Survey: Farmers keen on eco-friendly practices
| Monday, Apr 20 2009 05:39 PM
Last Updated Monday, Apr 20 2009 09:50 PM
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Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson, left, and Vince Fong, an aide to U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, check out the solar panels at Paramount Farms in 2007. It is the largest privately owned solar project in the country.
As Earth Day approaches, a new survey found a strong majority of U.S. farmers and ranchers are moving toward sustainable agricultural practices.
Nearly 70 percent say they are incorporating eco-friendly methods into agricultural operations, according to a recent survey paid for by Rabobank N.A., and released Monday.
"Sustainability is an increasing priority among consumers as well as for many areas of industry and commerce, and this survey shows that U.S. farmers and ranchers share that view," said John Ryan, president and CEO of Rabo AgriFinance, in a statement.
Three out of every four U.S. farmers are aware of sustainable practices, and most have used direct seeding, minimized the use of chemicals or employed crop rotation, according to the survey.
As green technologies have come down in price, and fuel prices have increased, more farmers and ranchers are seeing that green practices make economic sense, said Marcy Coburn, spokeswoman for the Ecological Farming Association, a national coalition based in Watsonville, Calif.
"Ten years ago it was cheaper to just pay for the gas than to, say, install solar panels," she said. "But with oil prices up and water being rationed in some parts of the state, on top of the incentives from PG&E and government encouraging energy efficiency, it's really kind of a no-brainer."
Plenty of local ag businesses are already on board.
Paramount Farms' nut processing plant in Los Hills two years ago installed 76 banks of solar panels spanning 4.5 acres. That makes it the largest privately owned solar project in the country.
Don Davis of Alina Farms just west of McFarland installed Fan-Jet microsprinklers on a third of his farm in 2007. The system targets almond trees individually rather than flooding an entire grove. The same year he also put in electronic soil probes that precisely measure soil moisture, another method of controlling wasted water.
And he's grinding wood from winter prunings and returning it to the soil as mulch rather than burning it, as most growers do.
Such practices make both economic and ecological sense, but prices will have to come down a lot more for them to be widely adopted, Davis said.
"Otherwise, it's just charity. People doing it because they believe in the cause and have given up on making any money," he said.
There remain a lot of growers who would like to do more, but they hold back because they can't afford to, said Davis, who also serves as vice president of the Kern County Farm Bureau.
