Erosion is the bane of every farmer, particularly those who farm in erosion-intensive environmental conditions. Aside from the relatively minor inconveniences of erosion such as fields collapsing and drainage systems getting clogged up, erosion actually costs farmers money – I’ve seen estimates that indicate even mild erosion on a field can reduce the yield on that field by 20%. Less visible, but equally expensive, is the fact that subsurface erosion on pastureland can reduce the rate of regrowth by as much as 80%. The paddock looks fine on the surface – but erosion has reduced that field’s productivity to a fifth of its maximum.

Fortunately there are some relatively easy ways to keep erosion under control. It’s almost impossible to completely stop erosion – water and wind moves soil and that’s all there is to it. But with a little planning and effort, you can reduce erosion to a minor nuisance instead of a budget-busting disaster.

The first things to look at are what you should stop doing. Here are just a few of the practices which can accelerate erosion:

• Planting under extreme cold or dry conditions. (The slow growth of germinating seeds mean that the top layer of soil is open to the environment.)

• Cultivating steep slopes. Its probably not worth it.

• Heavy grazing on sown pastureland.

• Burning stubble after harvest.

There are also some positive steps you can take to control erosion.

1. Minimum tillage. The less you tear up the top layers of soil, the more resistant that soil is to water runoff. –Despite my last name, I encourage no-till whenever possible.

2. Stubble mulching. Putting that harvest waste back onto the ground provides an additional layer of insulation against environmental effects.

3. Contour cultivation. It’s not suited for all farmland, but it can reduce erosion by 25% to 90% when done properly.

4. Rotate foraging animals in fields before the pasture is depleted.

5. Plant filter strip in low lying gullies and runoff areas of your fields.

6. Plant grasses and small trees on those steep slopes.

7. Use strip cropping to control erosion in windy areas.

8. Consider using a cover crop (especially legumes) during off season times.

9. Plant tree line windbreaks, or keep the ones you’ve got.

By controlling erosion on the farm, you preserve the value of your land and prevent yields from declining over time.

Looking to boost your farm’s income over the next few years? You can always hope for higher commodity prices – although things have been softening up there recently so that might not be a winning strategy. Unlike some other businesses, farmers generally don’t get much input in the prices they receive for their products. So improving the farm’s bottom line generally means either making and selling more product, or cutting costs. Here are a few ideas for doing the latter.

Tip 1: Go Organic

Organic farming techniques are more labor-intensive, but zero out some of your largest line-item costs. No pesticide spray passes, no weedkiller applications – it adds up. If you’ve got more time/hands than you have work, and less money than you have bills, a switch to organic production methods can make hard financial sense.

Tip 2: Let Mother Nature Feed Them

If you’re maintaining a dairy herd, consider moving to natural pasturage rather than confining your herd and providing the feed. This interesting article details some of the findings of research around grazing, and it may surprise you. The conventional wisdom is that naturally grazed cows produce less milk – and they do. The surprising part is, they don’t produce much less milk – and the net financial output per cow is as much as two or three times higher, even after taking into account the increased management work of keeping track of pasturage and moving animals around.

Natural grazing doesn’t just mean letting the herd out onto the first open field you see and trusting to luck – you’ll need to understand what your soil conditions are, ensure that there’s enough nutritional energy in the available forage, etc.

Tip 3: Get Bigger or Change Businesses

The simple truth is that for conventional farming techniques, small herds lose money. If a herd has less than 500 animals, then you’re not likely to be at the break-even point for your fixed operational costs. If you can expand into the profitable range, then that might be worth looking into. If you can switch to organic production, that’s one way to keep a small herd viable. Otherwise, sell your small herd and the associated equipment and use the money to optimize your other farming activities.

Tip 4: Get a New Lease on Life

If you are leasing your land, one way to cut costs is to change the terms of your lease. Rather than a cash arrangement, consider going to a share-lease arrangement. The downside is that if you have a great year, you don’t keep all the profits – but the upside is that a portion of your operational costs get charged to the landlord instead of to your bottom line. If your farm steadily makes a profit, this is a bad option – but if like most farmers you have good years and bad, then a share-lease can make the bad years much more survivable.

Agriculture in Russia has a long and often tragic history. This interesting article in the New York Times (not my usual source for cutting-edge agriculture news!) talks about how the wheel has turned around – what once were individual peasant farms, then noble estates, then savagely collectivized national farms, are now on track for global agricultural development. The collective farm system, one of the last vestiges of communism, is finally on the verge of being swept away.

Foreign investors are beginning to buy millions of hectares of prime Russian farmland. What earnest Russian political reform efforts proved unable to accomplish, massive world market price increases on staple agricultural commodities has brought into being. Because of the inefficiencies of the collective farm system, a sixth of Russia’s arable land – nearly 35 million acres – has remained fallow for years, if not decades. The price of food has risen so much that these acres were coming back into cultivation even with the tiny Russian yields enjoyed by Russian farms (yields owed to poor access to chemicals and infrastructure, not weather or soil quality).

The collective farms are being reorganized – not into small freeholds as original reformers had envisioned – but into enormous clusters of consolidated farms, run by corporate organizations. Western-educated Russian industrial oligarchs, hedge fund managers, and investors are bringing Western capital and technology to this acreage. Yields have doubled on investors’ plots, and almost a seventh of Russia’s land has been brought into the consolidated system.

There is still looming peril that has limited outside investor’s enthusiasm – unlike a software company or even an industrial concern, a farm cannot pick up and move when the local government gets acquisitive or overly assertive. Many analysts warn that a renationalization of the Russian farm industry is not only possible but may even be likely.