NASHVILLE, TENN. (RFD-TV) — Regenerative agriculture is a popular way to boost yields while reducing inputs and costs, but the research can be complex and time-consuming. Dr. Erin Silva, a specialist in organic and sustainable cropping systems, explained to AgInfo.net why it has become so challenging.
“It is very difficult to be able to capture the impacts of these practices, often because they are so biologically based across a wide range of ecosystems and environments,” Silva said. “A lot of what we see with the impacts of these practices is impacts on soil biology and the broader ecosystem. So, trying to capture the results of those changes in practice over multiple soil environments and how that impacts soil biology, it can be incredibly complex.”
Regenerative practices have become a big part of American farming, especially with cover crops. The latest Census of Agriculture (2022) shows that around 18 million acres of U.S. cropland switched to cover crops in recent years. That accounts for just under five percent of all American farmland.
However, some sustainability shifts are not particularly challenging and can be implemented with resources already available to farmers and ranchers on their operations.
Grain bags are getting a second life across farm country. Arkansas-based Delta Plastics is traveling the Midwest, picking them up for a new use. Delta Plastics Irrigation Specialist Chris DeClerk explains the process:
“It’s a good product for us to take in and to make other products from,” DeClerk said. “All we ask from the end user—it could be a farmer, it could be a co-op, it could be a waste disposal company that is looking to keep these grain bags out of the landfill—is that you just have the weight, you roll it up tight, you’re ready for a truck that we’re going to send, which is a 53-foot dry van trailer, and you need to have a bobcat. You need to have a ramp ready to go. That driver will pull up in a dry location—he or she more than likely won’t even get out of the truck—but you be ready to have the equipment necessary to load him up, and in a couple of hours we can be gone.”
Once recycled, the company turns the grain bags into other products, such as trash bags and resins. The best part, DeClerk said, is that the process of taking them off producers’ hands is free.
