In last month’s issue, Mark Shepard responded to a blog post written by an extension agronomist on the subject of “pop ecology.” The original article didn’t mention Acres U.S.A. by name, but it was pretty clear that some of what he was criticizing was in the vein of content we regularly publish. Mark was incredibly gracious in his comments, agreeing with some of the critique and gently pushing back where needed.
I’d like to respond a bit more directly, though! — while still acknowledging one particular strength of the argument.
The author gives three examples at the start of the article of what he considers “pop ecology.” The first is a farmer who drastically reduces fertilizer use, instead choosing to rely on soil biology to provide nutrients to the crop. This could be a valid critique, as long as the word “drastically” is doing some heavy lifting. That microbes provide nutrients to plants in exchange for root exudates is certainly not pseudoscience. And that microbes convert nutrients into forms plants can actually use is also true — although this critical role was not mentioned in the article. But if a farmer learns about soil biology (because it wasn’t taught at the university, at least not positively) and decides to go cold turkey without fertilizer … yes, that would be foolish. As Gary Zimmer often says, you have to earn the right to reduce fertilizer. And if Gary Zimmer is often saying that, then, by definition, us “pop ecologists” can’t be guilty of it!
His second example is choosing to plant a 10-species cover crop mix in lieu of a fallow period in a wheat rotation. Sure, this could be a bad decision, depending on the context. But the subtitle of the post says that “real agricultural decisions demand tradeoffs grounded in ecological reality.” So, we also have to ask what a farmer gains in terms of soil biology by planting a diverse cover crop — this is the positive tradeoff from the decision to use the moisture that a fallow period might preserve. The author admonishes us to consider tradeoffs, yet he seems to decline to do so himself.
The last example begins “An ag influencer…” This is an area where we agree — never trust someone who calls themself an “influencer”! Beyond that, though, the thing the influencer is promoting is that insect pests will not attack a healthy plant. “Will not” is an absolute, universal quantifier — a way to construct a strawman argument. Of course some healthy plants can be attacked by some pests and diseases. Young, otherwise healthy humans get colds and sometimes even cancer — we live in a fallen world. Yet those people — and those plants — are much less likely to be attacked because they are healthy.
This final point — that we live in a fallen world — is perhaps the best point the author makes, although he doesn’t phrase it like this. But when he criticizes so-called pop ecologists for treating unmanaged nature as an ideal and for believing nature will always get it right, he hits on an important point. The world we live in is broken. Not just our political systems and our cultures, but nature as well. Yes, we can regenerate farms — even in short periods of time. But we cannot go back to Eden. We can’t stop pests and disease completely. Implying we can only gives ammunition to those who want to dismiss us as mere pop ecologists.
And that’s the view from the country.
