A Farmer's Perspective on Phosphorous Fertilizer

I am responding to Robert Tendy's opinion article in the June 17th issue of the PCN&R, proposing a ban on phosphorous fertilizer. I would like to thank him for opening the door to a discussion on our county's agricultural methodology. I agree with Supervisor Tendy's premise that regulation is needed. Writing from an organic farmer's perspective, I would like to tweak his recommendations just a bit. After speaking to five local farmers and the Master Gardener at Cornell Extension Service (278-6738), 1 have a sense of what is working for these organic farmers. (Disclosure: I do not use fertilizer as I raise livestock, no annual crops.) The general consensus is that balance is required, and restricting one of the essential macro-minerals would disrupt the system, according to the Law of the Minimum authored by German scientist Baron Justus von Liebig 150 years ago. Perhaps a more balanced approach would be to restrict synthetic fertilizers (which, by the way, should never be applied without performing a soil test first!) Here are some statistics gleaned from Paul Tukey's Organic Lawn Care Manual (Storey Publishing):

1. Making lawns is a bigger agricultural crop in the U.S. than corn and soybeans combined.

2. 8 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizer are applied annually to lawns and gardens in the U.S.

3. Creating synthetic nitrogen fertilizer requires burning large amounts of fossil fuels; approximately 33,000 cubic feet of natural gas to make one ton of nitrogen, enough for about 150 of those 40-pound bags of 32-10-18 fertilizer, or enough to heat the average American home for half a year.

4. A 2001 USDA study showed that nearly 80 percent of synthetic fertilizer is wasted when they leach through the soil, get washed off from rainwater, or vaporize.

5. Synthetic fertilizers, as well as herbicides and pesticides, are highly toxic to microorganisms (including our dogs who lay on the lawns and kids who play there, too) and disrupt the delicate balance of nature. The "Soil Food Web," according to soil scientist Elaine Ingham, is composed of microorganisms, worms, insects and plants, and acts as the metabolism of the earth. "Soil organisms decompose organic compounds, including manure, plant residues and pesticides, preventing them from entering water and being pollutants. They sequester nutrients that might otherwise enter groundwater, and they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available to plants." Compost and compost teas restore microorganisms in the soil, needed to digest the natural fertilizers and soil amendments required for the vegetative growth of new plantings.

You can educate yourself on organic (derived from plant, animal or mineral products) landscaping through a number of organizations, including NOFA (Northeastern Organic Farming Association). The Master Gardener program at Cornell Extension Services has many workshops, and two offerings were on page 13 and 14 of the same June 17th issue! Check them out at the Putnam County 4-H Fair July 24-26.

As a health care provider, I have another view on this discussion. Modern farming practices have increased the quantity of crop produced while the quality of nutrition has decreased due to decreased soil fertility, hence those "empty calories." The standard practice of applying NP K fertilizer ignores the need for trace minerals, which are the core of our enzyme systems. I would like to quote the preeminent soil scientist of his time, Dr. William Albrecht, with an interview included with this opinion piece. According to Dr. Albrecht, declining soil fertility results in the growth of fattening crops with higher carbohydrate levels, and increasing disease and reproductive difficulties due to deficient protein.

"Starch production, with its fattening and fuel values, calls for little soil fertility. It calls more for air, water, and sunshine to fabricate this energy-providing food substance. Protein production, however, calls for nitrogen, calcium, and many other items from the soil.

"Agricultural crops like corn are less highly nourished for protein production by soils developed under the higher rainfall and are crops that naturally produce mainly carbohydrates also. By feeding these, the castrated males of either cattle or hogs are readily fattened.

"As we cultivate the soil and remove more of it, there is less of the proteins produced by the forage. Where rainfall has always been enough to produce much forage ... for large forage yields such soils usually mean protein deficiencies as feed for healthy cows. Such soils grow good yields of carbohydrate crops for fattening the older animals.

"The economic thinking smothers out the great biological fact that the movement to the soils serving mainly in fattening for the animal, is moving it, and the species as a whole, to a lower level of health.

"Since now the declining soil fertility, growing only fattening crops, is perverting the streams of life in our domestic animals to suggest - by the increasing animal diseases and the dwarf offspring with no capacity to grow - that those streams are about dried up and headed for extinction of those animal species."

Dr. Albrecht's prophetic observations of soil fertility and animal health could be seen as a corollary to our modem health epidemic of obesity, chronic disease and child development disorders.

A county-wide ban on synthetic fertilizers may not be the first place to start to remedy a more global problem, but it certainly deserves more discussion.

Mary Ellen Finger lives on Horsemen Trail Farm in Cold Spring.