What Chemical Fertilizers Do
Chemical fertilizers are like shots in the arm to the soil. They stimulate a much greater plant growth. This growth means a speeded-up consumption of organic matter.
But, and never forget this, chemical fertilizers can neither add to the humus content nor replace it.
They do much more than just speed up the consumption of humus, however. They also destroy the physical properties of the soil and its life.
When they are put into the soil, they dissolve and seek natural combinations with other minerals already in the soil. Some of these new combinations glut the plants, causing them to become unbalanced. Others remain in the soil, many in the form of poisons.
For example, when sulphate of ammonia is used as a fertilizer, the ammonia is taken into the plant, while the sulphate, left free, joins itself to hydrogen in the soil and becomes sulphuric acid, a combination that is deadly to the natural organisms in the soil. Other chemicals used as fertilizers follow the same pattern in adding various pollutants to the soil.
Further, manufactured fertilizers alone cannot supply what the soil needs to produce abundant, healthy crops. Plants need much more than NPK! They need many other secondary and trace elements — all in the proper balance. And they need the teeming microbial life that helps them absorb the minerals.
The margin between too much and too little is often very slight. Mineral excesses in plants — now common — are often more dangerous than deficiencies.
Too much nitrogen weakens the plant. It grows lush and watery tissue, becomes more susceptible to disease, and the protein quality suffers.
There is no artificial fertilizer on earth that can supply a completely balanced diet for plants in the way that humus-rich soil can. Chemical fertilizer companies blend and formulate mixtures, but they simply cannot mechanically formulate humus.
Plants were not designed to get their nutrients by being force-fed. Quoting soil scientist Eric Eweson:
"Even if we possessed sufficient knowledge and it were practical to provide chemical fertilizers containing some 20 or 30 elements in the infinitely varying proportions required by plants — instead of just NPK — this would not solve our soil problem. Forcing upon the plants immediately available food in the form of water-soluble chemicals, which they cannot reject but must absorb, constitutes a by-passing of the soil's extremely important functions in relation to plant life and all other life, in the same manner as intravenous injections of sugar or protein by-pass the digestive system of the human body. Neither can contribute to normal, vigorous life."
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria in humus-rich soil supply nitrogen to the plants as needed; they don't force-feed the plant like chemicals do. To force a plant to grow more bulk will cause the plant to change its inner biochemistry. As Professor Albrecht of the Missouri Experimental Station has shown, more carbohydrates and less proteins will develop in such plants. Insects are out for unbalanced plants and find these a well-prepared table and a suitable diet.
As explained in the article on pesticides in the last issue of The PLAIN TRUTH, the purpose of insects is to remove weak and sickly plants so that quality can be maintained. The alarming increase in pests shows that something is wrong with an increasing number of our crops.
Laboratory tests have shown that seeds from plants grown on water-soluble nutrients are often incapable of germination. Even now many farmers cannot continuously use their own crops for seed because of poor germination. After a few years their seed stock "runs out" — as farmers express it — and they are forced to obtain fresh seed produced on better soil. Seed that cannot reproduce is certainly lacking something vital!
Decline in Food Value
As crops are grown in humus-deficient soil with the aid of increasing quantities of chemical fertilizers, the crops become increasingly deficient in proteins, vitamins and minerals. This has been proved repeatedly by comparative analysis of grains, vegetables, eggs, milk and other products produced on humus-rich soil and on chemically fertilized soil.
The top few inches of soil are the foundation of all life.
Here live billions of bacteria, fungi, molds, earthworms and soil insects.
They digest and mix plant and animal residues with minerals from below.
These are combined with water and air to produce the balanced living soil.
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According to Kansas surveys by the USDA between 1940 and 1951, while total annual state wheat yields increased during this period, protein content dropped from a high of nearly 19 percent in 1940 to a high of 14 percent by 1951 (Albrecht, Soil Science Looks to the Cow). By 1969 the protein content of wheat had dropped to an average of 10.5% in the U.S. Midwest.
Protein content in corn and other feed crops have often dropped even more remarkably than wheat. This is one reason farmers today have to feed larger quantities of feed to livestock than they did in times past.
While this protein drop may not appear too serious, we don't fully understand what it entails. Protein quantity is easily measured, but protein quality. is more difficult to measure. Proteins are as complex as life itself.
They often carry the trace minerals and the vitamins. But many of these building blocks of all living substances are still a deep secret in respect to their detailed molecular structure. This is why there is great danger in carelessly raising our food — of which proteins are a most important component — on depleted soil and with the aid of chemical fertilizers.
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Nitrate Pollution
In recent years another major problem has been developing as a direct result of chemical fertilizer use. That problem is pollution of water, air and food by excesses of a form of nitrogen called nitrate.
Nitrogen, together with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, are the four chemical elements that make up the bulk of living matter. But the nitrogen cycle, which vitally affects protein quality, is very vulnerable to human intervention. Today the nitrogen cycle in the U. S. is being thrown out of balance by two main factors: nitrogen fertilizers and nitrogen oxides from cars and other combustion processes.
Dr. Barry Commoner is an eminent scientist who early brought us forcefully to an awareness of this danger. Actually, we should have been aware of it long before now.
More than 75 years ago research stations such as the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station undertook long-term experiments to study the effects of different agricultural practices on crop yield and on the nature of the soil. When the 50-year Sanborn Field Study from Missouri was published in 1942, it showed that nitrogen was an effective means of maintaining good crop yields. But the report also showed that the soil suffered important changes.
The organic matter content and the physical conditions of the soil on the chemically treated plots declined rapidly. These altered conditions prevented sufficient water from percolating into the soil, where it could be stored for drought periods. A condition had also apparently developed in which the nutrients applied were not delivered to the plant when needed for optimum growth. Most of the nitrogen not used by the immediate crop was removed from the soil by leaching or de-nitrification.
This Sanborn Field Study, and others elsewhere, were a warning that in humus-depleted soil, fertilizer nitrate tends to break out of the natural self-containment of the soil system. But this warning was ignored. Today it can be ignored no longer.
Some seven million tons of nitrogen fertilizer are used annually in the U. S. alone — a 14-fold increase in about 25 years. Roughly half of this fertilizer leaves the soil in some way. Much is leached out and drains into water supplies.
In heavily farmed areas, the nitrate level of surface waters and wells often exceeds the public health standards for acceptable potable water, resulting in a risk to human health from nitrate poisoning. Also, when large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous drain into surface water, they create an algal buildup that can and does destroy entire bodies of water. The oxygen in the water is depleted; fish and other animal life forms begin to die.
Excessive nitrates in plants cause similar problems. Some vegetable products in the U. S. often exceed the recommended nitrate levels for infant feeding. Research indicates this is usually the result of intensive use of nitrogen fertilizer.
Some of the nitrate pollutants found in the nation's atmosphere also come from agriculture sources.
The nitrate problem is so serious that it cannot continue — if we are to survive.
This leads to the question of what can be done to solve the problems caused by chemical fertilizers. And more important than that, what can be done to solve the entire problem of decreasing soil fertility and its resultant effect on human health?
What Can Be Done
First of all, we must stop employing practices that have caused the problems and begin replacing them with conscientious methods of cure and prevention. We must have open minds — minds willing to be re-educated, willing to admit error, willing to change.
Man needs to change his attitude towards the soil. Instead of only taking from it, we need to GIVE BACK to the soil by replacing and building up the supply of humus. Basically this can be done through heavy green manure cropping and the returning of other organic material such as crop residues, animal manures, etc. to the soil. Details on building the humus supply are commonly available.
Animal waste in the U. S. alone is equal to the sewage of two billion people. It amounts to a billion tons per year! "Waste" is not really the right word, for these by-products of the life process are not to be wasted but carefully used to maintain soil fertility. Manure used to be carefully collected, composted and used on the land. Today its disposal is one of the livestock industry's biggest headaches. Instead of being a pollutant, as it is now assumed to be, it should be looked upon and handled as an asset and returned to the soil.
We need to make efficient use of all organic refuse. Why pollute our rivers and lakes with organic wastes when such material could be used to enrich the land? It doesn't make sense!
Careful attention also needs to be given to soil ecology. For example, the earth renews itself from top to bottom. The biological activity of the soil takes place somewhat in layers. If this layer type activity is inverted the renewal process is interrupted. Therefore, any practice which inverts the soil should not be continued. Thus manures and other matter should be added to the soil's surface.
The Challenge of Survival
The basic principles which need to be followed are plain. We simply need to start applying them ! As explained in our article on pesticides, this will not be easy, but with an all-out effort it CAN BE DONE. Indeed, it must be done if we are to survive.
We CAN stop being slaves to money. We must become more concerned with properly filling our stomachs and those of our children than we are with filling our pocketbooks.
Agricultural policies and practices CAN change and return to sound principles. Our agricultural colleges CAN free themselves of vested interests which influence their goals. These institutions CAN lead in the educational crash program necessary for survival.
We must de-urbanize and encourage the return of the small farmer. We CAN quit mining the land and forcing it to give more than it receives.
We CAN CHANGE. The big question is — will we?