Emma Ambroziak / The Mossy Log
Three days ago, I was making my rounds through the produce aisle at Winco when a voice in my earbuds ground me to a halt. It was a farmer named Dave Bishop on the podcast Buzzkill talking about the increasingly popular topic of regenerative agriculture and his choice to stop using synthetic chemicals like pesticides. “Why do you think you could put poison on your food and not poison yourself?” he said, “There’s a skull and crossbones on the bag for goodness sake.” The tomato on my burger tasted different that evening.
For gardeners and small-scale farmers with a healthy distrust in modern pesticides, there are two approaches to food production that fall under the umbrella of regenerative agriculture. The first is called input substitution, which uses natural pest deterrents like neem oil to increase crop productivity. The second — and the one I will be focusing on — is called agroecology, a practice that applies biological interactions to farming. To learn more about this branch of sustainable agriculture, I had the privilege of meeting with Lewis & Clark Assistant Professor of Biology and agroecology expert Heidi Liere.
No matter where our conversation wandered, the main takeaway from the interview revolved around the concept of infusing modern agricultural techniques with elements from functioning natural ecosystems. Take, for instance, the food web from high school biology. Using this simplified version of an ecosystem (where the bird eats the leafhopper which eats the tomato plant), we can predict how removing the predator at the top will affect all the organisms below it. With fewer birds, there will be more leafhoppers which in turn will wreak havoc on the tomato leaves, turning my BLT into a BL. This principle, called trophic cascade, can be applied to any ecosystem. One of the many goals of Liere’s research is to incorporate principles of ecology, such as this one, into working gardens where birds and other insects — not pesticides — act as repellent. But for that to happen, we first need to increase the number of organisms involved.
Liere does research on 30 urban gardens scattered from San Jose to Monterey, California. Her area of expertise lies in the study of biodiversity, with specific emphasis on all the insects that pollinate and protect our hypothetical tomato plant; bugs she labeled as “beneficial insects.” What we see in industrial agriculture today, she explained, is an entire food industry reliant upon one or two species of bees. This means that a single illness could dismantle the entire network. This gap in our food system’s suit of armor makes the whole thing flimsy, illustrating the desperate need for an increase in diversity among pollinators and other critters.
Trophic cascades and insect biodiversity are arms of the seemingly infinitely branched world of ecology influenced farming. To determine how these concepts and all the many other branches of agroecology interact with one another, Liere and I talked statistics. Measuring the effect of different gardening practices on plant success is a complex juggling act. Among other things, Liere looks at the proportion of gardens covered by rocks, grasses or weeds, the number of flowering trees, the number of crop species per plot and how many of these crops are flowering. She walks in transects through the plots, netting insects and using satellite imagery to determine how much of the garden is on developed versus undeveloped land. It is not uncommon, she said, to have 20 or more variables that could be affecting the health of a single garden. And once identified, the next step is to look for the combination of living and nonliving factors that correlate to the healthiest garden. When trying to bring the natural world into a garden bed, it is easy to forget that the natural world has a lot going on. And for good reason. The real issues arise when we try to force the natural world out of the garden beds, and either minimize or control all those moving parts.
Liere explained how the scope of industrial agriculture’s influence is immense and multifaceted. Like an invasive vine, it has shimmied its way into every nook and cranny of our lives. Starting with the biological issue, there is the danger of monocropping. When every healthy ecosystem points towards an increase in organism diversity, farms consisting of only one or two crops should raise alarm bells. If removing crop diversity was not enough to drive away beneficial insects, there are also, of course, the inputs: fertilizers and pesticides. In agroecology, crop cover and no-till practices may be employed which increase soil nutrients and attract beneficial insects. If, however, we want to dedicate a track of land to grow only almonds, year after year, the soil will be depleted. Without nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, and plant biodiversity that entices beneficial insects, nothing would grow and crops would be vulnerable to pests. It is an unfortunate cycle which has created an even more unfortunate reliance upon fertilizers and pesticides.
Beyond the biology component, Liere briefly touched on the social and health issues tied to the industrial agriculture industry. Encompassing everything from poor treatment of farm workers to our current health crisis, a whole other article is needed to discuss the social and community angle absent in large-scale farming and addressed through agroecology. Bolstered by our individual disconnect from the food production process and in large part due to the vast political influence that large scale farms have, pivoting from industrial agriculture is a daunting task.
All this is not to say that I will never shop at Winco again. Their bulk section is hard to argue with. Additionally, it is difficult to sacrifice the convenience and year round availability of Winco produce for the hard-to-find, often expensive and seasonally dependent produce supplied by truly local farms. That being said, the first hurdle is awareness. The second is finding common ground between industrial farmers and small-scale farmers. If you want to learn more about agriculture in general, Liere recommends reading up on the USDA’s farm bill. This bill influences the ways in which food is grown, what is grown and how it ends up on our plates. I would also recommend looking into Community Supported Agriculture and learning how small-scale farming — the best way to counteract industrial agriculture — is on the rise. With more and more people living in urban settings, the opportunity for community gardens in city centers offers another solution. And as always, wash your tomatoes before putting them on your BLT.
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