Could This Mineral Help Farmers Cope With the Drought?Takepart.com
By Paige Brettingen | 21 hours ago
Daniel Davidson knows a trick that can turn a dry piece of dirt into some of the most fertile farmland around.
“It’s changed the worst field on the family farm to one of the best,” says Davidson, who has a Ph.D. in agronomy and grows his own crops in Nebraska. “Using corn as an example, 10 to 12 years ago, I was producing 100 bushels. Today, if the weather cooperates, I can easily produce 200 bushels.”
He’s talking about gypsum. While Davidson notes that the mineral wasn’t solely responsible for turning the plot around—the soil was also aided by compost, cover crops, and new planting rotation—he’s convinced that more farmers should adopt it as a soil amendment.
The mineral can also help drastically reduce the amount of water crops need—sometimes by as much as a third. On a stretch of Utah off Interstate 15 in St. George, Dr. Janice Jones is mining a possible solution to the drought—and perhaps so much more.
As the environmental movement found its stride in the new millennium—galvanized by grassroots organizations focusing on everything from ocean pollution to deforestation—there was one area that Jones didn’t see getting enough attention, despite being crucial to human survival.
“While the environmental community has focused on water, air, and plant life, for some reason, they have kind of ignored the importance of soil,” says Jones.
Jones’ nonprofit, The Earth Restoration Foundation, is dedicated to building a community of scientists, farmers, and organic-food enthusiasts and educating them about soil restoration. But she realized there was a bigger issue at stake. While education was all well and good, the world needed a solution to its soil problems—and she believes gypsum could be just that.
Jones founded the company Good Earth Minerals, where she serves as managing director, and branded its calcium sulfate product as “EcoGEM selenite.” The land she’s owned in Utah since the 1980s is home to 23 million tons of gypsum. Since the deposits are lying on top of the earth, all they have to do is “scoop, crush, and load,” says Jones, eliminating the need for intensive mining.
Gypsum, also known as selenite or calcium sulfate, isn’t new to agriculture—records of its application date back as early as the 16th century. But with concerns over food production in the coming decades, which promise both increased populations and extreme weather, including drought, the mineral could help make things easier for farmers.
According to Good Earth Mineral’s calculations, gypsum has been used to increase crop yield—in some cases by as much as 66 percent—and reduce the amount of water needed for irrigation by as much as 30 percent. It also fortifies crops with extra calcium and helps remediate sodic soils—soil that contains too much sodium, which can hinder water absorption.
According to a report from the United Nations released in October, losing arable cropland to salty soils is increasingly becoming a global problem.
“Each week the world loses an area larger than Manhattan to salt-degradation,” says Zafar Adeel, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. “Efforts to restore those lands to full productivity are essential as world population and food needs grow, especially in the developing world.” Developing potatoes that can be irrigated with salty water is one way to cope with the problem, but eliminating the sodium buildup itself is preferable.
Not everyone is convinced that it's a wonder product. While gypsum is very effective at breaking up compacted soils and reducing salinity, it doesn't make sense to use in all soil types. In sandy soil, for example, it neither improves fertility or water retention. It's benefits are short-lived too, requiring repeat applications every couple of months.
In its natural form, gypsum is found in mines mostly located across North America, but the mineral can be contaminated with other less desirable elemnts. In its synthetic form, it is generated as a byproduct of coal-fired power plants—not the type of thing you want to use in food production.
“Gypsum can come from different sources, so you have to question where the material came from and if it is clean,” says Davidson, who is a consultant for Good Earth Mineral. “By clean, I’m not talking about purity of the product, but is it clean of heavy metals.” The Organic Materials Review recently approved EcoGEM selenite for use in organic farming, and distribution of the product is set to begin in January.
Davidson says that beyond increasing crop yield the environmental benefits of gypsum are huge.
“We’re trying to remediate damaged soils,” he says. “Any time humans interact with the soil—and we all do—we impact the soil. We can’t have a perfect ecosystem, it’s not going to be like nature, that’s not possible, but gypsum plays a big role in earth restoration.”
Gypsum can help soil better absorb nitrogen from fertilizers, minimizing runoff. Keeping nitrogen in the soil and out of waterways could reduce harmful algal blooms that can produce dangerous toxins in water, as was the case with the contaminated drinking water in Toledo, Ohio, last August.
“For a long time putting on traditional fertilizers meant farm productivity went up,” said Angela Libby Jankousky, Director of Research and Communications for Good Earth Minerals, who has an M.S. in environmental engineering.
“Now, it’s not the case. We need to go to the next thing to improve farm productivity, which means improving structure of soil so the materials on the farm are actually being used instead of contaminating the environment.”
Though the effects of EcoGEM selenite are promising, especially for farmers needing to keep up with agricultural demands while struggling with limited water or salty soil, Davidson has a caveat to add.
“Changing the earth doesn’t happen overnight. You need to put it in perspective and have a plan,” he says. Just like that plot on his own farm, gypsum is a highly effective tool, not a silver bullet.
http://news.yahoo.com/could-mineral-help-farmers-cope-drought-000144479.html
