Tackling root causes
of agricultural issues
Texan cotton grower and regenerative agriculture specialist Chad Wall believes agricultural approaches should aim to tackle the root causes of issues.
CHAD’s journey
Chad is a Texas-born farmer and regenerative agriculture specialist who grew up on a cotton farm. He studied agricultural education at Texas Tech before being introduced to sustainable agricultural systems during his graduate study at Texas A&M University. During his years working in commercial farming, Chad started to attend conferences and explore new ideas on his own that led him to realise that typical farming processes used were not only ‘not-sustainable’ but actually degenerative.
Chad Wall in the field with cover crops
'I began to understand that we were looking at the system completely wrong. It was an industrial model really, that was in line with selling a lot of products that were helping us to hack the system if you will. But it was a completely wrong approach that was actually contributing to many of the problems that we were seeing. Other farmers who were my dad's age were expressing more and more frustration, saying "You know we keep doing more and we keep getting less". They were looking at it strictly economically, but it kind of turned my mind around and helped me realise that the normal way of doing things was causing soil degradation and continued to require more and more artificial inputs.'
THE PROBLEMS chad IS TACKLING
An over-reliance on chemicals. The more we use chemicals, the more the soil will depend on them, creating a system which requires more and more artificial inputs on an ever growing curve and leads to depleted soil and impoverished yields. ‘The more of the chemical industrials we can take out of the equation, the better off we are. When you understand how the whole system works you realise chemicals aren't necessary. Chemicals are like band-aids. You may need to use a band-aid to slow the bleeding down but if you don't figure out what's causing the cut, you know, you're eventually going to run out of band-aids. It's important to pursue what's causing the damage and eliminate that so that you don't need band-aids anymore.’
Cotton field with cover crops
The assumption that organic growing can give the soil all it needs. Growing using organic methods is better than relying on chemicals, but still doesn’t provide the soil with everything it needs. ‘Growing organically can work pretty well if you can keep the weeds out of it. But if you don't understand a lot of the other things that need to go into that equation, the weed pressure will get tremendous because the cotton you're growing is not enough. Cotton won't provide the soil with everything that it needs, so the soil is going to germinate weeds to try and meet its needs.’ Organic needs overall to analyse what is happening in the system, especially in the soil, to keep better weed control.
CHAD’S SOLUTIONS
Flowering cotton field with cover crop
Balancing ecosystems. Chad’s approach to regenerative agriculture relies on identifying what is preventing the overall system from working as it was intended to function in order to address it. ‘It's a balancing act of understanding the whole system. What is contributing to the system and what is detrimental to the system. If we're trying to move the needle in the direction of regenerative away from degenerative, then we need to be taking at least three steps forward for every two steps back.’
Tilling if the soil needs it. Chad advocates for tilling if it helps give the soil what it needs. ‘What I've come to understand is that minimal tillage is a very good practice. What we really should be focusing on is what are the things that contribute to soil health, and what are the things that contribute to pore space, and the preservation of residue and soil. And if that includes a little bit of tillage, isn't that in line with what it is that we're trying to accomplish?’
Diversifying microbes. There must be diverse microbes to help the soil function as it was intended. ‘Any high functioning ecosystem is going to have a lot of diverse plant populations, because the diversity of those plants actually provides different root types, different leaf types, different abilities for those plants to capture sunlight and water, and also support a broad array of microbials that can actually cycle nutrients and provide a lot of things that the plant needs for the symbiosis that's required for the plant to have a good immune system.’ ‘So we have to figure out how to manage that on an annual basis or on a seasonal basis to include a diverse mix of crops into the soils’.
‘The way that we treat the soil has everything to do with the quality of what is produced, and then the quality of that transfers from what's being grown into the next level in the food chain.’
CHAD WALL
Learn more
Is there a definition of ‘regenerative agriculture’?
How can regenerative practices apply to cotton products?
Where can I understand more about reducing tillage for soil health?
Greetings from: Ropesville, Texas, United States
Thanks to John Kempf of The Regenerative Agriculture Podcast for introducing us to Chad’s story
*The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the solution-provider, and not necessarily to the entire Cotton Diaries community. You can find full disclaimer information here.