Dec 9, 2019
At the very heart of sustainable food production is the healthof soil. Not only does soil health and microbial communityimpact the production of food for humans and animals, soil can be amajor player in the sequestration of carbon – a main variable toclimate change. Through focused research goals in findingways to improved and protect the environment while also boostingagricultural productivity, Dr. Chuck Rice shares his thoughts onmany facets of the complex agriculture system, new technologies,water policies and soil health.
Transcript:
Where Soil Health Meets Global Food System Challenges -A Discussion with Dr. Charles Rice
There's lots of challenges.There's, you know, the increasing population. How do we deal withincreasing production but also food waste? But how can we do thatincreased production without harming having impact on our naturalresources?
Something to Chew On is apodcast devoted to the exploration and discussion of Global FoodSystems produced by the Office of Research Development at KansasState University. I'm Maureen Olewnik, coordinator of Global FoodSystems.
I’m Scott Tanona. I'm aPhilosopher of Science.
And I'm Jon Faubion. I'm a FoodScientist.
Hello everyone and welcome back.At the very heart of sustainable food production is the health ofsoil. Not only does soil health and microbial community impact theproduction of food for humans and animals, soil can be a majorplayer in the sequestration of carbon, a main variable to climatechange. Our guest today is Dr. Chuck Rice University DistinguishedProfessor and recipient of the Marielle venir professorship in theDepartment of Agronomy at K State. Chuck's research goals are tofind ways to improve and protect the environment, while alsoboosting agricultural productivity. In today's discussion, Chuckshares his thoughts on the many facets of the complex agriculturesystem, new technologies, water policy and yes, soil health. Dr.Rice, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you.
I've heard recently that you'vereceived a $10 million USDA grant. Very exciting and we will talkmore about that as we get into it. But first, I'd like to hear alittle background on who you are and how you got to where you aretoday.
Okay. Well, I actually grew upin Illinois a small town outside of Chicago at that time, manyyears ago. It was a rural community. They called it the superboonies, Yorkville, but now it's part of the suburbs of Chicago,but I didn't really grow up on a farm. But I was active in 4H. Myparents, I was a first generation college student, my parents, mymom worked in a cafeteria, my dad worked in a factory, but theywere really supportive of science education. You know, they boughtchemistry kits, we had a microscope, they we hatched an egg, cut awindow and an egg and watch the check grow. So I had a lot of thatkind of science background in that. And I had really some keyteachers third grade, that third fifth and, and then freshmen inhigh school that were really instrumental get me involved inscience, I guess I was attuned to science, but things like we madebutter and then but what really got me started into science andbiology related was my freshman, high school biology teacher. We hetook a select group at the end of the year to a the sand dunes inMichigan. And we studied this we spent camping, but spent the timefrom looking at the development of plant communities from the lakebeach dunes all the way into the climax forest which is a beachmaple forest and Western Michigan. So that kind of what got mestarted and then to certain things, moments in time in college, gotinvolved with water and soils in geography. I was a geographymajor. I switched in midterm but to the geography and really gotinvolved in soils particularly did an internship at ArgonneNational Lab on surface mine reclamation at that time. And then myadvisor for college. I was thinking about doing a master's in landuse planning at Northern Illinois. And he said well, we've done asabout as much as we can do for you. You ought to go somewhere else.I got married and my took my wife and myself and went down got aassistantship at Kentucky do surface mine reclamation for mymasters and then stayed on for my PhD in soil microbiology nitrogenside tackling in knotel systems, so that was my real first, realindoctrination into agriculture.
You stated in some of thematerials that I read online that soil microbiology impactseverything beyond the local level, it gets to be an international.How can you explain where that how that impacts and fits into thebigger picture and how that might, the bigger picture may bringinformation back to the local.
Right, right? Well, so soilmicrobiology is a relatively new field, particularly with a newtechniques. But people don't really understand the value of soils,and particularly the microbes and soils. I often tell people at forthe human aspect, that we only understand about one person awakenedonly cultivate 1% of the microbes in soil. So we know genetically,there's the other 99%, but we really don't know their ecology, butyet that 1% We get 90 plus percent of our antibiotics. For humanhealth. We did an analysis about 50% of our anti cancer drugs, antiimmunosuppressant, or even number suppressant drugs come fromsoils, which a lot of our microbial origin. So the whole world'swide open for trying to discover what the other 99% are doing, bothfor human health, but also for this planet. And so while I'm notnecessarily doing the work on human health, I do quite a bit ofwork on what those microbes are doing in soil, for our culture, butalso the effect the planet. And so the, the hot topic, no punintended, but is the carbon cycle. So carbon, stored in soils, isabout two to three times more than what's in vegetation on thisplanet. And a lot of that carbon, is processed by the microbes aswe're getting into fall here, tree leaves, drop, corn, soybeanresidue, all that plant material is processed by the microbes in aportion of that is then sequestered or stored in soils. So now wehave the tools to understanding the global carbon cycle and thosemicrobes, how they're involved really affect our planet because ofglobal rise in co2 and the implications that has on climate change.But, you know, now we have the tools to understand those microbesand really, to create healthier soils, and store more carbon becomemore efficient with nutrients.
So I take it, you're no longerare you the scientific community, are no longer at quite the loss,you were to be able to cultivate these. Are you is that part of theproblem that you
Yeah, that's still the casetoday. That we know with the molecular techniques now, genomicanalysis that we can know, we know, DNA strands, the DNA, but wereally still can't cultivate a lot of those organisms. And wereally need to have those tools so that we can understand theecology, how do they fit in the soil environment, how they interactwith each other. So we know the genetic potential a little bit whattheir potential activities, but trying to figure out how they livein the soil, how they live and plant roots, the potential there forincreasing efficiency, water resilience in crops, is really key.It's really a kind of the next, next frontier.
So how do you study some ofthis? If you don't, if you can't bring it into a lab and cultivatedthat’s part of what you're talking about? Right? It's sort of thatbeing able to sort of in the lab, then see what's going on? Are youat? Are you at a loss? If you can't do that, are there things thatyou can do to know, actually in the field, right?
Yeah, so there's, I don't. Sothere's people that do the genomic analysis, and I guess I'mlooking at the products of that microbe activity. So I look atprocesses, and not the individual organisms, per se, but thosegroups of organisms and how they process nitrogen, or how theyprocess carbon, so I'm looking at the tivity, and whatenvironmental factors affect that activity, but I don't knownecessarily who they are. But I want to know what they'redoing.
Famous story when people werestudying slime mold, dictyostelium. They knew that they aggregateit and they knew that there's something you control thataggregation, but they couldn't figure out what it was and all theycould see was the spot on chromatography paper, and so they calledit magic spot. For about five years until we finally got tocharacterized,
Okay, that's interesting. Yeah,I didn't know that. But yeah, they I mean, it's, it's somethinglike that, you know. It'd be nice to grow, cultivate those organs.So we could look at their specific mechanisms and their ecology.But at this point in time, we know enough that we can, some of thegeneral enzymes that make those products are really useful, andthen what controls them. So I'm looking at things like moisture,and how human management of soils affects those processes for thedetriment or for the benefit.
Could you say some of the thingsthat you see there? Like, what, what are the kinds of interestingeffects that that you're that you're studying? And that you'relooking at? Right, in terms of the effects of, you know, water orhuman activity? And what are the outcomes? Are you looking atmostly carbon sequestration? Or what other kinds of things that arewas interesting.
Yeah, So I guess, well, thecurrent topic that's been working on soil health, but you know,that's very generic and how to improve soil health, andparticularly, the microbial aspects of that we know the chemistryand the physics measurements, but microbial techniques, which youknow, are just time out are fairly new. And so how do thosemeasurements can be used to indicate direction of soil health, butthe reason for the interest in soil health is for multiple effects.One is carbon sequestration. You mentioned, you mentioned, like Isaid, there's three, two to three times more carbon in soils, andthen there is in the atmosphere, or in vegetation. So understandinghow that carbon is retained in that soil. How can we put morecarbon to the benefit of the environment to the atmosphere. Sothings that we're working on is we know that certain soilmanagement practices like less tillage is beneficial for more fungiin fungi are more efficient with a carbon so more of their carbon aprocess or return is retained in the soil over bacteria. Also, weknow that the fungal hyphae that permeate through the soil justlike if you look on your bread moldy, bread, you know, those hyphalstrands, those hyphae, grab onto the soil particles in physicallybind them together. And what happens is that organic carbon istrapped inside those aggregates. And that protects them. And that'sone of the mechanism for carbon sequestration. So I use, I work onboth agricultural systems and grassland ecosystems, the Konzaprairie here. And so I try to understand the principles of theprairie ecosystems, because they're water resilient, they'renutrient deficient, and look at those principles and try to figureout how those principles could be applied to access them, make themmore resilient, more efficient.
The idea of the microbiome, Ithink, is just absolutely fascinating. And the work you're doing,obviously, as on the agricultural side of it, and looking at thehuman side of microbiome, and how those things are all going to fittogether, I think in the future is going to be open up new areasthat we never even considered.
Now, we're really excited. It'sa fascinating time to be microbiology, so I saw microbiologists,and there's going to be lots of job opportunities, too.
So this is an area that is beingviewed this specific area with more favor as far as fundingpotential.
Sure. Yeah. Well, I think so.You just mentioned the $10 million grant. Part of that was acomponent of that was soil health, and how do you improve soilhealth as well as being more nitrogen deficient? The goal of theprogram is to be 50% more nitrogen efficient in agriculturalsystems, which is a really daunting task. But it's aspirational.But really, I'm biased, but I think microbes are at least part ofthe key for that we can talk a little bit more about that. But theNational Academy of Sciences came out a report last year, talkedabout breakthroughs research in agriculture and food systems. Andthe plant and soil microbiome was one of the one of the themes outof the five.
Well that’s certainly hopeful.Yes, yeah. You'd hate to find yourself in a situation with doingunsustainable research or you got a grant.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no and USDA,NSF Do we all have are currently putting more money into kind ofthe microbiome area?
A lot of the work that you'redoing in the area of climate change. I mean, obviously, thatoverlaps into this quite a bit. How do you respond to people thatreally don't believe that climate change is caused by things thatwe're doing today?
That's a good question. And it'schanged over time. 20 years ago, it was a lot more controversialthan it is now. But you still get the deniers or the skeptics. WhatI try to do, particularly when I, if I'm given a presentation, andthere's usually skeptics in the room, is that I just try to showthe data. And, and now, it's easier to show some of theimplications of that. So actually, this morning's class, I show therise in CO2 in the last 800,000 years. And if you put that thatconcentration graph, you know, shows that it varied between 180-280parts per million, up until the beginning of the last century, butthen there's been a huge increase, not only have we surpassed the280, you know, when I came here, okay, stay in the late 1980s. Itwere we're doing experiments at looking at elevated CO2 on effecton plants. And that was 350 parts per million. So we're above thatto RNA. And today, we're above 410 parts per million. And so just,if you put on a graph on a timescale, it's to sit here bouncearound between 180-280. And then it shoots up dramatically. And soyou can't deny that co2. And so we're beyond what our humanexistence pretty much in that 100 or 800, almost a billion years.And then we talk about sources, and about 80% of that increase isfrom fossil fuels. And we know that because of the carbon signatureof that. So we know it's traced back to fossil fuels and the other20% is from human activity, deforestation primarily. So that's twopieces, I show that data and then I show well, what's what wetalked about CO2 and as a gas, heat trapping, and potential andthen try to show the temperature records. And again, I'd say it's alittle bit easier now. Because the last 20 years, it's continuedthe temperature records for the planet, aim for the country, US hascontinued to rise, and we set new records almost every year, butcertainly decade by decade. And now we're seeing the other thingsthat's happening. And that's the change in extreme events, not onlytemperature, but also rainfall. And, you know, the last few years,it's made it easier to talk about it because here 2012, we had amajor major, a three year drought that affected Kansas, and thecentral part of us. And then last year, September or Labor Day,last year at rain, what a 10 inches in about four hours, andflooding. And then this spring, it's just been a disaster acrossthe central part of the country with major major floods and hugeamounts of rainfall. This year, just in Manhattan, it's been youknow, it seems like oh, we get a four inch rain storm event eachnight, you know, and every couple of weeks, so and now we can trackthose and so we can show not even forgetting or not even talkingabout the future. What's happened already is more extreme events,both on temperature and water. And then that's affected theagriculture sector which tends to be one sector that's moreconservative, not politically but in the idea of climate change. Sothey're being affected with their normal operations, and then wecan talk about the future implications. But the point here is that,you know, these things are already observable now. And then what'spotential in the future.
Being able to look that at alonger time scale much must be a really big help because I knowfarmers will tend to to answer the well. This is Kansas we getreally good one you're really bad, the other and that's just whatit is.
And they're right you know, theweather is always changing. And they've had to deal with it. Butthe problem is, or the challenge is that those changes areoccurring much in a greater extreme and much more rapidly. So youcould breed a crop. And you know, it takes 15-20 years to produce anew variety, while 15 to 20 years, we're in a new paradigm. And so,we it's a challenge for our culture, and it needs that investmentin our culture, for the research to keep up with those increasinglyrapid changes.
Do you have the opportunity totake this information out to an interdisciplinary group? Um,you're, obviously you're teaching within your program, and butyou've got a lot of information. I think that that isvalid.
Yeah, I've been fortunate, Iguess, to have opportunities to talk to a variety of people,groups, from local citizens, I talked to, you know, Kansasproducers, but I gave a talk. Last fall, I guess, was earlier thisyear, sorry, in Wichita, to one of the TV stations down there, andthey had a panel and talked about climate change. And that wasbroadcasted on the NPR or the TV equivalent of NPR. But then I, youknow, I, I try to present the facts. And then I guess one of thethings is trying to relate it to local level, it's one of thethings I've learned is, figure out your audience and then presentthe material at that level. So I've saw I have talked to producersby talk to I've given testimony at the Kansas legislature orbriefings in Congress, in the US Congress, but I've even talk tothe legislators in New Zealand, Brazil, and some other places. Soit's given me a variety of opportunities to learn how to transferthat information to different groups.
How much of the research thatyou do is interdisciplinary to I mean, so you got this work withthe IPCC, which is very interdisciplinary, right? And is that akind of thing where you just contributed sort of talk about howthat happened? Right?
Yeah, well, he made the processof how I got selected via an IPC or and then what he did for it. Sowe had a, I guess, a little bit of background, we had a majorgrant, from Congress to work on climate change, and air culturemitigation. In Kansas State was lead and I was the project directorfor that was 10 universities, or 10 institutions, and it was about$15 million. But that set us up, this is early 2000. So it set usup as the group of leading experts on agriculture. And so there wasother countries that wanted to basically mimic our consortium. SoAustralia, in particular. And so I got engaged with Australianscientists, and some of our colleagues, all scientists, that madeit easier, but and so in during the that time period, the US wasdoing bilateral negotiations on research on climate change. Theyweren't in the the global UN effort. And so Australia came to usand said, you know, we want to work with this group from K State,this consortium led by K State. Well, one thing led to another andState Department was doing these bilateral negotiations, and theyasked me to participate in those negotiations. So I go and setcoordinate plans for research to coordinate between the US,Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Canada were the four countries.But then the State Department asked me to, or asked if I'd bewilling to be nominated for the IPCC. The process is that eachcountry nominates a person, then that’s sent to the UN center, andthen they look for expertise, diversity, other criteria, and then Idid get selected for two rounds to report that 2007 and the 2014report. It's a fascinating process, because you're right it is theensnared interdisciplinary so Even in agriculture, if you thinkabout it, there's soil scientists. But there's animal scientists,there's agriculture, agriculture economics, there's sociology. Youknow, modelers, engineers, so it's a very diverse even when theagriculture sector and then you have to each chapter as it'swritten, so I was one of the lead authors for the Agriculturechapter, but then you have to coordinate, and then talk to how yourpiece fits in, like, for example, biofuels, well, how does that fitinto the transportation sector? So then you have to bring in a newwhole cadre that don't know anything about soils, or, or have, youknow, perceptions on agriculture that are not necessarily true. Andso it's just, yeah, it's fascinating. And, you know, you could, Icould stay in my lab and do soil microbiology work, but to betransformative, and what impacts the world you need real science isreally complex. Now, you really have to be transdisciplinary. Inorder to bring these complex systems in, I would argue Agricultureis a complex system, because involves sociology involves, you know,the physical environment, the soils and the water, and that, butthen it's economics. And so one of my jokes is that USDA, in theselarge grants required that you have a sociologist, and so it's notjust putting them on the grant, but it's embedding them in theproject. And so my joke was, I'm not very social person. And butI've learned to work with sociologists, and but it's been reallyvaluable and educational to understand why consumers or why farmersdon't accept certain practices or understanding. And so it makes mywork, hopefully more impactful.
In that sense, has that kind ofthing changed any of what you actually do? Like in your work? Hasit changed the direction of some of the projects or any of theactual research methods?
Yeah, I guess I would, in onesense, No, I'm still doing my detailed field and lab experiments.But I now work with teams of people. And so I'm looking at how wecan design agricultural systems that improve soil health, or affectthe microbiology, and then how those practices would be accepted byproducers. And what's the economics? When I give, we were talkingearlier, giving talks to various groups, you know, I give briefingsto Congress or a lot of times talks to producers, you know, okay,fine, you know, the soil microbiology is great, or soils are great.But you know, what does it mean, to my bottom line, my profit, youknow, we can be sustainable all we want, but if you're not, for thefor soils, or, but if you're not providing a profit, that farm isnot going to be sustainable. And so it has, I guess it has affectedhow I think about this, the whole system. And that's one of theadvantages, being on the National Academy Board, is that it'spulling in from all these different disciplines and trying todevelop what's the future of agriculture.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout the National Academy board and this clearly a veryprestigious position? And it's, it's a something that your peersbrought you into that and put you in that spot? So how does itwork?
Yeah, so the National Academies,now it's all merged sciences, engineering, and medicine used to bethree separate, but they have the honorific which are the fellows.But then they have operational unit. It's still kind of called thenatural National Research console, but it kind of is really underthe National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Sounder that, the research console, they have different divisions indifferent boards. So while back, I guess, about nine years ago, Igot asked to be a board member of the board on agriculture andnatural resources. And then three years ago, I ended up beingappointed as chair of that board, and I just found out yesterday Igot reappointed for another three, three years. It's a you know,it's well, one is prestigious. But the idea, at least my goal onthe board, particularly as board chair is we do different studieson issues related to the US, related to Agriculture and NaturalResources. And part of our job is to be also looking at what's thefuture of Agriculture and trying to help lead innovation inagriculture natural resource, that the challenge that our board isthat we have Agriculture in natural resources. So there'sagriculture, but then there's also soil water, forestry, and sothey can be synergistic. But they can also be in conflict with eachother, you know, if Agriculture is imposing impacts on water or, orforestry. So it makes it challenging, but I think it also makes itfascinating, because it is one whole ecosystem, and how can wehave, you know, sustain food production? And sustain theenvironment?
Is the anticipation that you onthe board will be advocates? Or, you know, is it a bully pulpit, aswell?
Well, yeah, we produce policy,relevant information. And, but so sometimes, so the NationalAcademy was set up by Abraham Lincoln, the same year as same timeperiod as the land grant system universities. And so it wasdesigned to be provide scientific advice for Congress. And so weare, we can be commissioned by Congress to do a study on a certaintopic, and hopefully provide money for that, or they direct theagencies to provide money for that. Because the studies aren'tnecessarily cheap, because you're bringing in expertise and dependson the activity, it can be a three months, or it could be a threeyear effort. So there's a lot of staff time, my time hasvolunteered a lot of other people, all the studies, the experts areall volunteer time except for their travel. So then, Congress, butmore recently, we'll get group states or even NGOs will come to theboards and say, You really need to have a study on this topic.We're doing run right now on soaring of Tennessee horses, which islooking at the ethics and how to detect soaring as the Gatewatch ofhorses. And so there's training but then they can also put devicesin hooves that cause pain, and create that exaggerated gait. Sowhat we're being asked to do is how can you detect some of that?So, you know, here on my own, and I'm dealing with, you know,Tennessee, walking horses, and so on, or we're going at this, butat a rad advocacy? Yeah. So. So then we will, then thisrecommendation will be you know, how do you detect that and ofcourse, that could lead to legislation. In that sense. Citrusgreening is a major issue for the orange industry. And so we wereasked to evaluate their research program. And, there's multitude ofsources, as agriculture as typically they got consumer groups,industry groups, the federal government supporting sectorsresearch, and so it was very disoriented. And how do you bringthose groups gather and groups together and then figure out whatare the top priorities to have a more effective program? It doesn'tnecessarily lead to well, parts of it could lead to legislation,but would we directed and say, Okay, you need to coordinate betterand these are the topics so yeah, I'm trying to think food safety,of course, are right now we're, we're looking at some of theinnovations robotics in ag, you know, how do we spur thatinnovation? So it would the studies, workshops, could come out andsay, Okay, these are the priorities and that would help directindustry and as well as the federal government ondirection.
So a lot of people in the publicmaybe, maybe elsewhere, right start to think about sciences, alittle more politicized now, right. And sort of part of that islike climate science, right? And sort of, you know, the way youtalked about it was just, you know, here, here are the facts,right. But of course, a lot of people view this as it, you know, asJohn was just saying, sort of, you're already like advocating abully puppeting. Or you gotta, you got an agenda, right. And, andthen a lot of the things that you're just talking about, you know,there is at least sort of, oh, maybe some trade offs, or some areaswhere you kind of you might have some questions about, alright, sohow much of what we're doing is really, you know, value driven orpolicy driven, or we have, we have a point, or there's somethingwe're trying to accomplish, and how much of what we're doing isreally just like, oh, you know, here's the facts, folks. Right, aswe see them, could you? I mean, how do you think about, you know, Iguess, like all of that, you know, either as it comes up on theNational Academies and other people on the board thinking aboutthose issues? And, you know, are they are they going for furtherbeing, like, truly objective? Or can you be objective? You know,and then, you know, all the way back to your science and IPC, Imean, it's a big huge question, but just like, in general, I thinkabout these things.
Well, yeah. Um, so, yeah, acouple examples. IPC was probably a good one. You know, the criticssay, well, the IPC is just pushing their own agenda. But I willtell you, you know, if you've had in science, right, peer reviewedmanuscripts, and then you get outside people look at your work.And, and, you know, you know, you get, you don't get all thesegreat comments here. You got pages of that. And, you know, usuallythere's two or three reviewers. For the agriculture justagriculture chapter alone, we had, I'm forgetting the numberexactly, but over 2000 individual comments, and we had to respondeach single comment. Now, we could say, we accept that we'll makechanges or no is wrong, but and then we had a reviewer watching usto make sure we just didn't ignore those comments. And that's all.So you got to have the comments that you make, or therecommendations you make aren't just off the cuff. They have to bebased on scientific background, and you got, and so you have, youknow, hundreds of people watching you, and then the reviewers arewatching the other people watching, make sure we're responding tothose. So there's a lot of oversight, you can't just, you know,forget the fact or the science, you know, yeah. And so IPC, wewould say, you know, this is I forgot what the terms were, but thisis highly likely, you know, and some uncertainty level, you know,there's a 50% chance that we're wrong or whatever. But, you know,it's fair, the scientists are fairly conservative, you know, soeven if you say, Well, it's a 90% chance that it might be right.It's probably a lot higher than that. But scientists, at least inparticularly an agriculture, but we tend to be more conservativeand are judged.
Like yeah, right, so not notgoing too far.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Status,establishing likelihood. Yeah.
But there are cases, you know,we're in negotiation or discussion for the National Academy to lookat water in this country. groundwater, and it, it's probably assensitive a topic as climate change, or maybe even more so. Becauseour country doesn't have a water policy. It's as a whole. I mean,we have Kansas policy, we have Texas, you know, and water is verydear to not only the state, but to an individual and it doesn'trespect state boundaries. It does. Yes, that's right. And so Texasis very, you know, you can pump it, if you any water below yourland, of course, it goes beyond that. But you can just pump untilit runs dry Kansas, actually, as a state has a more advanced waterpolicy, though, than most other states in this country, which isinteresting.
California has this heritagesystem.
Yeah. So, we've talked about howdo you it's a major issue, affecting our culture, but also going toaffect competition with industry and cities. And that's alreadyhappening out west on surface waters. And so how do we do we needto look at what's the science behind what how do you mind What therecharge rate is, and then look at opportunities for efficiencies.But it's probably going to have to come into some discussion onwater policy, which could be challenging, you know, because thestate water rights issues, but, but we'll have to, if we're basedon science, and say, these are policy options, not prescriptive,but say, you know, if you do this, this could affect, you know,save water you do this other policy or, or programs, it couldundermine and increase water use, or Yeah, so. But you'll have,again, you'll have to be the economists and, and, and sociologiststo help design or provide those policy options. We're not sayingit's this policy, but these are the implications of those differentpolicies to help.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's oneof the clearest explanations of why we need sociologists. Truly,honestly, series. Spectacular.
Yeah, but also why you need thescience to write together the pieces, right, sort of it's, youknow, the thinking about designing serious policy without havingsome science behind it telling us what the implications are goingto be of doing this thing, or that thing is just sort of mindboggling.
Yeah. But and that's why, like,you know, I enjoy working these interdisciplinary groups is, ishaving that interaction and and other viewpoint to think about, oh,yes, there's just, there's the economic or sociology piece, youknow, I can design agriculture practices, but nobody takes them up.I haven't done the world any good.
This one's kind of a wide openquestion. But basically, what are your thoughts on the future ofa*griculture? When you're talking? I mean, we, you've talked a lotabout the science and the under the climate change, and those kindsof things. But there are a lot of challenges comingforward.
There's a lot of seriouschallenges. But agriculture, in this country, and around the worldis in everybody's conversation. I think, now, it's a wonderful timeto be in our culture. But it's also we got to get it right, becausethere's a lot of interest in agriculture right now. And so we needto take hold of that opportunity. There's lots of challenges.There's, you know, the increasing population, how do we deal withincreasing production, but also food waste? But how can we do thatincreased production without harming having impact on our naturalresources, forests, grasslands, soil water. And so I really think Iwas at a roundtable, week ago, of innovations are can't really whatyou just talked about future of agriculture innovations. And sofrom a technical standpoint, we need to be innovative agricultureis one of the least technology advanced sectors, I think it's likeseven out of eight or something. And so we need to think, look atthose other sectors, but robotics data, data acquisition and dataanalytics are going to be critical. Looking at efficiencies, thisnew grant that we have, we're supposed to increase water useefficiency by a rain fed agriculture, by 50% and nitrogen by 50%.As well as the same time increase production by 2% annually. Sothat's kind of Yeah. So but you know, I think if we can look at,there's a lot of startups let me back up. There's a lot ofstartups, now interested in agriculture all the millennials fromGoogle and all that they're pumping millions and billions ofdollars into agriculture startups. So I've been talking tocompanies. They're looking at robotics, and so instead of sprayinga whole field for herbicides or chemicals, they got sensors on andspot spraying. Okay, this is wheat, and this is a corn plant orcotton plant. Okay, I want to spray this one, but not this one. Andso one, you've reduced your chemical use. So that's profit for thefarmer, but you also have less impact on the environment. So thingslike that are really key. We talked earlier about the microbiome.There's a lot of investment in looking At taking advantage of thesoil microbiome to increase productivity and increase efficiency,so there's a company called pivot bile that is, has taking amicrobe and adding it to corn plants, corn roots. So it's not alegume or sore, it's not fixing nitrogen inside the root, it'sactually living around that root. And it's fixing nitrogen, andthen shares that nitrogen to the corn plant. So it's in its earlystages. But if it works, and I like the concept, then what thatmeans is, then we wouldn't have to apply as much commercial orsynthetic fertilizer. And that makes it more efficient. Because ifit's fixing nitrogen as the plant is growing, then it's sharingthat nitrogen and not giving it and then it's not available forloss, it's out of the system.
What's the advantage of themicrobe? I can see the advantage to the corn plant.
They're living in the root andthey're getting the carbon. Okay, so root exudates, from the, fromthe plant. And so they, so they're just, they're after carbon,they're after energy. And so if you added a microbe before andmicrobe to the general soil, it couldn't compete. Because there aremicrobes out there that have been that are used to low nutrient lowcarbon status, we think saw as a rich, but relative laboratorymedia, they're very poor. And so the general biology additives tosoil generally don't work. But you now you have this rootrhizosphere. That's a special niche. So it's almost like alaboratory culture. And so you can add that microbe and it'sgetting the carbon, a continuous supply of carbon is growing, andthen it's fixing nitrogen. And they've manipulated the microbe. Soit fixes excess nitrogen, and then that nitrogen goes then to feedthe corn plant.
Typical post harvest biochemistasking you to pre harvest Yeah, right. Right. Question out ofignorance. I think.
So. Thanks. So how much of thisyou study grasslands to? Right? So how many of the kinds of thingslike that that you're talking about, are mimicking processes thatare, you know, that you see in in grasslands? And how much does itsort of, like, brand new innovative, like, we're gonna do somethingdifferent?
Yeah. So well, I guess the basicecology if you look at, like the tall grass prairie, it's nevertilled. Okay, so we don't have to do tillage. And that's what we'retrying to promote. In agriculture is no till systems, but it hasdiversity there. And we can come back to that because it hasdifferent plant communities. But we don't add nitrogen, ornutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, other nutrients to the system,other than what comes through the rainfall. So their nitrogeneconomy of that system is either recycle it, or do some nitrogenfixation. Well, it turns out, most of the prairie nitrogen isrecycled. It's very, very nitrogen efficient. But it's also in mymodel climate resilient, you know, the droughts it slows down, ithas deep rooting systems, it has diversity in there. So it'sclimate resilient, it's water efficient, it's nutrient efficient.And it's a fairly stable ecosystem, you know, you don't have pastoutbreaks and wipe through. Well, so how does that translate toagriculture? So there's just those basic principles. Well, can wedesign that we don't have to tillage, so we got no till? We'restill planning monoculture and single crop, which you know, somepeople think, well, we can do polyculture, that's going to be hardto do. But can we increase the diversity, not maybe in space in onepoint in time, but can we increase that diversity over time, so thevalue is then you plant a corn crop and then you have cover crops,or you do rotations that are plant corn every year you plant corn,soybean, wheat, or other crops, and do cover crops so you havecontinuous cover, so it's more like the prairie. You can actuallychoose your cover crops for what you want to do for the soil. Sosay if I got compaction, I want to plant a tuberose crop liketillage radish, or turnips, they'll create bio pores in the soil.You don't have to tell it or I want nitrogen. Well, I plant alegume in that system. To fix nitrogen for the succeeding crop. Sothere's, we need to have design or cover crops, or our mixes tomake the agriculture system more efficient and resilient. So andthen, part of the innovation is that a lot of people are going outand bioprospecting those microbes in those root systems to figureout okay, can we take those microbes and then put them into an agsystem? Cool.
Can you say something about whypolyculture? Is, is a challenge? Is it sociological? Is iteconomic? Or is it sort of a matter of the, you know, I don't know.Other aspects of the biological processes?
Yeah. Well, if you think about,like the prairie, you got, you know, you know, 100 different kindsof plants, but say, even a polyculture, you know, slanted to WestJackson was really doing the polyculture work. They backed off alittle bit. Now we're looking at perennial sorghums, and wheats andthat, but the polyculture, conceptually is nice, because you have adiverse mix out there. You know, pest outbreaks are going tobe less but the problem is, how do you harvest that. Now, if you'regoing to graze it, that's fine, you put animals out there andgraze. But if I want, I got I want harvest the grain from a wheat,and a corn, and, you know, some legume, I got three differentspecies out there, they're gonna mature at different times. Andthen I got to figure out how to separate the grain. And if theymature at different times, you know, one's ready to harvest theother one isn't. But if I wait to the one that's later, that we'refor the first one's probably going to shatter. And so it'ssomeone's technological. But then I guess it's somewhatsociological in the sense of how do you manage three or four cropsgrowing at the same time? And so you know, the systems we weretalking about earlier with cover crops and, and rotations. It takesa lot more knowledge and skill. Well, now, if you got three or fourcrops growing at the same time, the management skills have toincrease dramatically.
Are there similar issues withthe managing the microbiology of the soils. Do you think in termsof the complications? And how much additional, you know, basically,management expertise it takes?
That’s a good question, Ihaven’t thought of it that way. I guess from an occulant side,adding these organisms like the corn, we're used to addingtreatments on to corn seed or soybean seeds for for, generally forpest control, but, and legumes, we coat legume seeds for rhizobia,that fix nitrogen that's, we got 57 years of experience in thatarea. So that's not necessarily a new technology, and it's just,you inoculate it then you plant it. And then you just hopefullyprovide the environment. So you're not actively managing thosemicrobes that's providing a good environment, and then adding theinoculant. to that. I suppose there be certain things you got toworry about, if you're doing seed treatment, adding a fungicidethat might affect that added microbe or added bacteria. If you'readding chemical fertilizer, you're gonna make sure it doesn't. Itisn't caustic to those microbes. So there's a little bit of that,but we're probably I guess I'm once you know, it's those arepractices that most farmers are used to doing dealingwith.
When you're talking aboutdiversity, the scale you're talking about, you're talking aboutmaybe two different three different plants going in corn and wheator whatever it might be. What are your thoughts on kind of thesmall farming the smaller farming type practices that I know withthe reduction in population in western Kansas, the state looks atways of trying to increase population and bring in other otherkinds of growing patterns. What are your thoughts on the smallversus the very large agricultural practices?
Yeah, I guess from a technologystandpoint, these innovators I don't think I think they're scaleneutral. At least I hope they are. There may be out modifications,but in my global travels, I was so, so one one way, or one thingthat we do like to manage nitrogen is look at sensors that detectthe greenness of plants. And if it's less green, that means it'sgenerally nitrogen deficient. So then you can go in and apply morenitrogen. Well, you know, so we got drones and other on tractorsensors. But I was at a one acre rice paddy in Vietnam. And they'reusing their smartphone and sensing the greenness for color from thesmartphone and then one of the international research centers, Iriehad developed an application well then this is how much nitrogenneed to put on your rice. So here's, you know, one acre, rice,Paddy farmer, Vietnam, and a cell phone or smartphone technology.And so in that case, is technology neutral is packaging itdifferently, but the information still is applicable. You know,I've heard people say, Well, no till has to be large scale, bigfarms. But Brazil is you can plant knotel by hand, or they got notill planters or horse drawn or oxen drawn. So it doesn't have tobe now. And there are some farmers, least in Brazil, I've seen aredoing organic knotel. Not using herbicides. It's possible. But it'sa lot harder. We talked about the sociological aspects, themanagement skills required for organic no till is much, much higherskill level and management skills.
So when you get into some of thesmaller farming practices, I didn't take my question to the levelthat needed to be and you're looking at small farmers putting in avariety of different vegetables, fruits, grains, whatever it mightbe. Is there more of a positive impact on the microbiologicalsoil?
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, because ifyou get more plant root systems, we're worried about the aboveground, but more root variety, as a good thing for the microbes,because they're feeding off of different sources of types of foodfrom that roots. So, you know, I talked about earlier, well,increasing diversity. And that was probably more big farms isadding cover crops and rotations in that sense. But a small farmercan actually do it easier because he or she can plant well. I mean,it's very common practice to plant corn and beans in the inner row,you know, if they're hand harvesting, or that's easier to do thantrying to run a machine through these rows and crushing your innerrow. thing. So you could do things, like some of the things youcould actually do easier on a small holding. So the principlesstill apply. And, and going back to soil health, particularly thecontinent of Africa, though, a lot of those countries, I was inGhana, February, they really need soil health, because their soilsare so devoid of organic matter. And if you could improve organicmanner, improve aggregation. So when it does rain, infiltrates, andthen it's held in the soil, then that makes those soils and thosesmall holding farmers much more resilient and not subject to thevariety of climate extremes, weather extremes. All comes back tothe soil.
The fundamentals, yes. Youtalked a little bit I think earlier about the grant that you've gotcoming in, what are the outcomes that you're looking for from thatprogram?
Well, so it's a five yearprogram is based in Southern Great Plains, primarily Oklahoma, andKansas. And the idea is to Well, I mentioned earlier but the ideais to develop systems that are that increase production, alsoincrease total factor productivity. And that's what's I'm notthat's an economist, again, working in the Transdisciplinary Areas,how to figure that one out. But simply it's looking at how muchinputs you put in, and what's the output and so the efficiency orthe, the cost per unit of bush or grain produced, and then we haveto increase water and nitrogen efficiency by, like 50%. By, well,it's, I forgot the timeframe, but we have to provide the tools forthem, we are going to do it in five years. And then also be climateresilient. And so if you think of Kansas, and Oklahoma, in the nonirrigated areas, we are extremely vulnerable to these weatherextremes. And we talked about that, you know, from super dry toalmost flooded conditions. So we have a group at University ofMaryland that's also in the project. And they have expertise onmodeling. And particularly, they've looked at weather. When I say,weather probabilities. So I've seen this et Cie, in Colombia, whereif, for example, in April, we can look at the winter weather,what's the probability that the summer is going to be a wet year ordrier, cooler, wet? And so it's not a climate model, but it's amore of a statistical model and say, if we got a 30% chance it'sgoing to be dry, or 30%. Chances wet? So can we take thatinformation? And this will be the challenge, and I predict we willfail many times, but that's okay. You learn from failure. But canwe say okay, there's a 30% chance it's going to be a wet year or50% chance? Well, instead of planning your normal summer crop,should we look for something that can take advantage of the extrawater? So instead of planning? Well, maybe instead of so youharvest your wheat, and now if it's gonna be a wet year, thechances are, we can go to double cropping with sorghum, or even ifit's really wet corn, okay. Or if it's going to be a dry year,maybe we aren't going to double crop, but we want to keep that soilcovered. Well, maybe we plant a summer forage, and then that foragecan be used for hay. So there's still a little better income, butyou're still keeping that solid cover and keeping the microbes fedand some economic production from that. So looking at tying in,improve soil health to be more climate resilient, and maybe someweather projections, and once I predictions, but projections, it'llbe a challenge. And that's why I said, I think we I, I expect wewill fail some, but I hope that we will have some successes orlearn from those failures. Because I'm sure there'll be times whenwe say okay, it's going to be a wet year. It's not. Okay. Sothat's, but that's what science and innovation should do. We hopeto get involved some of the technology. So can we put in, in groundsensors for soil water for nitrogen to make on the go decisions to?So there's, I'm excited, I think it's a huge opportunity, a greatopportunity. And if we're truly innovated, innovative, can wereally produce some transformational change? Not incremental, buttranslate transformational changes in agriculture.
Very exciting. Yeah. Sounds likea really exciting project. Well, the last, the last question that Ihad, in my mind to bring to you is just something on the Nobelprize that you were named in in 2007. Can you give us a little bitof background on what that was all about?
Yeah. That was interesting. Iwasn't even aware that we were even up for it. So the first thingis it was for the IPCC, IPCC report that came out in 2007. And itwas for the entire group. So it's not like I won the Nobel PeacePrize I did, but I shared it with several 100 others. Scientistsare authors of that report. Like said, I wasn't even aware that wewere up for it. I woke up that morning and had a text from one ofthe faculty members on campus that congratulations on winning theNobel Prize. I thought it was a joke you know, and then for a whilethere, we weren't sure, because it was a shared and it has actuallysplit with Al Gore, he got half of it. And then IPC got the secondhalf. And so we weren't sure it was for, you know, for the namegroup or for us included. And so there was a lot of confusion thatmorning saying, Okay, are we individual recipients and but anyway,it turned out that we, it was a shared, but we are part of thatsharing process. And in fact, there was a lottery for groups, youcan send 20 people to the ceremonies in in Norway. And so, ofcourse, all the, you know, administrators, you know, leaders gotthere, but I think there was out of that 20, I think there was sixslots available. So there was a lottery and I was had the potentialfortunate I didn't win the lottery. So but we got a plaque, andthere's artwork associated with each Nobel Prize. And so we got acopy of that artwork on that. So it's very, so it's kind of kindof, it was cool.
Yeah, no, it's very cool. Very,very, very nice. No. Okay, are there any other questions? I knowthat we, we've want to be conscious of your time, and the otherfolks around the table. Do you have anything more you want to add?Any questions of us?
No, not again. Thank you. It'sbeen good conversation.
If you have any questions orcomments you would like to share check out our website athttps://www.k-state.edu/research/global-food/and drop us an email.
Our music was adapted from Dr.Wayne Goins’s album Chronicles of Carmela. Special thanks to himfor providing that to us. Something to Chew On is produced by theOffice of Research Development at Kansas StateUniversity.
