This story by Allen Best appeared on ‘Big Pivots’ on December 27, 2022. It was first published in the summer 2022 issue of Headwaters Magazine. We are sharing it in four installments.
In 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost 1.4 million acres in the state were devoted to corn, with well more than half of that irrigated.
Corn is also thirsty. So far, efforts to produce corn with less water have come up short, says Colorado State University water resources specialist Joel Schneekloth. But if corn still needs the same amount of water, researchers have succeeded in producing greater yields.
How about alternatives to corn, especially in those areas drafting the Ogallala and other aquifers?
Sunflowers, used to make cooking oil but also for confections, came on strong, but acreage shrank from 132,000 acres to 59,000 acres statewide between 2010 and 2019. For farmers, corn pays far better.
Quinoa may be possible. It consumes less water. But no evidence has emerged that it’s viable in eastern Colorado. The demand is small. Demand also remains small for black-eyed peas, which a bean processing facility in Sterling accepts along with pinto, navy and other beans.
“We can find low-water crops, but they just don’t have huge markets,” explains Schneekloth who conducts studies for the Republican and South Platte basins at a research station in Akron. There has to be enough production to justify processing facilities, he said. One such processing facility proximate to the Ogallala aquifer in Colorado—it was in Goodland, Kan.—closed because it didn’t have enough business.
Nearly all of the corn in Colorado is grown to feed livestock. What if, instead of eating beef or pork, we ate plant-based substitutes? The shift, says Schneekloth, would save water. It takes seven pounds of forage and grain to produce one pound of meat. For a meat substitute, it’s closer to one for one. But that tradeoff isn’t that simple in most places. Much of the cattle raised in Colorado start on rangeland, feeding off of unirrigated forage, which is not suitable for crop production.
As for corn, growers are doing their part to make production more sustainable. Between 1980 and 2015 corn farmers reduced soil loss by 58% per acre, improved irrigation efficiency by 46% per bushel, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 31% per bushel, according to the National Corn Growers Association, citing data from Field to Market.
Besides, Schneekloth says he has a hard time imagining a mass migration to meat substitutes in the near future. Plant-based substitutes cost far more and the product, to many people, remains unsatisfactory. “Mass migration will be a hard one to sell,” he says. “Maybe eventually, but it won’t happen for a long time, I don’t think.”
Financial reports confirm Schneekloth’s skepticism. Plant-based meat remains a morsel of the market. A study by the University of Kentucky researchers published in a journal, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, found that U.S. beef sales topped $110 billion in 2021 compared to $1.5 billion for plant-based alternatives. Meat alternatives mostly displaced chicken and fish, not beef or pork. The Financial Times reported that U.S. sales of plant-based meat overall declined 0.5% in 2021 after a 46% increase in 2020.
If we continue to grow corn to feed livestock, can we work at the intersection of soil and water? Soil health has emerged as a lively new frontier of research and practice and the integration of livestock and crop production is one of its tenets—manure adds nutrients to the soil and builds organic matter, improving soil health.
Soil, unlike dirt, is alive. It’s full of organisms, necessary for growing plants. Wiggling worms demonstrate fecund soil, but most networking occurs on the microscopic level. This organic matter is rich with fungi and bacteria. Iowa’s rich soils have organic content of up to 9%. The native soils of Colorado’s Eastern Plains might have originally had 5%. The farms of southeastern Colorado now have 1% to 3%.
Derek Heckman, who farms near Lamar in eastern Colorado, is implementing various soil health practices to build the organic matter of his soil, improve water retention, and stretch limited water supplies further.
Heckman is on a quest to boost the organic matter of his soil to 5% or even higher. It matters because water matters entirely on the 500 acres he farms in southeastern Colorado, just west of Lamar.
“Water is the limiting factor for our farms a majority of the time,” he explains. “We are never able to put on enough water.”
Heckman’s water comes from the Fort Lyon Canal, which takes out from the Arkansas River near La Junta and meanders 100 miles just beyond Lamar. His farm is about halfway along the canal’s journey. Corn is the end game for Heckman, and corn needs 21 inches of water. In a good year, he says, his land can get 25 to 30 runs from the ditch. One run on the 200-acre farm should be able to irrigate 1.2 inches across 90 acres using a pivot. Last year he got 16 runs. This year? As of early May, Heckman was expecting no more than 10 runs.
Organic matter affects these margins sharpened in the Arkansas Valley by rising temperatures and competition from cities for limited supplies of water. Colorado Springs to the north has begun using its allocated water from the river, Heckman notes, which means less water for him and other users lower on the ditch.
“The more organic matter there is, the more the moisture-holding capacity of the soil,” he explains. This is particularly important as water supplies dwindle during the hot days of summer.
“Let’s say we have 105 degrees every day for two weeks,” says Heckman. “Organic content of your soil of 3% might allow you to go four additional days without irrigation and without having potential yield loss or, even worse, crops loss.”
Heckman, 31, was among a graduating class of 18 from McClave High School. His future, he thought, was living in a city. He went off to Iowa State University to study architecture but ended up getting a degree in horticulture. He and his wife returned to southeastern Colorado in 2017. Now he might best be described as an architect of the subterranean. His practice involves creating highways in the soil, ways for water to infiltrate. His work is regenerative agriculture.
In explaining this, Heckman shies away from the word sustainable. It’s too limiting, he says. “I don’t want to just sustain what I’m doing. Regenerative is bringing the soil back to life.”
Growing corn in the traditional way of the late 20th century involved plowing fields before planting. The working of the field might involve five passes by a tractor, compacting the soil and reducing its porosity. The plows disrupt microbial life.
For several decades, farmers and scientists have been exploring the benefits of less intrusive tilling of the soil. Beginning about 20 years ago, Heckman’s father was one of them. The scientific literature is becoming robust on the benefits of what is generically called “conservation tillage.”
Irrigated corn fields of eastern Colorado can require 10% less irrigation water depending upon tillage and residue management practices, according to a 2020 paper published by Schneekloth and others. Another paper, this one by Emmanuel Deleon and other researchers from CSU’s Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, similarly found that “conservation tillage offers promise for the restoration of soil quality in furrow-irrigated systems of the High Plains region in Colorado.”
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.