Is cover cropping really that important for farmers? On an energy perspective, you can say it is. There are two ways you can see this. Conventional/Industrial agricultural or organic cover crops are the two that we are going to be focusing on for this essay. They are both different but they do have one thing in common and that is what they are trying to achieve. They are both trying to get nitrogen out of our atmosphere (NO2) and into the soil, where the plants need it the most.
Why Nitrogen is important in the soil? It is important because there are 13 mineral nutrients, which come from the soil, are dissolved in water and absorbed through a plant´s roots. However, there are not always enough of these minerals to go around for every crop planted and for them to grow healthy. This is why many farmers and gardeners use fertilizers to add the nutrients to the soil. Macronutrients can be divided into two other groups. The primary nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These are the major nutrients that are lacking from the soil first because plants use large amounts for their growth and survival.
Cover cropping is any plant grown as a monoculture to improve any number of conditions that have to with sustainable agriculture. Cover crops are fundamental, sustainable tools used to manage soil fertility, soil quality, and water and among other things. Cover cropping can be said it is the backbone of all farming that is sustainable. A cover crop is any crop grown to provide soil cover, regardless of whether it is later incorporated. They are grown primarily to prevent soil erosion by wind and water. They also provide protection, elimination of weeds and insect pest and diseases. A cover crop plant that is used most of the time is legumes and they are used by fixing the nitrogen in the soil.
Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that is mostly dealt with the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods include innovation in agriculture machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, achieving economies of scale in production (quantity, not quality). An extensive problem that industrial agriculture is going up against is the fuel that they run off of. Industrial agriculture runs off of Fossil Fuels. Fossil fuels are made by natural resources, like anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. These fuels contain high percentage of carbon and hydrocarbons. However, these can easily disappear if we use a lot of them. The book, “Fatal Harvest” says that, "Industrial agriculture is devastating our land, water, and air, and is now threatening the sustainability of the biosphere. Its massive chemical and biological inputs cause widespread environmental havoc as well as human disease and death.” We are being so dependent on artificial energy that we are forgetting that every day we have sunlight energy and that doesn't go to waste nor we pollute the earth even more.
When it comes to fertilizer production, they are some pros to using industrial agriculture. They tend to grow much faster than organic and there is no time being wasted because you don’t let the soil rest, like you do in cover cropping. However, it is not sustainable because, in industrial agriculture, it tends to be dominating of nature whereas; sustainable wants to be in harmony of nature. A problem that they are facing is how much water runoff. We don’t want to be adding to many chemicals because there could be a danger of water running off to the ocean, like what happened in the gulf of Mexico. But where did most of these chemicals come from? Mostly World War II extra chemicals that they had an altered them to use in our crops, and then led to our oceans.
Organic cover crops are much healthier for the earth and for us. Organic plants are all about quality instead of quantity, because someone would much rather have a good tasting tomato that is small, than an oversize tomato that tastes disgusting. It is better for the soil to rest the soil because it gives build for the FBIs to come and do their job. Organic cover crops can take a few percentages of the 80% of nitrogen from the atmosphere (N2) and use them where they are needed, in the soil. One type of cover cropping is green manure is a great thing to do when you want to add nutrients to the soil. Planting green manure means planting a crop that is meant to be included into the soil to increase its chance of being fertile. Cover cropping is good because it adds breeding grounds and nectarines and pollen for beneficial insects. Cover cropping is good because it prevents soil erosion. Soil erosion is when soil is naturally removed by the action of water or wind. Cover cropping is great for the earth because it uses all its resources to its needs without using any industrial object. However, it all has its downfalls. Since it doesn’t have industrial component it takes longer to grow, therefore you might have to cut production in half to cover crop. Since you are cutting production in half, there are fields that are left out of production.
For my own opinion, I think that it’s better to cover crop because it takes care of the earth. Earth has given a lot for us, protection, a place to live, and food. And we pay her back by polluting her airs and ruining her soils? I don’t think that is fair to the place that we live. Cover cropping might take a long time to do but at the end of the day it’s so worth it. At the end, we get to breathe in place that isn’t filled with Nitrogen, and our soils are the ones that use it because they need it. Like I said, the only real problem that I see with using cover crops is that they have to wait for the soil to rest so they can start again on another crop. What I think they can do is rotate crops, so the soil has some varieties of other plants.
