Key Factor #7: The Clash of Paradigms

The debate about Soil C Sequestration resembles the parable of the Tower of Babel. The parties speak different languages and owe allegiance to different paradigms of soil science. This clash of two paradigms is not a war between scientific hard-heads and idealistic soil mystics. It is a battle about which ‘facts’ should be admissible as evidence. The answer to the question, “Can our soils make a significant contribution to mitigation of Climate Change?” lies beyond the narrow definitions of Australian soils and their capabilities that applied before doing something about Global Warming became an action item.

The phenomenon of scientists being unable to verify what farmers on the ground are finding was demonstrated in a paper called “Production-Oriented Conservative-Impact Grazing Management”. It was prepared for a WA Department of Agriculture workshop in 2002, by Dr Ben Norton.(38) He points out that the majority of published research studies of rotational grazing find that continuous grazing is better than or comparable to rotational grazing in terms of either animal or plant production. Yet “Hundreds of graziers on three continents claim that their livestock production has increased by half or doubled or even tripled following the implementation of rotational grazing…” The answer to the conundrum lies in the methodology adopted by the scientists: the research trials employed only 16 paddocks or less in the rotation. A typical real-life rotational cell will have 40 to 80 paddocks, the high numbers affecting the amount of time animals are intensively grazing each paddock and the amount of time the paddocks have to recover.

The organics industry has encountered the same problem: failure to translate the on farm environment into an experimental methodology. (39)

Dr Charles Benbroo of the Organic Centre explains: “One of the reasons that many studies done by academic scientists have failed to find consistent differences between conventional and organic food is because the scientists have based their field research on university experiment stations that have been farmed conventionally for twenty, thirty, or a hundred years. They attempt to convert some acreage to organic production, but typically do it quickly, accepting certain "compromises." They are simply not able to grow crops as skillfully as an experienced organic farmer. They don't have the time to build up their personal farming skills to match those of good organic farmers. They lack the time to work with a piece of land for five, ten, or twenty years in building up its fertility and capturing all of the biological benefits that are associated with organic farming.”

There is also the issue of the whole of farm ecology effect vs the plot or potplant approach to trials. For instance, carbon farmers who increase the C score tend to see an explosion of biodiversity. A ‘flush’ of spiders or winged insects is often recorded. Colin Seis has had both in recent seasons.(40) It happens because soil carbon has a complex relationship with biodiversity – both as cause and effect in a looped system.

Dr Benbroo: “The deepest and most significant benefits of organic farming almost certainly arise from complex system interactions that are extremely difficult to isolate and control in replicated field studies. They also are hard to study through reductionist research strategies (i.e., carrying out research on one isolated component of a complex organic system). This does not mean that the benefits do not exist; it just means that two of the core strategies of western science - replication and reduction of complex systems to their component parts - are relatively inefficient in peeling away the layers of this onion.”

The Carbon Coalition has been working with some of Australia’s brightest soil scientists to bridge this gap by bringing scientists and farmers together at a series of meetings in the Central West of NSW.
These “Building Bridges” Meetings Between Carbon Farmers and Soil Scientists ocurred in Dubbo, March 2007, and Orange, June 2007 as invitation-only events, culminating in the world’s first Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, 16th-17th November 2007 at Mudgee NSW, with 400 delegates from every State and NZ. All speakers are either scientists or primary producers.

The closer science can get to the farm, the better for science, the better for the farm.

FOOTNOTES:

38. Dr Norton is Director, Centre For the Management of Arid Environments, Muresk Institute, Curtin University, WA.
39.“The Science of Organics: Peeling the Onion to Reach Core Truths” Dr. Charles Benbroo, Chief Scientist of The Organic Center - http://www.organic-center.org/res.lead.benbrook.html
40. Colin Sies, “Combinations That Move The Carbon Needle: Grazing Management, Pasture Cropping, and Biological Farming”, Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, 16th-17th November, 2007, AREC, Mudgee