This case study was written to accompany my Nuffield Farming Scholarship journey and report.
On a warm summer day in August 2023, I visited the Rodale Institute’s main campus, a 386-acre certified organic farm in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. I was grateful to spend time with their Director of Research, Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani, and Research Technician, Annie Benson.
We covered a lot of ground in our conversations. I left impressed by the breadth and relevance of research undertaken at the Rodale Institute. Especially, the significance of the research being done today, as we strive towards farming in more regenerative systems. It also underscored the pressing need to communicate research effectively. Finding ways to help people truly experience why regenerative and organic farming practices are so critical for our future.
History of the Rodale Institute
Since 1947, the Rodale Institute has worked to promote a more responsible way of modern farming by conducting research into the cultivation of healthy, living soils. Their founder, Jerome Rodale, was instrumental in popularising organic concepts in the USA. In the 1940s, inspired by Sir Albert Howard who was one of the earliest founders of the organic movement, J.I. Rodale decided that “…we must get a farm at once and raise as much of our family’s food by the organic method as possible,”. On the farm, J.I. Rodale conducted numerous growing experiments and noticed his health improve along with the land. He felt compelled to share his findings with the world and ever since, the Rodale Institute has followed this mission, aiming to increase the number of organic farmers and acres under organic care.
Research at Rodale
On a shaded porch outside one of the farm’s many beautiful buildings, I sat down with Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani who has been serving as the Director of Research for Rodale Institute since July 2023. Before this, he led their specialty crops and hemp research projects. His Masters and PhD were in Agroecology, which he describes as an interdisciplinary approach that combines plant biology, agronomy, and environmental science. When you combine these subjects, Arash believes we are automatically steered towards organic production – or regenerative organic – which the Institute describes as a holistic approach to farming that encourages continuous innovation and improvement of environmental, social, and economic measures. Drawing on this framing, the Institute has helped to launch the Regenerative Organic Certification scheme in 2017 (see box).
| Regenerative Organic In 1983, feeling unsatisfied with the term “sustainable farming” and understanding that not all farmers want to convert to an organic system, Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute started using the term regenerative, to distinguish a kind of farming that goes beyond sustainable and to recognise the stepwise journey that farmers may go on. Robert Rodale went on to coin the term “Regenerative Organic” and sometime in the 1980s, created the “Regenerative Agriculture Association”. However in 1990, sometime after Robert Rodale’s unexpected death, the Rodale Institute dropped the term, focusing instead on promoting Organic Agriculture.  However, coinciding with the resurgence of the “regenerative” framing more recently, the institute teamed up with Dr. Bronner’s and Patagonia in 2017 to create a Regenerative Organic certification scheme. This label is focused on outcomes and intended to build on the USDA Certified Organic label, focusing more on improving the quality of the soil as well as including social justice and animal welfare considerations. As of 2023, the scheme has certified almost six million acres and is used by 130 brands. |
Arash’s research is concerned with all aspects of production, including soil health, crop quality, nutritional quality, and integrated pest management. The farm is a wonderland of fascinating long-term trials, as well as specific research projects taking place within them, such as the application of UV lights to control pests and diseases in grain houses and in-field, and the application of biological agents such as entomopathogenic fungi or predatory mites to control specific pests.
The long-term trials cover vegetable systems (comparing the nutrient density of crops grown organically and conventionally), industrial hemp, pastured pork, crop-livestock integration, Integrated Weed Management, the watershed impacts of farming practices, and finally, their famous Farming Systems Trial.
It was particularly exciting to see the Farming Systems Trial (FST), which has now been running for forty years (since 1981). The Institute considers it one of the most consequential studies of organic agriculture anywhere and Annie Benson, a Research Technician, took me over to see it and kindly explained some of its history and key findings. The Rodale Institute’s overarching message is that the results indicate how organic farming systems can match or outperform conventional production in yield while providing a range of agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits for farmers, consumers, and society.
Notes on this trial, drawing from our meeting and the recently published 2023 40-year report, are covered in the final section of this post.
The value and need for more research
What hit home from my visit to the Rodale Institute was the immense value and urgency for further research into regenerative and organic farming systems.
Reflecting on this, Arash talked about the need for more socioeconomic studies to understand more about why more farmers are not moving towards organic agriculture (organic acreage makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. farmland). As an agronomist, he also believes that much more research and development is required so that farmers know about, and have access to, viable alternatives for inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides.
Organic farmers are currently limited in the toolkit they have. For example, as a fertilizer, bloodmeal is an unrealistic alternative for farmers to use at scale, due to its expense. We also still don’t know the short- and long-term effects of different types of practices on soil carbon – especially site-specific information for different climatic zones.
Reflecting on the effects of extreme weather conditions that come with our changing climate, Arash believes there’s a need to help growers predict the impacts extreme weather events have on their crops and farming systems, with practical tips on what to do. At the moment, there are no clear or easy answers, with a limited understanding of the interaction between plants and extreme conditions, especially for minor crops, which receive less research focus.
Barriers to organic conversion
There are numerous reasons why a farmer might not wish to convert to organic. For example, a common reason cited is the initial, up-front costs of switching which can be off-putting for many. But one reason, Arash reflected on, was that many farmers and growers may not understand or experience (physically, through seeing and touching) why they might want to produce food more organically or regeneratively. For example, seeing the consequences of not having diversity in the field or the impacts of not having a cover crop in the field.
We have often divided the how from the why. Technical information only informs us how to farm differently, but can miss out on why this might be important.”
I was reminded of the motivational speaker, Simon Sinek, who is famous for advocating a “Start With Why” approach to communicating and influencing. The idea is that people are motivated when they have a clear sense of purpose and understanding, and so focusing on the “Why”, rather than “How” or “What”, should always come first when communicating and trying to influence behaviour. As such, Arash talked about the ongoing need to increase and improve educational programmes with growers.
The Farming Systems Trial
After spending time with Arash, I met with Annie Brown to take a tour of the farm, which included visiting their fascinating Farming Systems Trial, which recently celebrated its 40th year.
The original goal of the trial was to address the barriers to the adoption of organic farming by farmers across the country. Organic and conventional farming practices would be compared, side-by-side, from a variety of perspectives. The conventional research plots use the latest GMO seeds that have come to dominate industrial-scale agriculture and these are treated with herbicides recommended to farmers in the region.
The trial focuses on grains such as corn, soybeans, oats, and wheat. These are the major raw ingredients in America’s food system. Over 72 different plots, covering 12 acres, the study tracks the impact of different practices on a farm’s:
- soil health
- economic viability
- energy usage
- nutritional quality of the food produced,
- the water that flows through the systems
- the impact of these practices on the environment as a whole.
Over the 40 years, as the common approaches of organic and conventional farmers have evolved, so have the FST farming practices. Three systems are compared:
- Conventional
Representing a typical grain operation, using synthetic nitrogen for fertility, and synthetic herbicides, applied at rates recommended by the local agriculture extension agency and project advisory board. - Organic Legume
A low-input system based on a mid-length rotation of annual grain crops and cover crops. The crop rotation helps provide a line of defence against pests and the fertility in the system comes from legumes. - Organic Manure
Representing the practices of an organic dairy or beef operation, featuring a long rotation of annual grain crops and perennial forage crops. Application of composted manure, as well as legume cover and forage crops help provide fertility.
The Results
The Rodale Institute says that the results indicate how organic farming systems can match or outperform conventional production in yield, while providing a range of agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits for farmers, consumers, and society. Here are some highlights from the trial:
Soil health
In the organic systems, soil health has continued to increase over time while the soil in the conventional systems has remained essentially unchanged. The trial has helped to evaluate the impact of different management strategies on soils and the dataset covers different aspects of soil health. including:
- Soil organic matter, which is higher in the organic manure system than in the conventional and the organic legume systems. The thinking is that while no-till management reduces soil disturbance and the oxidative loss of extant soil organic matter, there is a need for high-quality organic inputs to stimulate the microbial growth necessary to enhance (microbially derived) soil organic matter.
- Soil microbiome diversity and activity. Measurements of bacterial and fungal richness, as well as soil respiration (a measure of microbial activity in the soil) showed that reducing tillage increased soil respiration in the conventional and organic systems. Soil bacterial communities from the organic legume system were also shown to have the highest diversity among all systems. Greater soil bacterial richness is considered positive as they essentially provide antibiotics that can help plants resist disease. Fungal richness helps plants to absorb water and nutrients.
- Soil nutrient availability: The trial has not found consistent differences in soil inorganic or organic nitrogen concentrations, however, it’s believed that the nutrient availability of nitrogen is better in the organic systems. This is because, in organic systems, there is a reliance on the soil organic matter and biologically supplied organic amendments to provide nitrogen, which are more readily available for plants to use. In conventional systems, inorganic nitrogen concentrations tend to be higher in the soil but at greater risk of leaching into groundwater (as indicated by water samples taken, showing higher levels of chloride and nitrates in water percolating out) and to loss as the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Organic sources of fertiliser tend to provide a slow-release source of nitrogen, and encourage greater abundance and activity of nitrogen-cycling soil microbes, which in turn means better overall nitrogen-use efficiency and decreasing nitrogen-related pollution.
- Soil compaction: soils in the organic systems have been measured as significantly less compacted than the conventional system. The results suggest that no-till management in a chemical-intensive system can cause severe compaction and that reduced tillage in the organic systems did not significantly impact soil compaction.
- Water infiltration: is significantly faster in the organic plots, compared to conventional management practices. The consequences of this mean reduced waterlogging and risks of surface runoff conditions which leads to soil erosion.
Yield
The trial research between 2008 and 2020 suggests that the yields of the cash crops from the organic systems is consistently comparable to conventional production yields. In extreme weather conditions, such as drought, the organic systems have proved to be more resilient, sustaining good yields while production in the conventional plots declined. This is put down to the soil’s healthier structure and enhanced water-holding capacity. At a time when extreme weather is becoming increasingly common, it struck me how important this finding is, presuming that other research studies also confirm it.
Profits
Good social and environmental practices are clearly important, for both a healthy planet and a resilient business, but almost every farmer ultimately wants to understand the impact on their financial bottom line.
Economic analysis of the FST involved constructing enterprise budgets for representative farms (54 hectares) and drew from the yield data measured between 2008 and 2020. The analysis found that the organic systems were lower risk and more profitable for farmers, due to the lower management costs and high price premiums for organic grain and forages. Without the price premiums which are paid for organic crops, the organic manure system was the most profitable, followed by the conventional system and the organic legume system.
As part of this analysis, research is suggesting that reducing tillage does not affect the long-term profitability of any of the FST farming systems. The reduced tillage systems had yields that were 6.7 percent lower than the county averages, resulting in less total revenue in the organic legume and conventional systems – however farmers may find this acceptable due to the significantly lower input and labour costs. In the organic manure system, however, reducing tillage did not affect total revenues or net returns. A recent paper explains this study further.
Final thoughts
I felt inspired by my visit to the Rodale Institute and loved seeing firsthand some of the research and trials taking place. I was grateful for the warm welcome extended to me by the staff, who generously shared their time and expertise.
The standout for me was seeing the Farming Systems Trial, a pioneering project that offers a comprehensive exploration of the differences between organic and conventional systems for a typical US arable cropping system. Trials with such longevity are rare, and the inclusion of economic analysis, alongside measures of yield, soil health and other environmental factors, allows for a much richer and more productive discussion around the scalability of organic practices and reduced tillage. It also helps to address common concerns or uncertainties.
Walking across the farm, I was also reminded how good research serves little value to society if it’s not accessible or communicated clearly. I appreciated the efforts made to explain the different sustainable farming principles and practices through the signage. Alongside regular tours for the public, they create quality online resources and run a variety of training programmes and initiatives to help train the next generation of regenerative farmers. This is crucial work for the future of farming and food.