How will we feed the 9 billion
souls who will share our planet in a few short years? One important strategy that I’ve been
focusing on for U.S. agriculture is sustainable intensification.
That means maximizing land use
and inputs through improved farming techniques and technologies that substantially
boost yields—doublecropping, bolstering soil health with cover crops, using
improved seeds and fertilizer and making
every drop of water count. Planning
for the future also means strategically directing research funds today to
develop those techniques and technologies that will enable farmers to produce
the bumper harvests required tomorrow.
There’s excellent work going
forward in developing improved seeds and more efficient fertilizer that will
help producers meet increased demand.
But another resource is particularly important: water.
We’ve got to develop and help farmers implement technologies that maximize
water usage, whether the water flows through irrigation pipes or falls as
precipitation.
As I shared with the members in
attendance this month at the 88th Annual Southwestern Fertilizer Conference in
San Antonio, the biggest coming challenge agriculture faces, in the West
particularly, but also in the humid areas of the Midwest and the Southeast,
will be the availability of water for livestock use, for rain-fed agriculture
and for irrigation-based agriculture.
Increasing efficiency is essential.
We must advocate today for the research that will drive yields tomorrow.
It’s a given that water helps
turn low-value forage into high value animal protein and that irrigation can
significantly raise yields per acre. The
world needs more protein and those higher yields, and we must find improved strategies
to provide them. We have to double down
on precision irrigation to maximize use per drop and accelerate adoption of
proven new technology.
As climate changes produce
greater weather variability, it is vital that more and more producers make the
investment in precision irrigation, which directs the water exactly where it
needs to go in the field based on temperature or water content in soil. This
can reduce water usage by 10 to 30 percent.
Let’s direct research toward improving those systems and cutting the
cost of them.
We also must be willing to offer
conservation cost-share funds to assist producers in getting precision
irrigation in place on farmland. These
systems currently are expensive to install and not cheap to maintain or
implement. Yet, investing in them
benefits us all as these technologies
reduce overwatering, cut crop losses, lower the potential for soil runoff and
minimize energy use.
At the same time, we need to make
clear to everyone that agricultural land must continue to receive appropriate
priority for water resources. Just as
the highest and best use of prime agricultural land is producing food, so the highest
and best use of scarce water is growing grain, raising livestock and yielding
fruits and vegetables—food for families. We are not talking about increasing
irrigated acreage, but about ensuring that we continue to deliver the resources
necessary to keep current prime acreage in production, preferably with higher
yields.
In the East, water issues may not
be so obvious. Supplies are usually
adequate. However, we need to improve
water storage so that sufficient water is available when needed in times of
drought. With broader swings in normal
weather, this is increasingly necessary. This means work on small dams that can boost
water storage also should be a high priority.
I am excited about the new
opportunities that sustainable intensification can bring, particularly with
wise stewardship of water resources. We
can move toward more efficient use of the resources we have while at the same
time increasing yields. That’s a win-win
that we should be pursuing vigorously for the sake of American farmers and
consumers—and the world.
About the author: Bruce I.
Knight, Principal, Strategic Conservation Solutions, was the Under Secretary
for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) from 2006 to 2009. From 2002 to 2006, Knight served as Chief of Natural
Resources Conservation Service. The South Dakota native worked on Capitol Hill
for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Rep. Fred Grandy, Iowa, and Sen. James
Abdnor, South Dakota. In addition, Knight served as vice president for public
policy for the National Corn Growers Association and also worked for the
National Association of Wheat Growers. A third-generation rancher and farmer
and lifelong conservationist, Knight operates a diversified grain and cattle
operation using no-till and rest rotation grazing systems.
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