10/04/2026
This hits not one, but many nails on the head.
The “precision agriculture” and “big ag” practices and inefficiency have been my thoughts and beliefs about "precision agriculture for years".
Our goal is that the only nutrients leaving Artesian Regenerative Organic Farm, leave on the hoof, except for a limited amount of seed to help others develop their own climate specific strains, and maybe some ancient or heirloom wheat, spelt, oats, and open pollinated corn.
While our cattle and sheep are on the farm, they are our w**d control, they'll bring in their own forage, graze corn stubble, (maybe) bring in our third cutting of hay on their own, increase soil nutrients, increase aerobic soil microbes through improving the organic matter and soil aggregation.
Our fuel use is minimal for our tractors, our corn dries on the ear in a crib, and we may use some electricity to dry our small grains through their two weeks of potential sweat.
The only seed inputs are our alfalfa, clover and multi species grazing and companion cover crops.
We're also going to be working on reestablishing small patches of 60 plus native species for warm season, and hopefully cool season grazing. This should further improve soil aggregation, water infiltration, and water holding capacities of our soil.
Credit to Ryan Patrick Kelley for the following:
This is a corn crib. This is a high moisture corn silo. These efficiently stored and processed farm's crops. These don't get used anymore, because modern agriculture doesn't make sense.
So I was writing yesterday and I got thinking about this. There's a lot of uproar about fuel costs lately with 2 wars going on. I can't help but laugh at the inefficiencies of American agriculture, and the narrative we've all been sold. Look at how much we can produce! Look at the modern technology and equipment that lets so few, do so much! So what?.
As harvest is starting we're about to burn massive amounts of diesel fuel harvesting, and transporting, a big harvest. There's going to be massive amounts of LP and natural gas burnt to dry crops. And once the crop is off, we'll burn even more fuel producing, transporting and applicating fertilizer to do it all again next year.
This really wasn't always the case. The number of farms has declined steadily for decades. Both crop, as well as livestock farms. Farms have become specialized under the lie of efficiency. How stupid is the system? Farms used to be diversified, with different crops, and different types of livestock. Crops generally left the farm on a hoof, or in the form of milk or eggs. There was always some cash grain, but nothing like today.
Today we have consolidated livestock into less, larger hands. This means crops grown on a farm are often transported somewhere else to feed livestock. We have 2 major markets less than 20 miles from me. One is the Mississippi River market, and one is a rail line hauling corn directly to feedlots in the southwest and Mexico. Think about this - it takes just over 2 # of grain up to 7 # of grain depending on species to produce a pound of meat. It also takes a lot of feed to produce milk.
So instead of a farm producing a crop that it feeds to livestock on the farm and then transporting the livestock or livestock products off the farm, we haul the feed all over to then do the same thing. It gets worse though. The specialization of crops has taken away much of the rotation that raised good crops with less inputs. Legumes fix nitrogen, which grass crops need, such as corn, but the typical corn bean rotation is not nearly as good as a 3-4 crop rotation. Much healthier crops with less inputs. It gets even stupider. The large consolidated livestock operations have manure expense. This was never the case with small agriculture. Manure was a valuable asset. Utilizing the byproduct waste to feed the next crop. As opposed to higher application rates, and massive transport expenses for manure.
This is all livestock, not just dairy or beef. Look at the modern hog feeding system. The only advantage of that is generally manure transport is less, since most of the farms are using the manure, but even then, there's less farms with livestock, so it's more concentrated. Then the farms raising the pigs aren't feeding their crops, produced there. They might, but it's by chance if they are selling their crops to the pig owner's mill. Adding even more transportation.
Since you have to specialize, you have to do the one thing really well, so that means more production. I would be willing to bet that my county applies easily 10× the amount of commercial fertilizer than it did 40-50 years ago. Think about that. Think of the petroleum used to produce fertilizer. Think of the petroleum used to dry crops. Think of the petroleum used to transport the crops and the fertilizer all over! ( As the crop operations have grown, think of the cost of just the wasted transportation compared to crops produced on the farm where the livestock processed those crops ). It's always said that the oil companies hate biofuels, but that's a lie. Think of the demand they created for petroleum!
I did a video talking about this and I was told that the rfs wasn't responsible for this. That the change from livestock to crops predated the rfs. Well, Tim Mickelson I will agree that consolidation had started prior to, the rfs accelerated the consolidation like we've never seen. Look at North Dakota - in 1992 North Dakota only raised 19245 ac of corn. Ten years later, they were close to 1 million, and by 2007, after the introduction of the rfs, they were over 2.3 million acres. By 2012 it was up to almost 3.5 million acres. In 30 years that's an 18000% increase! You don't think that changed things?!
Here's the even bigger story - we're consolidating the wealth and it's destroying rural America. All those little farms that used to produce the food? They are gone, absorbed by larger operations. Larger operations hiring legal, and illegal immigrant labor at sub standard wages. The H2A wage is HALF of the average US citizens hourly wage. Think about that. So you replace small family operations with large consolidated ones with labor that is making sub standard wages, while the wealth created from the land is exported.
So we transport more, we pay to dry, we use more fertilizer and chemicals, and we have less independent rural business. Boy, modern agriculture makes lots of sense!
Photo credit to Ryan Patrick Kelley
