Undercover Farmers Video

Here is an interesting video about farmers who have started planting polyculture cover crops that they drop at planting time and use as a green mulch. The takeaway from this is that they are still basically doing monoculture cash crops, but they have seen a significant increase in production and a significant drop in the need to use fertilizers. This shows what can be accomplished with just the first half step toward permaculture. Imagine what they could do if they went all the way. Also, there’s a cool quote from Machiavelli about 26 minutes into the video that Paul will really like.

Here is the video:

thanks for posting this...it is a start in a better direction for sure...I grew up in bare field corn and soybean farming in Illinois...those cover crops look great.

Judith Browning wrote:thanks for posting this...it is a start in a better direction for sure...I grew up in bare field corn and soybean farming in Illinois...those cover crops look great.

Thanks!

I grew up on a small private farm in north Georgia, and the land looked a lot like what these guys started with... barren and dry. If I knew then what I know now, I think I could have changed things around a lot.

Thanks for sharing. That is very cool to see the power of diversity in cover crop nutrient replenishment.

It's interesting to note that in the video economic incentives drove the change to diversity - the increasing cost of petroleum based fertilizers in this case.

Yeah. That's been posted here several times before.
The one thing I take away from it, besides that they are pleased with their results, but their neighbors are asking them how they did it. Their neighbors are seeing positive results, and want to follow suit. As more and more farmers begin seeing improvements, the more they will listen to some of those other 'crazy ideas' out there. You cannot tell a farmer to change, but you can certainly show him the advantages of changing.

John Polk wrote:Yeah. That's been posted here several times before.
The one thing I take away from it, besides that they are pleased with their results, but their neighbors are asking them how they did it. Their neighbors are seeing positive results, and want to follow suit. As more and more farmers begin seeing improvements, the more they will listen to some of those other 'crazy ideas' out there. You cannot tell a farmer to change, but you can certainly show him the advantages of changing.

Hi John,

Thanks for that information. I had looked to see if this had already been posted, but I guess I just missed it.

I think you're absolutely right, you can't "tell" people to do anything, but if we can show how successful it is, then over time people will start adopting it. Then, of course, they'll say that they had the idea themselves all along. :)