A couple of weeks ago I mentioned heading to Pueblo to look at some commercial hydroponics operations. I’ve become even more excited about hydroponics as a strategy for farming and wanted to share with you some of the information I’ve been digging up (so to speak!)

Although hydroponics seems like a modern and high-tech form of farming (and it is), it has deep roots. (I swear, I’m not doing it on purpose.) The first hydroponic experiments, in fact, were done in the early 1600s by Sir Francis Bacon, who was the father of hydroponic growing, although he called it “water culture” – but Bacon’s plants did poorly in the distilled water that he thought would be the ideal medium. It took another century or so before early agronomists realized that the micronutrients present in ordinary water were necessary for plant vitality.

The word hydroponics was coined in 1937, and it was about that time that the agricultural world started to get seriously interested. In Latin, it means “water working.” Early hydroponics proponents made some exaggerated claims for the method’s potential – but even after discounting some of the hyperbole, hydroponics remains an extremely viable method of growing crops. Some of the key advantages of hydroponics:

• Hydroponically grown plants can be provided with the exact amount of water needed – not a drop more, not a drop less. In fact, the water use efficiency of hydroponics is astoundingly high – a properly-designed hydroponic setup will use 10% of the water it would take to grow in soil outdoors.

• Hydroponically grown plants require much less land surface. Plants can be stacked (or even placed on multiple-story buildings, for high-density areas) with extreme efficiency – a hydroponic greenhouse can produce as much plant matter as a conventional field ten times the size.

• Hydroponics requires no soil whatsoever, meaning that farming can be done in areas with poor or even no soil – famously, Wake Island was hydroponically supplied with vegetables during WWII.

• Hydroponic farms can be located wherever power and water are cheap, and can be placed in close proximity to the demand for the crop, reducing or even eliminating shipping costs.

• Because hydroponic greenhouses are environmentally-controlled, the need for herbicide and pesticide are greatly reduced or even eliminated – which also puts hydroponic farming 90% of the way towards organic certification without any extra effort on the part of the farmer. (note: it is fairly easy to get organic certification in a hydroponic operation, yes, organic is possible)

In coming weeks, I will talk more about hydroponics, and how existing conventional farmers can start adding hydroponic capabilities to their farms – and extra dollars to their bottom lines.

Many of my readers have asked what it is I do for a living – other than write blog posts about farming, that is. It’s a good question and it has a good answer. In my day job, I am the founder and manager of AGERCO Management, LLC in Denver, Colorado.

AGERCO is a farmland management company that helps individual and institutional investors make investments in farmland, and then we help to manage the farm operations. We are an impartial third-party advisor for farmland investments, not a real estate broker, so we concentrate on helping our clients make the right farmland investment for their unique personal situation.

I became interested in farming as a career after spending my boyhood on and around farms. During the summers, I worked on local farms in my family’s small Ohio town and got a first-hand taste of the farming life. Although I chose business as my career path, farming has always been dear to my heart. 

I spend most of my time working with clients who are interested in pursuing farmland investments, with farmers who are seeking either to sell their farm or to lease it, and on managing the farm properties for our investors. You can read all about AGERCO and our business model at the company site below.

Farmland Investments and Management: http://agerco.com

There is a new film out called Food Fight that may be of interest to you. Regardless of your beliefs, if you are a farmer of any kind, you need to know what others are saying and doing as it relates to your business.  What are the trends?  What is the popular opinion? …and How does this relate to me?

Even if you are a Midwest farmer (as most of my readers are) that only grows commodity corn and beans, I think the concepts and ideals discussed in Food Fight are relevant.  Since World War II, we (US Farmers) have been moving to a mono-crop culture. This is because it is easier to only raise one or two crops.  -You only need so many pieces of expensive machinery; you only need to be a true expert on so many diseases and pests.  The ag dealers and vendors in the area only need to carry so many products. Your neighbors and friends grow the same crops so you can consult with them for expert advice. There are established markets for your products that provide understandable and somewhat predictable return expectations.  Simply put, mono-crop farming takes a lot of the guess work out of raising crops. 

But here’s the rub.  Everybody doing the same thing together doesn’t always work.  That just leaves all of us susceptible to outside forces corrupting ALL of our businesses.  –Low commodity prices, outrageously inflated fertilizer prices, or a massive drought/flood are just a few examples.

I’ve written a lot in this farm blog about how farmers need to get diversified.  Yes this entails some hard work, but I bet none of you would claim to be lazy.  What we are really talking about is re-allocating some of your time, energy, land, and investment capital.   

The movie Food Fight is focused on vegetables/food.  And I can already read some of your minds.  You might be saying, veggies come from California, require irrigation, lots of (hopefully) low cost manual labor, and need distribution centers that can get them to market. – All things you don’t have in your area. 

I would argue that this opinion is incorrect.  I have been exploring hydroponic growing operations lately that would allow farmers to produce secondary crops all year long, don’t take up much land at all, and provide your family farm with an alternative source of income that is not dependant on how much grain the country exported yesterday or what the people in China like to feed their cattle or hogs.  The best part is that most of the time you can pre-contract your specialty crop to local grocers and restaurants which mitigates the risk and means you don’t necessarily have to find and attend farmers markets.  –Even Wal-Mart is buying locally produced food these days in an attempt to be more environmentally conscious. 

We all know there is more than one way to skin a cat.  Family farms need stabilized returns on investment and the opportunity for growth.  I would encourage you to check out this movie, read books like The Omnivores Dilemma, and then ask yourself this…  “Is there a way for my farm operation to partially participate in other agriculture markets and make more money without adding significant risk?”  -Better yet, is there a way for you to make more money and reduce your overall risk?

I don’t think it’s a question of local or organic food versus commercial agriculture.  It’s a question of whether you can capitalize on BOTH to make your farm business better.

Below are some video trailers for the movie Food Fight

“Firefighters await a tow truck at the scene of an accident Monday afternoon in East Earl Township [Pennsylvania] after a car skidded under the front of a combine with an attached corn head on Ranck Road, just south of Reservoir Road.”

Credit: Vinny Tennis / Intelligencer Journal / LancasterOnline.com

Link to original article.