In farming, it’s easy to see how the competition is doing, or least when they blunder. Within limitations we can reach conclusions about who is or isn’t a good farmer.
I have noticed some high-paying cash rent tenants don’t seem to apply much P, K or lime, all of which are needed on our soils. We would see the lime applications or at least the pile/loading spot and notice the spreaders and tender tracks. Corn, of course requires immediately available nitrogen, so plenty of anhydrous ammonia is being applied.
This could be the reason they can bid $150 higher than competitors, especially in a year when fertilizer prices can cause cardiac arrest. It likely occurs less on soil owned by the operator and those with involved landowners, but even those are considering a modest withdrawal from the fertility bank. Using a farm manager doesn’t necessarily insure fertility protection, either.
Long-Term Costs
Farm Journal agronomy expert Ken Ferrie confirmed those suspicions. A high percentage of the farms his consultancy has been asked to resuscitate have been “trashed”. (My preferred word is “mined”). We’re talking pH below 5 and single-digit P tests.
The cost is only obvious long-term. If the land will need to produce for generations, fertility maintenance makes sense. As a 10-to-20 year rental or ownership strategy, it doesn’t. Real estate professionals say soil tests, like yield results, have little impact on selling or rental price. For wide-area renters there are always other acres in the sea. Consequences largely accrue to the next operator.
Improving soil fertility levels entails considerable expense and time to show results. That lengthy period also applies to mining. This typical agronomy handbook graph shows why. Trying to move to the right can take many years. However, starting at optimal fertility levels, it takes a similar period to move left and impact yields significantly. In addition, Ferrie points out that improving genetics are mitigating ongoing depletion. Maybe not on every field every year, but it’s not the worst bet.
The handbook even acknowledges this free ride. “Eliminating P at an intermediate soil test level had little impact on yield but decreased the soil test level from 67 to 26 pounds per acre over the 9 years.” That’s when the study ended, so the yield hit may be 10-15 years out.
High-Risk Decisions
This practice undermines, so to speak, our loud proclamation as stewards or rewrites the definition. But as farmers have discovered from N and P pollution, that is unlikely to have any actual cost. Like colonial tobacco farmers, depleting soil fertility makes sense if other ground is available. By bidding top rents, such is frequently the case. Take an economically sensible bid, add on nutrient omission savings and move on. The next tenant faces a high-risk decision, since a change of ownership or competition economics could make any fertility investment uncertain.
There are other reasons soil may be mined. Suppose you look at the future of corn farming, see the headwinds from EVs, trade friction, artificial meats, etc. and conclude (rationally) to get what you can when you can. Or a disinterested owner who wants immediate income, as well as an investment which will not lose value as a result. Mining could be the optimal economic choice.
Even if considered professionally reprehensible, there is little community disapproval anymore since the miner could live miles away. Perversely, mining the Midwest could eventually diminish pesky surpluses as well. Until value is demonstrated for soil fertility in leases and sales prices, there is more incentive to mine than not.
Fertility clauses, fertilizer application proof, and longer tenancy contracts could alleviate this degradation, but face considerable apathy.
Finally, maybe we don’t know how bad and soon the penalties of mining are. Extraction farmers may provide empirical evidence to rewrite agronomy and farm economics texts while burning our bridges behind them.
John Phipps, a farmer from Chrisman, Ill., is the on-farm “U.S. Farm Report” commentator.
