Grain has always been part of the human diet

Even before the age of pasture stewardship which began 10,000 years ago we picked it from the wild pastures

Pasture ecology and stewardship proceeds from simplicity to complexity and back to simplicity

Today vital fields of gold are poisoned with herbicides and pesticides where we might instead restore their nature using good intentions and black gold

This year I have been privileged to be able to walk to a small laboratory in the east of London where friends have allowed me some bench space to pursue my some of my ‘golden age’ interests. In the spring the fields of Essex that I walked through each day were bare and muddy. The farmer sowed the seeds for this years crop of barley and slowly the fields turned to green.  Then just now the fields turned into glorious fields of gold as the barley matured. The privilege of growing a couple of seasons older with the golden barley has inspired this post.

Little time has passed since these summer days
among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
among the fields of gold
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky when
we walked in fields of gold

Songwriters: Gordon Sumner / Dusan Bogdanovic
Listen to the inspiring song.

This is an old family farm and the owners are many generations in the fields with generations still residing in the homes and cottages that are part of the farm. Gentle folk with the culture and intelligence that some might say comes from their being gentry. I would say they have been taught well by life in the pastures.

I rather think that they are rather the best of humanity in continuing the tradition of taking loving care of their few hundred hectares of land. I am especially taken by the young children who stop by the lab when out walking the farm dogs. The dogs have discovered that I am a soft touch for a biscuit and come tails wagging into the lab if the door has been left open.

From Simplicity to Complexity to Simplicity

What a glorious year it has been. I have been privileged to grow like barley which has turned into fields of gold.

I have watched the farmer and his family taking care of their fields. He tills the soil, sows the seeds, applies the supplements, and making the harvest. This past week I was discussing with him the ecology of his fields.

He is a truly caring man dedicated to doing what is right and maintains hedgerows, natural areas along the drainages, and natural verges on the fringe of the fields.

As a result the farm is alive with wildlife, rabbits, hedgehogs, partridge, foxes, hawks, owls, and all manner of birds and small beasties. It is a model of good land management but it is a business.

Ploughing a new furrow

The barley has been harvested and is drying and cooling being made ready for delivery to the millers. Just this week the straw that was left has been plowed in. It is about that plowing of the straw that caused me to engage in conversation. I asked if my farmer friend was aware of ‘biochar’ and he sort of knew of it. We talked about the benefits of soil enrichment with biochar. From this came a new twist.

Click to read the WHO site

Up until some years ago this farm used to burn the straw in the fields. When doing so the results were dramatic in improving the yield of grain. Then the government banned burning of the straw in the fields. Surely there was some annoying emissions, smoke, and fire hazard to the neighboring lands now being more and more turned to housing. Burning every year was a bad practice but periodic burning of straw and making biochar could become a best practice for farms and nature.

Today without the burning of the straw in the fields the clear consequence is that the fields have a much greater problem with crop disease, pests, and infiltration with various weed species that add their seeds to the harvested grain and are costly to deal with. As a result the farms are use increasing amounts of herbicides and pesticides to remain in business.

Black gold biochar to offset straw burning bans will greatly reduce the use of herbicides and pesticides returning our world to health.

I suggested to my friend/landlord hat perhaps harvesting the straw and converting it into ‘biochar‘ might be a beneficial thing to do. It would improve the soil perhaps much more than the tilling of the straw into the soil. As a business this like all farms must watch the cost benefit of engaging in activities so to do this some business thinking is vital.

I suggested that making and using biochar as a soil additive is widely accepted as a climate change mitigation methodology. Perhaps it would pay its way. We talked this over and here’s our idea from me the plant ecologist and he the multi-generational farmer in the fields of Essex gold.

Black Gold

Three simple steps in our down to earth prescription – simplicity

1. Harvest the straw most years and convert it to biochar that will be tilled back into the soil with great expectations of soil improvement. We’ll be doing the climate/carbon accounting to put the climate carbon credits on the farm ledger. The number will be too small to be practical to sell in the global Paris Accord climate markets but we might manage to make a value none the less. With an on-farm climate mitigation and eco-restoration program.
2. Since the ban on burning the straw is now due to emission reduction laws we propose to bargain with the emission control regulators to allow the straw to be burned one year out of five. The farms emission offset credits on its ledger from multiple years of making biochar will be turned over to the regulators to offset the one years straw burning emissions.
3. The burning of the straw one year out of five will largely end the use of glyphosphate herbicides and pesticides now used to sustain the health and sustainability of the fields of golden barley and oats. The elimination of these poisons will be fantastic news for the world as it will naturally bring back the healthy bugs and beasties now subjected to the yearly pesticide onslaught.

Want to help restore this world to health. Join me.

The greatest threat to the environment is waiting for someone else to save it.