WATER:

Quality, Quantity & Organic Agriculture

 

No life, not even the simplest, can exist without water. Three quarters of the Earth is covered with water, but most of it is too salty to drink. Only three percent of all the water on Earth is fresh water. Agriculture uses 80-90 percent of that small amount. And each year, that three percent is getting more and more contaminated with sewage, pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides and other toxins.

Water consumption per capita is continually going up. Texas, California, and Florida are already experiencing water shortages and contamination, at times severe. The population of the earth is continuing to grow. Our grandchildren will live to see the population double.

The book, Tapped Out by Paul Simon, former United States Senator and current director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, presents a very gloomy forecast. Simon says, "We must act quickly to avoid a major catastrophe."

The seemingly obvious answer to our fresh water shortage is to utilize seawater. But, as Simon points out, desalination of water is very expensive and energy consuming. It costs more than $2,000 per acre to use desalinized water in agriculture. Although new technology for desalinization is being developed that may make it more cost effective, it is still in the future.

Building dams to create new lakes will not solve the problem either. In many areas, soil conditions make building lakes impossible. Instead of creating collectors of clean water, the new basins become silted, polluted mud holes. In and areas, lakes lose great amounts of water to extreme evaporation.

Global warming is also believed to contribute to water problems. Given all these contributors, it is easy to see that Simon is not overstating the seriousness of the water crisis. In his book, he mentions several ways to help solve the problem, but he misses one of the most important and best solutions - organic rich soil, the best and easiest answer to quality and quantity of fresh water.

Simon, like most people, does not have a clear understanding of how Nature builds and maintains fertile topsoil and how rich soil collects and saves fresh water. Modern agriculture generally ignores this process.

Farmers, ranchers, landscapers, gardeners, and sports turf keepers that build organic soil and use mulch see the process and understand it well. Around Texas, we now have numerous sports fields and hundreds of lawns that have a thin layer of compost applied regularly. There are many farmers building the organic content of their soil by recycling animal waste and by using low-or even no-till methods that do not disturb the soil and leaves crop residue on top as a mulch. All are reporting their irrigation needs to be less, in many cases, 30 to 50 percent less. Also, these practitioners notice that they need less fertilizer and pesticides. All of this helps prevent water pollution.

Organic matter is the reservoir for water, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, boron, zinc - in short, it is a general catch pan for all nutrients. Also, with a good supply of organic matter as an energy source, the microbes in the soil are able to degrade and detoxify pesticides and other pollutants in the water as it passes through the soil. This is important to maintaining water purity.

After realizing that 55 inches of water is lost each year from lakes and bare soil in Central Texas due to evaporation, and after studying the Edwards Aquifer, San Antonio's only water supply, Dr. Jerry Parsons came to the conclusion that there is only one answer to San Antonio's water problems. Dr. Parsons, local Agricultural Extension Agent, believes that answer is mulch on the soil and organic matter in the soil.

According to a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) study, a block of soil containing 4 to 5 percent organic matter, weighing 100 pounds, occupying a space of 3 feet by 1 foot by 6 inches deep, can hold 165 to 195 pounds of water. This means that a field with such rich soil could absorb a 4 to 6 inch rain in an hour! This saves water, stops erosion, and helps prevent flood damage.

Soils rich in organic matter also produce more abundant crops. Unfortunately, most soils in the U.S. are way below that organic content - generally between .5 to perhaps 2.5 percent. Soil with that organic content can only absorb about 1/2 inch of rain. When the Rio Grande Valley was first opened for agriculture, the soil organic content was between 3 and 5 percent. According to soil test labs, the current organic content is about 1/2 percent.

Lack of organic matter in the soil is the biggest cause of our water problems. California alone is losing 10,000 acres of usable soil to desert each year because of loss of soil organic matter. Worldwide, 26,000 acres daily are turning to desert and being lost to water insoak and food production.

Since agriculture and landscaping use up to 90 percent of our fresh water, conservation must start there. Building soil organic content, growing cover crops, selecting correct plant varieties, proper tillage, and recycling back to the land all organic waste, biosolids included, is our only salvation. These practices solve our water quantity and quality problems, our soil loss problems, and food production problems. Organic matter is mostly carbon. Increasing soil organic content takes carbon from the air and places it where it is needed, and that helps check global warming.

Scientists have calculated that if, each year, we build the organic content of the soil 1/10 of 1 percent, we can offset all the excess carbon we put into the air.  Is this solution too simple? [From Burning Fossil Fuels]

It has been demonstrated over and over that organically grown plants require from 10 to 50 percent less irrigation. If 90 percent of our water goes to irrigation, saving just 10 percent of that 90 is a lot of water freed up for more agriculture, industry and human consumption.

 

The Garden-Ville Method - Lessons in Nature