Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
self-directed team of researchers and extensionists working on the
Columbia Plateau. Her job description includes educating farmers about
improving the sustainability of their practices (economic, environmental,
and social). She and the Ag Horizons team recognized the value of
farmer to-farmer learning, and understood their responsibilities to
include learning together with them.
At Roberts's suggestion, Kupers and the farmers who went to Dakota
Lakes in 1996 formed what they called a “support group.” Even though
some, including Roberts's supervisor, were surprised to hear this psycho-
logical term used by farmers, the group was a success. They met several
times each year, and shared information about their on-farm experimen-
tation: rotations, cropping density, managing soil variability, controlling
water erosion, and marketing. Several members of the group also drew
from their experiences at a “Holistic Resource Management” workshop,
in which they learned how to make farming decisions consistent with
their personal and economic goals.
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The support group named itself Annual Cropping, Intense Rotation,
Direct Seed (ACIRDS). “Direct seeding” is now the preferred term in
Washington State, because it encompasses the use of both low-
disturbance (no-till) and high-disturbance grain drills that seed and
fertilize in one pass over the ground. Visiting the Dakota Lakes farm
inspired them, but they realized that they would have to adapt Beck's
research to their own agroecological conditions. Some of these other
farmers had also experienced the no-till failures themselves, so they real-
ized several things: they had a lot to learn, there was no one who could
tell them what they needed to know, and that the only way to avoid
another economically catastrophic failure was to learn from and with
each other in a network. They saw the value of direct seeding, but to
make field-scale changes was risky. The transition from intensive tillage
to a more agroecological approach required more knowledge, and they
became a network for generating and exchanging that knowledge.
ACIRDS had seen the critical value of a whole farming systems
research farm at Dakota Lakes, and wanted WSU to bring its expertise
to bear on their efforts in the intermediate rainfall zone. Research done
in other rainfall zones was of limited practical value to their needs. In
1997, Kupers approached Roberts about using the Wilke Farm, an exist-
ing research farm in Davenport. WSU had been conducting some
