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Cover Story: Can We Freeze Food's Footprint?

Howard Buffett's Central Illinois farm is doing a lot more than just raising corn and soybeans these days.

He set aside 600 acres of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation farm for testing sustainable practices, with an eye toward pinpointing large-scale cropping procedures that are both profitable and environmentally friendly. Researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will receive nearly $2 million from the foundation to study the environmental impact of fertilizers, pesticides and transgenic corn on commodity-oriented farm operations.

"We're looking at management issues involved in insecticides, biotech crops and using cover crops to scale, with the long-term purpose of improved sustainability," says Buffett, who is three parts farmer, philanthropist and environmentalist. "We have to make sustainability economically viable for the larger scale farmer. If you think it is intelligent to continue to be completely dependent on fossil fuels for inputs, you're not thinking hard enough."

"The biggest mistake people make in agricultural research is to try to do it quickly -- the minute you talk about anything less than a 10-year time frame, you're talking about results that are not adequate," says Buffett.

One 150-acre farm will be divided to compare zero, half and full rates of conventional insecticide with Roundup Ready Corn including insecticide seed coating; another field with same treatments will include a Bt (triple stack) corn. SIU will then monitor pesticide residues and impacts of the biotech seed.

"The most applicable question we're trying to answer for a commercial farmer is, what is the cost benefit for the insecticide, the seed treatment and the Bt seed trait?" says Buffett. "Over a period of time you can begin to compare yield and look at any leftover pesticide residue. We can begin to see if we're paying for things that we don't' need and whether it has some negative environmental impact."

Researchers will look for traces of transgenic corn varieties and their associated pesticide residues in soil and water, then analyze the effects on land- and water-dwelling invertebrates and, in the case of the pesticides, on the corn plants themselves.

On another foundation farm, fields will be divided with 20-foot grass buffer strips. One 8.5-acre plot receives zero nitrogen, the next plot 50 lbs, and the next plot 180 lbs. Researchers will determine how fertilizer and pesticides move through ground and surface waters, then look at the effects of changes in fertilizing, crop rotation and tillage practices.

"The key thing here is that we will duplicate these plots in South Africa," says Buffett. "The purpose is to determine the impact on soil health from high powered hybrids when used with limited inputs and resources."

Cover crop nutrients Some of Buffett's farm is dedicated to researching how cover crops can benefit large-scale farmers as a way to boost nutrients and organic matter. The experiment takes place on 80 acres instead of a two-acre plot. It will include comparisons for 112 and 107-day corn and look at crops like hairy vetch and rye and their potential organic nitrogen benefit.

"Nitrogen prices will determine short term goals, but longer term, we need to learn how to do things differently, so that when volatility and expenses are higher, we've established a plan that allows us to go in and produce in a different way," says Buffett. "Maybe you don't use the same plan all the time, but at least you would have options."

Buffett's home farm 30 miles south of Decatur has more slope and less organic matter. He believes cover crops would provide more organic matter benefit on that farm but is not sure about their impact on highly productive drummer soil.

"What is the level of benefit you could get with cover crops on better soils? We're going to answer that," he says. "We don't want to do two acre plots because that won't say as much to a large-scale farmer."

SIU agronomist Bryan Young, who is overseeing the project, says the grant gives researchers the opportunity to use numerous practices to learn how to improve traditional crop production in a sustainable manner -- considering the environment, crop productivity and economics. "If improvements aren't cost-effective, they're not sustainable for long," he adds.

Buffett agrees. "We can't produce as we do today and reach these lofty yield goals people are setting – you can't do that only with better seed varieties," he says. "There are basic things soils need. Farmers need to have some kind of system that allows them to produce both economically and sustainably."