Farm resilience, essential to the agri-food industry

A farm’s climate resilience expresses its ability to recover more easily from drought, excess water, or a bad season, and resume its operations. This resilience enables it to support the entire agri-food industry and, ultimately, ensure food security for populations.

Imagine a lush green field next to one that is almost completely dry. Or a plot of land that can withstand heavy rain without too much trouble, unlike its neighbor, which is saturated with water. Or cows whose production is less affected than others by a heat wave. This is no coincidence: farms that are more resilient from a climate perspective suffer less from the hazards of the weather and are more resistant to crop pests, thanks to long-term investments in the health of their soil and animals.

The Dedicated Dairy Farms program created by Logiag helps strengthen a farm’s ability to bounce back.

Originally designed to help them reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the program, in practice, also increases their climate resilience by supporting them in the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.

Regenerative agriculture, sustainable, climate-smart, or resilient?

With the advent of climate change, our concept of agriculture has changed. We now talk about regenerative agriculture, sustainable, climate-smart, and even resilient. However, even though they have different names, these four types of agriculture are very similar. In fact, resilient agriculture generally involves more sustainable or climate-smart practices.

The difference between these types of agriculture is their main objective.

• Resilient agriculture aims to strengthen a farm’s ability to maintain its activities even in challenging circumstances such as early frost, prolonged drought, or insect infestation.
• Regenerative or sustainable agriculture aims to conserve or improve the environment on which it depends in order to strengthen its resilience, even in challenging circumstances.
• Climate-smart agriculture aims to conserve or improve the environment on which it depends in order to strengthen its resilience, while reducing its GHG emissions or sequestering more carbon in its soil.

But what is resilience?

In short, all these types of agriculture make farms more resilient. But what is resilience?

This very general concept refers to the ability of an organism, person, or community to bounce back after a major trauma or disruption. On a farm, climate resilience is based on three main elements: healthy soils, crop diversity, and animal welfare.

The foundations of healthy soil

Without soil, there is no agriculture. To the naked eye, healthy soil is characterized by its dark brown color and its crumbly, firm texture, which allows it to hold well in the hand without being compact. Under a microscope, it is a complete ecosystem in which organic matter plays a central role.

Soil organic matter is everything that comes from life, including underground fauna (earthworms, fungi, microorganisms) and plant residues, as well as the carbon they contain.

In concrete terms, underground fauna feeds on plant residues, thus helping to break them down, release their nutrients and create organic matter. This process has many positive effects on the soil: it facilitates carbon sequestration and creates a glue that binds together the soil’s mineral particles (sand, silt, clay).

Aggregates: a sign of healthy soil

The entire process results in aggregates: clumps of soil ranging from a few millimeters to a few centimeters in diameter, separated by tiny spaces called pores.

Soil formed of aggregates greatly enhances agricultural resilience. First, the pores between the aggregates retain water and air, much like a sponge, which reduces soil erosion and irrigation needs. The pores also aerate the soil, facilitating root establishment and access to water.

In addition, by releasing nutrients from plant residues, underground fauna leads to a reduction in fertilizer use and, therefore, a reduction in costs. Finally, well-hydrated and well-nourished crops generally achieve higher yields because they can devote their energy to growing rather than trying to survive in a poor environment.

Creating organic matter

Agricultural practices that create organic matter are typical of sustainable or climate-smart agriculture. They include reduced tillage whenever possible, depending on the regional climate and the crop being grown. In practice, this preserves underground fauna while reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere (or the mineralization of soil organic carbon).

Organic matter also increases when mineral fertilizers are replaced with amendments rich in organic matter, such as manure, biogas digestate, or fertilizing residual (FR). When left on the field, cover crops also help enrich the soil with organic matter, while protecting underground fauna.

Another factor in climate resilience: crop diversification

Crop diversification also contributes to soil health and, more generally, to a farm’s climate resilience. It can be defined as soil that is constantly covered with a balanced diversity of crops.

Crop diversity contributes to soil health because each plant provides it with a distinct benefit. For example, those with deep roots facilitate water infiltration, while legumes bind with rhizobia, bacteria capable of capturing nitrogen from the air.

Diversity, an asset for the farm

Thanks to this diversity, a farm also reduces the risk of losing its entire crop to bad weather, disease, or insects: some crops will inevitably be more resistant than others.

Finally, growing a variety of plants improves biodiversity, not only of the plants themselves, but also of underground fauna and insects. Ultimately, this increased variety promotes pollinators and weed control, among other things.

Increasing crop diversity on a farm requires careful crop rotation planning. Producers must ensure that these additional crops meet their needs and are compatible with their equipment, whether they are cover crops, grasslands, or seasonal crops.

A third factor in resilience: animal welfare

Animal welfare is the third major factor in farm climate resilience. It can be summarized as the importance placed on the comfort, safety, and health of the herd.

By definition, healthy animals contract fewer diseases and live longer. They are also generally more productive and fertile. All of this reduces losses and, therefore, herd turnover, which stabilizes production levels.

Dairy farms, in particular, benefit from focusing on the welfare of their animals. Since each lactation produces more milk than the previous one, keeping cows for as long as possible is a profitable practice. This makes it possible to reduce herd size and, therefore, reduce input costs (feed, housing, labor). This greater efficiency contributes to the resilience of farms by reducing their expenses and dependence on external suppliers.

Improving the living conditions of a herd involves half a dozen recognized sustainable agriculture practices, including injury-preventing facilities, sufficient space and ventilation, comfortable bedding, quality feed, and clean water in sufficient quantities.

In short, climate resilience on farms meets many of their needs and helps them bounce back more quickly after extreme weather events such as heavy rain, prolonged drought, or insect infestations. This is not only beneficial for farms, but also for the entire agri-food industry that depends on them and, ultimately, for everyone who needs to eat!