It is said that 'knowledge is the bedrock of existence'. As such, this blog serves to freely inform the general public about the importance of agriculture. The blog also serves to educate people on the different products that could be used on plants and animals to boost their growth and minimise loss and mortality.
Sustainable agriculture provides high yields without undermining the natural systems and resources that productivity depends on. Farmers who take a sustainable approach work efficiently with natural processes rather than ignoring or struggling against them – and use the best of current knowledge and technology to avoid the unintended consequences of industrial, chemical-based agriculture. One important result is that farmers are able to minimize their use of pesticides and fertilizers, thereby saving money and protecting future productivity, as well as the environment.
Below are some of the most common sustainable agriculture techniques employed by farmers today to achieve the key goals of weed control, pest control, disease control, erosion control and high soil quality:
Crop Rotation
Cover Crops
Soil Enrichment
Natural Pest Predators
Biointensive Integrated Pest Management
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation—growing different crops in succession in the same field—is one of the most powerful techniques of sustainable agriculture, and avoids the unintended consequences of putting the same plants in the same soil year after year. It is a key element of the permanent and effective solution to pest problems because many pests have preferences for specific crops, and continuous growth of the same crop guarantees them a steady food supply, so that populations increase. For example, right now European corn borers are often a significant pest in the United States because most corn is grown in continuous cultivation or in two-year rotations with soybeans. Four- or five-year rotations would control not only corn borers, but many other corn pests as well. In fact, rotation reduces pest pressure on all the crops in the rotation by breaking the pest reproductive cycles.
In rotations, farmers can also plant crops, like soybeans and other legumes, that replenish plant nutrients, thereby reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. For instance, corn grown in a field previously used to grow soybeans needs less added nitrogen to produce high yields.
On a related note, the importance of crop rotation as a defense against pest infestations should be a key part of any discussion about growing crops for bioenergy purposes. Government policies to encourage bioenergy crops should not inadvertently encourage farmers to forgo crop rotation in favor of planting corn year after year.
Cover Crops
Many farmers also take advantage of the benefits of having plants growing in the soil at all times, rather than leaving the ground bare between cropping periods, which produces unintended problems. The planting of cover crops such as hairy vetch, clover, or oats helps farmers achieve the basic goals of:
preventing soil erosion,
suppressing weeds, and
enhancing soil quality.
Using appropriate cover crops is worth the extra effort because it reduces the need for chemical inputs like herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers.
Soil Enrichment
Soil is arguably the single most prized element of agricultural ecosystems. Healthy soil teems with life, including many beneficial microbes and insects, but these are often killed off by the overuse of pesticides. Good soils can improve yields and produce robust crops less vulnerable to pests; abused soils often require heavy fertilizer application to produce high yields. Soil quality can be maintained and enhanced in many ways, including leaving crop residues in the field after harvest, plowing under cover crops, or adding composted plant material or animal manure.
Natural Pest Predators
Understanding a farm as an ecosystem rather than a factory offers exciting opportunities for effective pest control. For example, many birds, insects, and spiders are natural predators of agricultural pests. Managing farms so that they harbor populations of pest predators is a sophisticated and effective pest-control technique. One of the unfortunate consequences of intensive use of chemical pesticides is the indiscriminate killing of birds, bats, and other pest predators.
Biointensive Integrated Pest Management
One of the most promising technologies is the control of pests through integrated pest management (IPM). This approach relies to the greatest possible extent on biological rather than chemical measures, and emphasizes the prevention of pest problems with crop rotation; the reintroduction of natural, disease-fighting microbes into plants/soil, and release of beneficial organisms that prey on the pests. Once a particular pest problem is identified, responses include the use of sterile males, biocontrol agents like ladybugs. Chemical pesticides are only used as a last resort.
The sleeves from the shipping crate for a bean head form the bottom pieces of these heavy-duty sawhorses I built. I left the attached loops to use with tie-downs. The top sections are made from the wings of a field cultivator. I’ve used them for building a hydraulic press and a log splitter for my skid loader. They’re also easy to move with a forklift.
Bobby Huffman|Edina, Missouri
LEAVE IT TO GUTTERS TO HOLD SMALL ITEMS
I like using strips of aluminum gutters to hold nails, screws, bolts, and other small parts in my shop. Cut to length, they are easily hung to the wall; I have used nails to secure them. There are three longer sections directly over my workbench.
Craig Grodman | Lehigh Acres, Florida
SAME JOB, HALF THE TIME
Since I work on a lot of trucks in the winter, my floor gets tracked with mud. I was spending a lot of time cleaning it out with a 6-inch ice scraper. So I took a piece of metal 36 inches long and 6 inches wide and welded it onto my existing scraper at its center. Now that scraper is as long as a pair of tires on a semi.
Joseph Wurtz|Delmont, South Dakota
SHOP-BUILT OFFICE DESK
I didn’t think building a desk for my mom out of 2½-inch angle iron and 1½-inch flat iron would be hard. Then I discovered that perfect drawers and sliders take a lot of time. The angle iron wasn’t always a perfect 90°, so the desk didn’t want to hold square. I tack-welded most of the joints on the back.
Nathan Lehman|Monroe, Indiana
LIFESAVING DETECTORS
My son recently asked me why farmers don’t use hydrogen sulfide (H2S) detectors near manure pits. He’s an executive in the construction industry and says the detectors are required by his company if there is even the remotest possibility that the gas could be present (for example, near sewage systems, oil wells, or coal mines). Amazon has a portable H2S detector for about $100.
Jerry Nelson | Volga, South Dakota
IF THE HANDLE FALLS OUT, IT WON’T GO VERY FAR
I had more than one close call when the hopper bottom grain trailer crank handle nearly dropped right through the dump pit grate. To keep that from ever happening, I simply cut a tennis ball to fit snugly over that handle. With the ball on, the crank handle won’t fit through the pit grate.
Chris Geiger|Markle, Indiana
ATV SERVICE RECORDS
Lots of people use the utility vehicle on my farm, so trying to keep service records for it can be hectic and costly without a proper schedule. It also leads to overservice or underservice. To help me keep track, I made a service sheet on my computer and taped it on the inside of the ATV’s toolbox.
Jadon Waldner|Mitchell, South Dakota
REMOVABLE PLANTER RAMPS
I built walkways that make filling my Kinze corn and soybean box planters easier. Working at that height is nice, especially when the hopper extensions are on. The square box tubing and expanded metal sections are frame-mounted and simple to remove. Hinges at the front give better access for working on the unit.
James Nelson|Audubon, Iowa
IMPROVE TRACTION IN A HURRY
This easily mounted bed rack with side boards holds the weight in my pickup’s quick-tach weight system. A heavy-duty fiberglass barrel filled with concrete creates the +500-pound weight. It won’t shift from side to side. Another benefit is the improvement in the truck’s overall balance when the snow plow is installed.
George Gunn | Southampton, Massachusetts
ATV CATTLE GUARD
My 4×6-foot cattle guard sits on two railroad ties in the fence line. It is built from 1½-inch well pipe spaced at 8 inches. The well pipe is welded to 3×3-inch angle iron. Welded to the pipe are four ramps (each one is 10×12 inches) and 5⁄8 -inch rod spaced so the wheels on the ATV can roll on them, which makes for a smooth ride. It’s been in use for well over a year now.
A GRAIN DRYER ACCIDENT COST JACK MALONEY HIS LEFT ARM NEARLY 10 YEARS AGO. HERE’S HOW IT HAPPENED, AND HOW A $1.50 CLIP ON A LOCKOUT-TAGOUT SYSTEM COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT.
Many times – maybe 999,999 out of a million – you dodge life-and-limb situations like the one Jack Maloney was mired in nearly 10 years ago. You grab a rung that breaks your backward fall from a combine ladder. An errant shoelace misses a power takeoff by ¼ inch. A glance upward after looking at a phone text in your semi jars you into barely missing a late-dusk walker striding down a country road.
Then again, luck sometimes takes a vacation. That’s why Jack – now minus his left arm – is asking you to think and rethink farm safety by sharing his story.
It all began on November 6, 2006, a day just like any other during a busy harvest season.
“I was in the boot of a hopper tank that had an auger that fed grain to the dryer,” says the Brownsburg, Indiana, farmer. “Since we were changing crops from soybeans to corn, I was on my knees with my left hand inside the boot. I was cleaning out junk from the bottom of the boot so it wouldn’t contaminate the next crop.”
ARMED ADVOCATE - JACK MALONEY - PART 1
Meanwhile, Maloney’s son, Peter, and employee Tom Noyes were busily cleaning the grain elevator that ferried dry corn away from the dryer.
The drying system’s master control panel automatically tied the two components of the drying system together.
“When they were done cleaning their part, they decided to run everything out from the elevator’s buckets while the boot was still open. They didn’t know I still was cleaning out the auger,” says Jack.
When his employee hit the switch, the auger in the hopper tank turned on, with Jack Maloney’s left arm in it.
His shrieking screams prompted Peter and Noyes to quickly turn off the switch.
“I still don’t know how they turned it off so fast,” says Jack. “But I knew my left arm was immediately gone. My arm was stuck clear up to the shoulder in a little 8-inch hole.”
ARMED ADVOCATE - JACK MALONEY - PART 2
Jack then told Peter to climb onto the top of the dryer, open the shield and then turn the auger backwards.
He got up there and said, “Dad, I don’t know which way to go.’ I told him to move it ever so slightly.”
After Peter moved it a fraction of an inch, Jack immediately cried, “Wrong way!”
“To this day, I swear all he had to do was lay his hand on that auger (for Jack to feel its direction), because all my nerves were inside that auger,” says Jack.
Peter then slowly turned the auger the other direction. “I could feel things give up and I finally fell out on my back,” he says. “I didn’t look at my arm, because I knew it was gone, and I didn’t want to lose consciousness.”
On the ground, Jack then asked Peter to call 911 on his cell phone and use Jack’s cell phone to call his mother, Rita.
“I told him to get my belt off my pants and wrap it around my injured arm,” says Jack. “It was a tourniquet to keep the blood flow down.”
MEET ME AT THE HOSPITAL
Rita Maloney was at her workplace that morning, studying coursework that was part of her MBA program when Peter called.
“Peter told me to meet at the hospital. He wouldn’t tell me anything else. My daughter (Megan Farrell) was coming my way anyway, so she picked me up and we went to the emergency room.
“Naturally, I was a nervous wreck,” she says.
They raced into the hospital and met Jack, who was being prepped for surgery.
ARMED ADVOCATE - JACK MALONEY - PART 3
“The trauma doctor (Dr. Tim Weber) told us that he was planning to remove Jack’s entire arm,” says Rita. “If not, he said amputee victims tend to lose the remainder of the arm over time.”
Rita disagreed.
“I knew there were still some parts of his upper arm still there,” she says. “So I looked at the doctor and said, ‘No, let’s try and save all that is left.’ He looked at me and said, ‘I will do the best I can.’”
He did. “I had a saint of a surgeon,” says Jack. “My arm was like a splintered 2-by-4. But my elbow joint was in between the flightings, so it didn’t get torn up. He put a bar in the arm and screwed it all together and gave me an elbow.”
This maneuver paid future dividends. “Having an elbow with a prosthetic arm is huge,” says Jack. “If I didn’t have that much of an elbow, I would not wear a prosthetic.”
Meanwhile, friends of the Maloneys arrived at the hospital.
“By the time he came out of surgery, there were around 15 of us in the waiting room,” recalls Rita. “We came out and migrated to him (Dr. Weber), following him like ducklings. He said, ‘Wow, I feel like I am in a Verizon commercial.’ (A popular 2006 television ad clip showed dozens of people behind a Verizon customer.) We all cheered when he told us he was able to put the arm together just below the elbow.”
RECOVERY ROAD
Successful surgery was just the beginning, though. “He got sick on one of the first medicines he had,” says daughter Megan, who was a nursing student at the time.
He also took massive amounts of painkillers. “They gave me some of the most potent Vicodin they had,” recalls Jack.
A major concern was the chance of a hospital-borne infection. So, six days after his accident, Jack went back to his home and did what any farmer wants to do at harvest: farm.
He had help. Five combines and 19 semis from neighbors and agribusinesses were parked outside the corn field that remained to be harvest.
“One company took half of the corn and another took the other half and neither charged drying fees,” adds Jack. “My crop insurance company even brought lunch two days.”
Still, difficult days remained.
More shoulder surgery was needed, followed by fitting his prosthetic arm, physical therapy, and painkilling drugs. Learning to live with a prosthetic also had challenges, such as one that happened during harvest in 2011 while servicing a combine.
“I went to service the air filter, slipped and fell, and got the prosthetic hook caught on the ladder rung,” he says. Left dangling on his tiptoes until his employees arrived, he cracked his shoulder in two places.
The pain of losing an arm wasn’t just physical, either.
“I went through anger, pity, every emotion you could have,” Jack says. He especially did not want Noyes to take the blame for the accident.
“We were both on everyone’s prayer list, and everyone supported him, too,” says Jack. “I tried to get through to him that it wasn’t his fault. I should have been proactive. This happened because I got complacent. I wasn’t paying attention to my employees.”
THE $1.50 FIX
“There’s an easy fix to these grain centers that we have these days,” says Maloney.
Lockout-tagout systems that are common on commercial grain handling systems can work on farm systems, too. He says a $1.50 clip would have prevented the accident. It would have fit on his system’s main shutoff button on the low-voltage side of the control panel.
Here’s how these systems work: When operator A locks his or her padlock and takes the key, operator B is locked out of the system. The grain drying system will not operate independently until each person who attached a padlock removes his or her key. This prevents anyone from starting up an auger or fan without knowing someone else is around. This would have prevented the auger that caught Jack’s arm that morning in November 2006 from firing up.
ARMED ADVOCATE - JACK MALONEY - PART 7
CAN’T ISN’T AN OPTION
During tough times, velvet in the most innocuous forms often emerged to soothe sandpaper-like difficulties.
“We had a 5-year-old dog at the time who just knew I was not feeling well,” says Jack. “He would come and sit beside me in the bedroom.”
“Quite frankly, I had to really talk up Jack,” says Rita. “He is really a safe farmer. He was upset and embarrassed this happened to him. I explained to him, ‘That is why they are called accidents. There was a second in your life that you didn’t think straight.’”
He also kept in mind childhood lessons that Charles Lawson taught him. A southern U.S. Army veteran, his hard work and devotion as one of his father’s farm employees rubbed off on a young Jack.
“He also taught me there is no such word as ‘can’t.’ He said if a machinery part went on, it would come off! So, his attitude rubbed off on me.”
This immediately occurred. “When we were leaving the hospital, I was bringing everything out to the car,” says Rita. “I told him I would come back and help him tie his shoes. When I came back, he was all dressed, with shoes tied and on tight.”
“You figure things out yourself,” says Jack.
Other tasks, though, were now out of his physical realm.
“One task that is really difficult for him is fine wiring, because he really can’t use his prosthetic to hold wire,” says Rita. “He is still good at welding and uses other equipment, such as a forklift, to lift and hold things.”
Also aiding him are veteran employees Brian Kincaid and Noyes.
“You couldn’t find anyone better to work for,” says Kincaid.
Says Noyes: “He has always been fair to us and good to work for.”
Still, asking for help has been hard for Jack.
“I have always been a doer,” he says. “I can still do most everything, but I am not as quick as I used to be. That is frustrating for me, at best. Unfortunately, my wife gets the blunt of my frustrations. It is hard for her. Sometimes I come in at night madder than a hornet, dropping things and making a lot of noise. She will ask me, ‘What happened today?’ and then she does a good job of defusing it.”
So does humor. Maloney is quick to joke about needing a hand, or calling an employee his left-hand man. Sometimes, too, just routine outings contain humorous episodes.
“One year, when I was walking down a crowded aisle at the National Farm Machinery Show, I felt a bump on my prosthetic arm. I noticed a kid rubbing his head when I looked back because he had hit it. At least he wasn’t crying,” deadpans Maloney.
Speaking for agricultural groups and companies and schools has also been cathartic for Maloney.
ARMED ADVOCATE - JACK MALONEY - PART 4
“I have been active with the Bunge Corporation when they do a special day for kids from kindergarten through fifth grade in Morristown (Indiana). I tell them about safety, I tell them about my accident, and tell them what I do to keep this from happening again. We have fun, having shoelace-tying contests with the students that I always win,” he jests. “One year, we were there and one youngster who had been there the year before was telling the other kids before the contest, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it – he’s going to beat you.’”
He also stresses to the kids and farming community that the lockout-tagout system is an easy fix for preventing accidents like his.
“It is so easy to do,” he says. “I am going to live with this the rest of my life just because of not spending $1.50 and being just a little more safety conscious.”
COMMUNITY IS KEY
“There is a bucket list of things I like to do that just won’t happen,” says Jack. “I was always a sportsman. I liked to fish, I liked to play golf, and I can’t do that anymore. The thing I miss most is the sense of touch. I feel out of balance.”
Conversely, he’s still around for his family. Besides wife Rita, son Peter and daughter Megan, he also has a son, Kevin, and two grandchildren. On the farming side, he’s been active in pioneering the use of cover crops and serving as a testing ground for several agricultural companies. He still operates a thriving sweet corn operation for the neighborhood.
More than anything, he’s been a living testament of perseverance and faithfulness to others.
“He is an inspiration and lives his life in such a Christian way,” says Ron Chamberlain, chief agronomist and director of Gypsoil division research. “He is one of the most giving people I know.”
“I didn’t know what his demeanor would be (after the accident),” says Megan. “He was incredibly positive and you know, he wasn’t going to let it get him down. He still doesn’t say he has a disability to this day. For anyone recovering from such an injury, a positive outlook is definitely the one thing that will keep you going.”
Jack says he hasn’t been able to do it alone. “Without the community and my close family, this would have been hard,” he says.
Ten years later, it’s that importance of community that also sticks with Megan.
“The farming community is a remarkable community,” she says.
“The outpouring of help we got from farmers in the state, in the Midwest, from John Deere, Caterpillar, Co-Alliance, was unreal. I can still see the five combines and 19 semis parked outside the field after he got out of the hospital,” she adds. “It still gives me chills to this day.”
Precision Planting’s latest product concept for nitrogen (N) placement, Conceal, consists of a dual set of injection knives that tuck inside a special groove in the planters’ gauge wheels. Liquid fertilizer is injected through the knife directly below the gauge wheels for consistent and optimized placement.
“We’ve been doing a lot of research in recent years studying the value and effectiveness of placing nitrogen at the right time and in the right place,” says Jeremy Hodel of Precision Planting.
This concept not only puts nutrients in the right place for seeds to access N, but also gives growers the benefits of a very simple design that can handle different residue and soil conditions. Instead of riskily hanging a knife out on its own, the Conceal knife-and-gauge-wheel integrated system allows it to handle residue as a coulter typically would and provide the simplicity benefits of a knife.
“Conceal is rigid in normal operation, but it will give, if needed, to protect the knife,” says Jason Stoller of Precision Planting. A breakaway spring is the secret to Conceal’s success at protecting itself in tough conditions.
For growers who are applying N in a 2×2 band, Conceal will fit nicely into their planting routines. Farmers attending Precision Planting’s 2017 winter conference were quick to check out the new technology, and Stoller sees planter-applied N as “a significant opportunity for farmers to optimize their nutrient programs in a challenging farm economy.”
Conceal will be tested by a handful of farmers under the watchful eye of Precision Planting this spring. As for when it will be available for sale, we’ll know more after testing in 2017.
Former Prime Minister of Togo, Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo has just been appointed as the sixth president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Houngbo, who was appointed by IFAD’s member states at the organization’s annual Governing Council meeting takes up the mantle at a time when humanitarian crises like natural disasters, conflict and refugees threaten to divert funding away from long-term development.
With growing demand for food, increased migration to cities and the impact of climate change, it is no secret that investments in agriculture and rural development will be essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of ending poverty and hunger.
Born and raised in rural Togo, Houngbo believes that inequality in today’s world should never be accepted and recognized the role of IFAD in bringing opportunities to the poor and excluded.
In his words, “I have come from the rural world and I have first-hand knowledge of the harshness of this kind of life. We have to keep our ambition and at the same time be realistic and pragmatic. We have to demonstrate that every dollar invested will have the highest value for money”.
Houngbo has more than 30 years of experience in political affairs, international development, diplomacy and financial management. Since 2013, he has served as Deputy Director General of the International Labour Organization, where he was responsible for external programmes and partnerships.
Prior to that, he was Assistant Secretary General, Africa Regional Director and Chief of Staff at the United Nations Development Programme. He is also a member of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. It follows therefore that his candidacy was unanimously endorsed by governments of the African Union.
Houngbo succeeds Kanayo Nwanze who was president for two terms and will officially resume office on April 1, 2017.
IFAD is a specialized United Nations agency and international financial institution that invests in eradicating rural poverty in developing countries around the world.
