The Wisconsin Magazine; Farmers going it alone; 1522[?]

Why if you're going to use cover ups. Well yes but actually we're not against all the inputs against all herbicides or the use of all fertilizers. But we want to make sure that we use them as wisely as possible only when needed to minimize. No one's sure how many farmers are using sustainable practices but the number seems to be growing. Hundreds come each summer to the farm of Dick Thompson in Boone Iowa where the lessons of sustainability are taught. Farmer to Farmer Bernie clabber got the message that Dick Thompson's farm. Dick Thompson says he got the message 20 years ago when his conventional farming practices just weren't working. The cattle were sick the hogs were saying we were plowing and all that plowing had to be done. A lot of grass and. Surely there had to be a bit better way than this Thompson says that was when he learned the lesson Fran knew nothing of this situation and took me to a

meeting a natural for me and that was that was kind of like the two before experience another farmer said that if you're raising continuous corn with after Zenon die as and when you're going down blind alley and so that was the end of that. I didn't sleep that night. Sustainable Farming is believed as a means to an end that ended being a world where farmers farm people eat and the government gets out of managing who grows how much of what we can and everybody goes home happy. We've got to do something for. Instead get larger fire and forget to figure out a way that we can take the firearms that we have or become a smaller event and make it work financially. This fits that whole picture of getting to getting those things done. So if you are going to be a medium size OPERATOR You're going to have to focus on that efficiency aspect Clemmie an agricultural economist was recently appointed to coordinate sustainable

farming research at the University of Wisconsin Clemmie says sustainable farmers are headed in the right direction. Farming more cheaply so that even if they don't grow as much they'll still make money. When my components are there a concern for Environmental Quality remaining concern about the structure of the agricultural industry in terms of small fine vs. medium vs. large farms revitalization rural counties. So what's the stand where culture is is a gives a point a focal point to these issues in that respect. If society is concerned about these problems I just listed that samurai are called Fair is an important movement. Sustainable Agriculture means developing a sense of pride in what may seem to be unusual things. Witness Pete Edstrom posing for pictures atop a wind roll of composted manure. But that is what the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is paying him to study and

demonstrate how best to turn up farm waste into an asset. It's more important to incorporate as much as we can into demonstrating what's possible what's really not quite so possible or one of the problems in making transitions or are we most concerned about doing this scientific approach to the problem of coming up with absolute measures of yield differences etc. to Edstrom the answer is clear. But the most important thing to me obviously is they come up with a visible demonstration of a neighbors can come over and take a look at say hey this works I'd like to go home and try it myself. I was all put out go to show your goodness packed away the bus a car now is playing up here and out in front of us a car now now they didn't it don't let you do that. 1988 was the driest year in decades.

The corn plants in some of Edstrom fields didn't even form years. But on this field the corn yielded one hundred thirty four bushels to the acre. The average in his area was only 91. And more important it didn't cost him as much to raise the corn as it would have if he had used conventional chemical weed controls. But his Edstrom told the farmers who came to his field day as attractive as sustainable farming might seem it is not something a farmer can shift to overnight. I don't want anybody that things are going to back off herbicides and you're going to kms always mechanically. Well you didn't do your homework. Yeah the thing with Philly got a problem with it. Right right. Forget what I said.

Everybody should be she's trying to move in this direction go as far as they possibly can. As we get this idea that we're going to we're using all this herbicides and then overnight we're going to use any and the Gulf as to why and the people just. And so they begin to quit trying. And that's a mistake for me. And Thompson contends there has to be a philosophical change. First problem has to be solved in the inside there has to be regeneration on the inside that we're concerned about the land the community and the people. And when that gets solved then we'll take care of the land right and we'll get out of the Green didn't ease syndromes. The greenies Yeah I know what greed is what's that yeah well always easy way using it is the easy way. 99 percent of the time is probably wrong. Sustainable Agriculture is the search for a lesson or a lesson. Look the

energy that drives a farm is ultimately not in the farmers here nor in the farmer's tractor nor in the fertilizer spread with the seed. The energy is in the land itself. Oh.