigan Farm Bureau members Tuesday during the organization’s Issues and Outlook Conference.
“There are 100 different trending things going on right now that are confusing people as much as anything else. I think a lot of that has been lost in the jargon. However, with regenerative ag there are some good tenants there. Focusing on soil health is important to farmers. I haven’t run into one who hasn’t responded that increasing your soil organic matter isn’t important.”
A 2023 study from the Environmental Protection Agency showed U.S. agriculture represents 10.02% of total U.S. emissions when compared to other economic sectors. Land use, land-use changes and forestry (LULUC) trapped 754 million metric tons of carbon in the soils, representing 11.8% of total U.S. emissions, according to the report.
Afton said Nestle-Gerber tries to avoid being prescriptive, instead letting farmers decide if they want to do more — like enrolling in their incentive programs focused on practices that improve their farms’ environment and economics.
“It’s your farm, not ours, and we believe that win-win situations exist,” he said. “We’ve created a menu of practices that will incentivize farmers.”
Currently, Nestle-Gerber has public commitments around carbon, biodiversity, and regional impact, including goals to make its entire product portfolio carbon neutral by 2035. To do that, the global company needs farmers help.
READ MORE: GERBER LOOKS TO MICHIGAN FARMS IN QUEST FOR CARBON NEUTRALITY
“With carbon we started doing Cool Farm Tool assessments on an individual basis,” Afton said. “Out of that, we get the carbon number. That number has been very useful for us.”
Still, some farmers worry that changing their farming practices admits wrongdoing.
“I’m a fifth-generation farmer,” said Nathan Clarke, a Midland County Farm Bureau member who attended the Issues and Outlook Conference.
“I feel like I’m able to do what I do today because the generations before me always did a good job. Maybe by today’s standards, the jobs that they did — like moldboard plows — don’t seem like sustainable standards today. We do a lot of no-till on our farm, strip till, cover crops. So how do we make it more palatable — these ag terms — so that the people before me, my ancestors, don’t look like they did a bad job farming?”
According to Joel Leland, a dairy program specialist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), it comes down to better communication between growers and consumers.
“People were doing cover crops 50, 75 years ago,” Leland responded to Clarke. “I think it’s important to make sure we’re careful of how we talk about things.”
TNC, a global conservation organization, is working with Star of the West Milling Co. on farmer enrollments, farm evaluations and verification of in-field practices via its Sustainable Option Wheat pilot program. Another goal the organization has is to work directly with farm advisors to increase communication outreach.
“We want to help provide farmer advisors with the tools they need to talk about conservation, regenerative agriculture, sustainability,” he said. “We’re here to help.”
Star of the West’s Grace Smith called it a unique opportunity to work with both food customers and growers.
“Programs like this TNC Grant are a great way to share with our (consumer packaged goods) customers the many sustainable things our farmers may already be doing, and also a way for our (certified crop advisors) to work with growers to help enhance their regenerative path for their farm,” Smith, the social responsibility coordinator at the Frankenmuth-based company, wrote in an email to Michigan Farm News.
There’s this expectation that farmers will save the world by sequestering carbon, Nestle-Gerber’s Afton said.
“Ultimately, though, in terms of carbon, you should think of your farm as a sieve, not a bucket,” he added.
“All life on Earth is carbon-based, so improving biodiversity is equally as important. When carbon flows through the life on your farm, you get things like food and resources that humans can use. Some can be sequestered, but it is the cycling that drives all of it.”
