chapter 5

The “Min Till” Revolution and the Culture of Innovation

Jim Warren

Introduction

Over the course of the agricultural period on the Canadian Prairies, extending from the mid-1880s until today, the region has experienced several periods of severe region-wide drought, along with numerous localized episodes (Wheaton et al. 2005; Wheaton 2007; Lemmen et al. 1997; see also Chapter 8 by Marchildon in this volume). As noted in other chapters in this volume, major droughts affecting the region have at times been followed by significant adaptation efforts, including the creation of new institutions such as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) and Alberta’s Special Areas Board (see Chapter 8 by Marchildon on the history of drought in the region). This chapter focuses on the efforts of agricultural producers and local machinery manufacturers to enhance drought resilience through the invention and adoption of new machine technology and land management practices.

The chapter contends that the propensity of dryland agricultural producers in the region to adopt new farming practices and machinery in response to drought has helped reduce their vulnerability. It also proposes that the adoption of innovative practices which enhance resilience to drought has become an institutionalized social value for dryland farmers in the Palliser Triangle. These arguments are supported by an assessment of historical literature on the evolution of farming practices and equipment used in the region (Shepard 2011; Ward 2011; Bruneau et al. 2009; Hall 2003; Dale-Burnett 2002; Wetherell and Corbet 1993; Archer 1980) and by ethnographic fieldwork data obtained in the Rural Communities Adaptation to Drought (RCAD) project, a major study of adaptation to drought in the region (RCAD 2012; see the introduction to this volume for a discussion of the RCAD project). The chapter makes frequent reference to Warren and Diaz (2012), a book which assesses research conducted for the RCAD project as well as the final report of the RCAD project itself (RCAD 2012). The principal task of this chapter is to view the RCAD data through the lens of the diffusion of innovations theory developed by Rogers (1962).

Min Till

A recent manifestation of widely embraced adaptation in response to agricultural drought on the Canadian Prairies has been the near universal adoption of a family of farming practices collectively referred to as “min till”—an abbreviation for minimum tillage, also referred to as conservation tillage and less accurately as zero till (Bruneau et al. 2009; Hall 2003).

Min till describes a set of technological innovations that reduce soil disturbance and conserve soil moisture, often without the need for mechanical summer fallowing. Reducing mechanical summer fallowing and seedbed disturbance prior to and during planting (referred to as direct seeding) helps retain moisture and reduce wind-driven soil erosion typically associated with severe drought. Min till relies on specialized farming equipment and chemical applications that reduce soil disturbance as well as the frequency of field operations.

Min till methods also include continuous cropping practices, which have significantly reduced the amount of land formerly dedicated annually to summer fallow. Where soil and climate conditions are considered inappropriate for continuous cropping, the application of chemical herbicides (chem fallow) has replaced mechanical weed control methods.

Continuous cropping has increased the need to apply chemical fertilizer. However, crop rotations also help replace lost nutrients and control crop-specific pathogens. Increased use of crop rotations has been facilitated by the adoption of a host of new crops and crop varieties, primarily in the 1990s. Crop diversification in the Palliser Triangle is represented by a significant increase in the acreage devoted to heat-resistant canola varieties and nitrogen-fixing legume crops (referred to as pulse crops), such as field peas, chickpeas, and lentils—crops that were relatively unknown in the region prior to the 1990s.

Min till’s advocates contend that leaving standing stubble and trash (crop residue) on the soil surface helps capture winter snow, reduces wind-driven soil erosion, and provides an insulating mulch, which helps reduce evapotranspiration and thereby conserves soil moisture. The mulch is eventually incorporated back into the soil, contributing to soil nutrient and fibre levels.

The adoption of straw spreading attachments for combine harvesters has facilitated the retention of trash. Prior to widespread adoption of this innovation, straw was deposited in windrows, which allowed for the baling for livestock feed and bedding. Particularly thick windrows that were not baled could make spring field work difficult, and they were often burned. Straw spreading has reduced stubble burning as well as the availability of straw for the livestock industry.

The adoption of soil conservation and drought mitigation practices has a long history in the Palliser Triangle, extending back to the early decades of agricultural settlement on the Prairies, the period from the mid-1880s up to World War I (Ward 2011; Shepard 2011; Wetherell and Corbet 1993; Archer 1980). However, the adoption of the collection of min till practices currently in use began in the late 1980s and became widespread over the course of the late 1990s, partly in response to a series of severe drought years in the second half of the 1980s.

Crop yield data and other agronomic observations suggest that min till practices have enhanced the drought resilience of dryland agriculture in the Palliser Triangle. The vast majority of RCAD respondents, including farmers and agrologists, reported that when severe region-wide drought conditions returned to the area in 2001–2, the impacts on crop yields and soil conditions were relatively less severe in some areas than conditions experienced in the 1980s. Many respondents indicated that dust storms, while they did occur, were less common and severe during the drought of 2001–2 compared with the dry years of the late 1980s and the 1930s (see also Luk 2011 and Bruneau et al. 2009: 142–43).

Notwithstanding the contribution of min till to drought resilience and soil conservation, it is not a panacea. In the second consecutive year of a severe drought, yields on min till fields can be significantly reduced. By the second or third consecutive year of severe drought, crop failures can occur on min till fields. Most RCAD respondents reckoned that after two to three consecutive years of severe drought most of the farmers and ranchers in the Palliser Triangle would be experiencing considerable economic hardship. They predicted that three years of severe back-to-back droughts would force many producers to exit agriculture. This grim forecast was thought to apply to producers in general, including those employing min till practices, but with the possible exception of irrigators. Nevertheless, most RCAD respondents also attested to the ability of min till to reduce wind-driven soil erosion and conserve moisture in the early stages of a prolonged drought better than would typically be the case for methods used prior to the 1990s.

It is also noteworthy that min till practices are suited to a particular agricultural production model in a particular climatic environment—dryland annual crop production in a semi-arid climate region that experiences accumulations of snow over winter and periodic drought. Min till practices are not as well-suited to irrigation agriculture and are somewhat less popular among dryland farmers operating in the moister regions of the Prairies outside the Palliser Triangle. And, as will be discussed later in the chapter, min till has detractors who contend that while it may reduce soil erosion and conserve moisture, those benefits come at the cost of increased dependency on fertilizer and herbicide price levels. Critics of min till also maintain that it generates chemical and nutrient pollution, which is harmful to ecosystems and human health.

Furthermore, while min till may indeed produce economically beneficial yield improvements and input cost reductions, there are many other factors besides crop yield that affect the survival of individual agriculture units, including the cost-price squeeze described in Chapter 7 by Fletcher and Knuttila in this volume. Despite widespread adoption of min till, there has been a significant reduction in the number of farms on the Canadian Prairies. In the early 1990s, when min till was in the initial stages of widespread adoption, there were approximately 60,000 farm units in Saskatchewan; in 2015, there were less than 37,000 farms (Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture 2015). Diverse factors such as commodity price fluctuations or changes to government farm support programs can have at least as much impact on the survival of a farm as the yield and input cost benefits attributed to min till.

Notwithstanding the qualifications just noted, the principal purpose of this chapter is not to assess the economic and agronomic benefits of min till in a precise way, but rather to describe how and why it emerged as a widespread adaptation to drought on the Canadian Prairies.

Imagining Innovation as a Cultural Value

Interview data collected by the RCAD project and by Warren and Diaz (2012) provide examples of the socio-economic conditions and decision-making processes that supported the widespread adoption of min till technology. That research shows that farmer adoption of min till on the Canadian Prairies reflects the influence of many of the factors contributing to innovation identified under the diffusion of innovation theory famously described by Rogers (1962).

Rogers assesses the processes through which innovation in agricultural technology occurs and provides a list of socio-cultural conditions that can contribute to or detract from the diffusion of innovations. The propensity to innovate is described along a temporal continuum that begins with “the innovator.” Innovators are individuals or groups of individuals who are “the first to adopt new ideas in their social system” (Rogers 1962: 193). The affinity of others for the innovations adopted by innovators, which Rogers refers to as “innovativeness,” is ordered along the time continuum, beginning with early adopters, followed by the early majority and the late majority adopters, and finally, by laggards who may never adopt the innovation (Rogers 1962: 19).

According to Rogers, the adoption of technological innovations by farmers usually depends on the relative advantage of the innovation over existing practices—measured primarily in economic terms (Rogers 1962: 312). He adds that relative advantage can be emphasized by crises such as drought-induced crop failure. Clearly, the desire to capture potential economic advantages is a facet of innovation that is especially applicable in the Palliser Triangle. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the apparent economic utility (or relative advantage) of any particular agricultural innovation, while important, can by itself be insufficient to generate widespread adoption. No less important in fostering diffusion are embedded cultural factors (Rogers 1962: 57–75). For example, Rogers contends that the “innovativeness of individuals is related to a modern rather than traditional orientation” and that “an individual’s innovativeness varies directly with the norms of his social system on innovativeness” (Rogers 1962: 311).

The RCAD research and the literature on Prairie farm technology shows that the adoption of min till on the Canadian Prairies reflects each of the characteristics just noted. Min till practices offered practical economic and agronomic advantages. Severe drought in the late 1980s made innovation more desirable, and there were important socio-cultural conditions on the Prairies that facilitated its adoption. For example, not only is there a population of active innovators on the Prairies, but hundreds of them have been both inventors and manufacturers of farming equipment. In addition, a pattern of historical learning combined with the utility of numerous previous innovations has fostered a propensity for abandoning traditional practices in favour of new ideas that make economic and agronomic sense.

The data compiled in association with the RCAD project suggest that the min till adoption process was facilitated by cultural values supporting innovativeness, which extend across a wide section of the agricultural population of the Palliser Triangle. Over the past century, innovativeness has become institutionalized—a recognized and valued social characteristic relevant to achieving socially important goals. Dryland farmers in the region understand that being adaptive is a key contributor to the long-term, typically multi-generational, survival of agricultural production units on the Prairies. In other words, adaptive capacity resides within a reflexive process whereby agricultural producers recognize the value of being innovative and understand themselves to be innovators and enthusiastic adopters of ideas they perceive will enhance their resilience. This encourages ongoing innovation and adaptation, further reinforcing the value of the “innovative norm.”

The propensity of dryland farmers in the Palliser Triangle to adopt innovations stands as an important dimension of the human capital available to enhance resilience to drought in a dry land. Human capital has been described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the determinants of adaptive capacity (IPCC 2001: 893). It includes the knowledge, skills, and expertise available to people dealing with adversity:

This [human] capital includes not only knowledge obtained in the formal education system, but also local knowledge and experiences that could be used to employ, modify and develop other types of resources. Important in this context of human capital are the capacities to wisely manage materials and human resources, learning from experience, as well as the ability to gain access to and process information. (Warren and Diaz 2012: xviii)

In the context of drought in the Palliser Triangle, the propensity to innovate constitutes a key component of the human capital available for reducing vulnerability and enhancing the sustainability of dryland agriculture.

Historical Learning and Innovation

The discussion that follows in this section describes the evolution of tillage practices on the Canadian Prairies from the 1880s to the present. Table 1 presents a timeline of the adoption of new farming practices and machinery from the innovator to early and late majority stages of diffusion.

The first few decades of the agriculture settlement period in the Palliser Triangle, extending from the mid-1880s until the early 1920s, were relatively drought-free. Prior to the 1920s, one of the few more notable incidences of severe region-wide drought in the settled portion of the Prairies occurred in 1886 (Archer 1980: 102). Nonetheless, a number of influential pioneer farmers and government researchers recognized that farming methods and crop varieties developed in the settled regions of North America and Europe would need to be adjusted to account for the relatively dry average conditions and short growing season typical of the Palliser Triangle.

Archer (1980: 99, 102) writes that during the early phase of the settlement period, “the agricultural potential and limitations of the physical environment were not yet understood, with the result that settlers groped toward a suitable agricultural technology.” Archer adds that the conditions settlers encountered on the Prairies required them “to adapt or leave.”

That initial phase of adaptation involved collaboration between inventive farmers and agronomists working for the federal government. Farmer-agronomist collaboration is reflected in the adoption of regular summer fallowing as a method for conserving moisture, controlling weeds, and enhancing crop yields in a dry country. One of the early experimenters was Angus MacKay, whose fields left fallow in 1885 produced relatively good wheat yields despite drought conditions in 1886. MacKay’s innovativeness was recognized by the federal government, which placed him in charge of one of the first agricultural research stations established on the Prairies in 1887. Similarly, Marquis Wheat—a quicker-ripening variety suited to dry conditions and the short growing season on the Prairies—was developed through the combined efforts of farmers (the Saunders family) and the Dominion Experimental Farms (Archer 1980: 102, 121).

According to Archer (1980: 102), notwithstanding the subsequent adoption of locally developed innovations, agricultural practices in western Canada during the settlement period “were largely an extension of traditional [eastern and mid-western North American] methods of wheat cultivation” (see also Ward 2011: Dale-Burnett 2002; Wetherell and Corbet 1993). Imported moldboard plows and peg and disc harrows were the principal tillage tools during the settlement period (Ward 2011: 149; Wetherell and Corbet 1993: 121). By the early 1920s, duck-foot cultivators and chisel plows were beginning to replace moldboard plows and disc harrows for use in summer fallowing and seedbed preparation. Experience with dry conditions suggested that plowing followed by excessive harrowing dried and pulverized the soil, making it subject to wind erosion and moisture loss. A series of droughts during the 1920s in southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan had confirmed this for a growing number of producers. The nine dry years of the 1930s made the observation apparent to many more.

Growing interest among farmers in new tillage implements and practices was supplemented by the efforts of government and university extension agrologists. The PFRA, established by the federal government in 1935, promoted the use of strip farming and the establishment of treed shelterbelts to reduce wind erosion. The PFRA also developed irrigation projects in the handful of neighbourhoods where reasonably dependable surface water supplies were available. The PFRA also took thousands of acres of lighter land (presumed to be unsuited to annual field crop agriculture) out of crop production altogether, reseeding it to grass and establishing community pastures (Gray 1967; see also Chapter 8 by Marchildon in this volume).

A number of locally designed innovative tillage implements were developed on the Canadian Prairies in response to drought conditions in the 1920s and 1930s. Prominent innovations included the Noble blade, the one-way disc plow, the rod weeder, and a variety of high-clearance cultivators (including duck-foot cultivators and chisel plows). Nearly all of these new implements were being designed and manufactured by innovative farmers and machine-shop operators located on the Canadian Prairies (Wetherell and Corbet 1993: 120–121). The development of these implements reflected the beginnings of a shift in practice away from “black summer fallowing,” whereby fields were tilled and harrowed to the point that weeds and crop residues were no longer visible on a smooth, clean soil surface. The new thinking supported tillage methods that retained trash (stubble and crop residue) on, or at least near, the soil surface—and left an irregular as opposed to smooth soil surface (Wetherell and Corbet 1993: 118). An important goal of these innovations was to reduce wind-driven soil erosion—a particularly serious problem during drought years. However, the adoption of these implements throughout the farming community was delayed by adverse on-farm economic conditions during the Depression of the 1930s and by limits on the availability of steel for farm implement manufacturing during World War II (Warren and Diaz 2012: 43; Dale-Burnett 2002; Wetherell and Corbet 1993). The first post-war decades coincided with a return to relative prosperity on the farm, enabling producers to take full advantage of innovations such as the combine harvester and improved tillage equipment, which had been invented as far back as the 1920s.

A farmer who participated in the RCAD project described how learning based on experience with severe drought prompted the development of new approaches to soil management. In this instance, the drought which encouraged adaptation occurred in 1961—a year of severe widespread drought in southern portions of the Palliser Triangle:

There have been some important changes in farming since I started and a number of them were prompted by drought. We used to summer fallow 50–50 around here. In 1961 there was a serious drought. The ground dried out and the wind blew the dirt away right down to the hard pan in places. It blew out whole 40-acre strips in places. In some places dirt drifted up over the top wire on fences. To this day you can still see the effects. I can still show you which fields were in summer fallow that year. And once the topsoil is gone, it’s gone. Oh sure, it is starting to come back in places, but it will never be back to what it was in my lifetime. . . That’s the sort of experience that led people to come up with solutions like minimum tillage and continuous cropping. Adaptations like those were borne out of necessity. . . Years like 1961 taught my dad that summer fallowing just so you could watch your topsoil blow away afterwards was a good way to go broke. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 5)

Local Innovation and Local Farm Equipment Manufacturing

The adoption of new tillage technologies was supported by the development of a regional farm equipment manufacturing industry on the Canadian Prairies. Local manufacturers understood their neighbours’ needs and produced equipment suited to the region’s climate and soil conditions. Wetherell and Corbet (1993) indicate that the growth of the local implement manufacturing industry was spurred in part by the reluctance of most major farm machinery manufacturers based in central North America to develop equipment specifically suited to dryland farming on the Canadian Prairies (and the northern plains of the United States). Major manufacturers apparently did not consider the northern plains to be a large enough market to warrant investment in new regionally specialized lines of implements. Farmers and repair shop operators on the Canadian Prairies perceived the value of new types of tillage equipment and were well positioned to cost-effectively service local markets. The region’s harsh winters had an influence as well. With several months of downtime, when field work was impossible, innovative farmers had the time to think and tinker.

Rogers (1962: 196) reports that well-equipped farm shops and a population of mechanically adept farmers contributed to the pace of innovation and adaptation in North American farming communities. This was clearly the case on the Canadian Prairies, where mechanical aptitude and the availability of shop equipment, particularly welding equipment, contributed to on-farm modification of existing machinery and the invention of new implements.

One of the RCAD project respondents epitomized the level of mechanical and welding skills resident in the farm population of the region. In 1955, this respondent and his neighbour purchased a dilapidated antique well drilling rig, refurbished it, and dug hundreds of water wells in their neighbourhood. In addition to being able to repair and modify his own farm equipment, this respondent put his technical skills to work for his community.

I suppose . . . having the ability to meet our own well drilling needs here in the neighbourhood says something about our ability to respond to different challenges. We’ve done a lot of that sort of thing in this area. Back when I was Reeve. . . we decided we needed a new fire truck for the RM [rural municipality]. Buying one was too expensive so we got together, modified a used truck and had ourselves a fire engine. I was on the rink board when we decided we should get a Zamboni. Well, as usual, money was tight so we got an old Volkswagen car and converted it into a Zamboni. When I was on the hospital board we found ourselves in need of an ambulance. For some time we’d been borrowing the hearse from the local funeral home and that wasn’t always the best situation. So, we built our own ambulance by modifying a van. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 45)

An early adopter of min till practices interviewed for the RCAD project described how the capacity to develop and modify machinery on the farm contributed to adaptation:

We got into continuous cropping on this farm by the mid-70s. In fact my dad put together a little invention of his own to help us do it. We were having trouble running our hoe drills through stubble. The disturbed stubble was piling up and plugging up the works. It was like you were pulling a rake. He rigged up a cycle mower blade run by the power take-off that rode ahead of the drills and cut the stubble off so it would be reduced enough to pass easily through the drills. . . Some years later I was looking over the new inventions on display at the Farm Progress Show in Regina [Canada’s largest annual farm machinery exhibition] (I try to get over there to see that when I can). There was a guy there with the exact same deal on display—a mower blade that travelled ahead of the drills. I told him he was behind the times. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 5)

As noted above, over the course of the twentieth century, a growing population of farmer-inventors and repair shop operators began supplementing their incomes by building and marketing farm equipment. By the early 1990s, 267 farm equipment manufacturers were reported to be in business on the Canadian Prairies (Wetherell and Corbet 1993: 231–52).

Difficult times in agriculture resulting from drought and low commodity prices, combined with the relative hardships of rural versus urban life, contributed to a significant reduction in the number of farmers in the Palliser Triangle region. The number of people living on farms in Saskatchewan, for example, peaked at 573,894 in 1936. By 1951, only 398,279 people were living on 119,451 farms in Saskatchewan. The number of farms in Saskatchewan declined to 60,000 by the close of the 1980s, and, as of 2011, the number of farms in Saskatchewan was 36,952 (Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture 2015; Shepard 2011: 182, 183).

Those farmers who remained in business in the immediate post–World War II period were typically farming more land. It was assumed that economies of scale could improve the profitability of farms. The relative dearth of farm labourers during World War II and into the post-war period stimulated the adoption of labour-saving technology. These pressures prompted the invention and diffusion of new tillage and seeding machinery that combined two or more functions into a single implement and field operation.

For example, seeding equipment was attached to minimal soil disturbance tillage implements, such as the one-way disc plows already coming into widespread use. Saskatchewan-based Canadian Co-operative Implements began manufacturing discers with attached seed boxes in 1950—the first major manufacturer in North America to do so. Mounting seeding and packing attachments to discers and cultivators allowed farmers to combine pre-planting tillage, seeding, and seedbed packing into a single operation—saving person-hours (always an important consideration on the Prairies given the short growing season) and diesel fuel. The hoe drill was the second most popular seeding implement in use on the Prairies prior to the 1990s (after disc seeders). By the 1980s, farmers were experimenting with tillage tools and soil packers that allowed them to seed with hoe drills without having to pre- or post-till the seedbed (a min till practice referred to as direct seeding). While disc drills kept trash close to the soil surface, appropriately modified hoe drills left more residue directly on the surface.

The need to cover more acres within the short growing season available on the northern plains prompted local manufacturers such as Olaf Friggstad of Frontier, Saskatchewan, to manufacture and market huge tillage implements, including one of the largest field cultivators (80 feet) ever marketed in North America. Larger implements required larger tractors, and manufacturers on the US and Canadian northern plains responded in the 1970s and 1980s by building large, articulated four-wheel drive tractors—years ahead of the major full line equipment manufacturers (e.g., Versatile Manufacturing of Winnipeg, Manitoba; Steiger Tractor of Fargo, North Dakota; and Big Bud Tractors of Havre, Montana).

An RCAD project respondent recalled the move to larger tillage machinery that occurred on the Prairies in the 1970s and 1980s:

I can’t recall exactly who started the minimal till thing around here. I remember that just before minimal till caught on, the race was on to buy bigger cultivators. Buy as many feet of cultivator as you can, that was good management then. We’ve got one of the biggest cultivators ever made, we’ve got an 80 footer. But then it turned out that it was better to summer fallow with chemicals instead of cultivators. I can’t say precisely when that was we began to use chemical summer fallow, but it was back in the Glean [a brand name herbicide] days, maybe the early 90s. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 35)

By the close of the 1980s, Prairie equipment manufacturers had made considerable strides in developing air seeder technology. Companies including Ezee-On Manufacturing of Vegreville, Alberta; Bourgault Industries of St. Brieux, Saskatchewan; and Saskatoon-based Flexi-Coil, among others, had developed implements that combined high-capacity seed/fertilizer tanks, pneumatic seed delivery systems, and large tillage equipment. New tillage and packing tools were developed in conjunction with pneumatic seed delivery, allowing for minimal disturbance of trash and soil and precision application of fertilizer and seed in a single operation.

A parallel development in the post-war period was growth in the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides (Argue et al. 2003). After decades of farming, which included periods of drought-induced soil erosion, farmers in the post–World War II period increasingly relied on fertilizer to replace depleted soil nutrients. New chemical herbicides and pesticides capable of controlling weeds and pathogens in growing crops and on summer fallow were becoming available and were marketed to farmers. Not surprisingly, new implements were developed for applying fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides on increasingly larger farms. A number of manufacturers on the Canadian Prairies specialized in manufacturing large-capacity field sprayers, and as noted above, tillage implements were adapted to combine seeding and fertilizer application operations (Wetherell and Corbet 1993: 152–57).

An initially controversial innovation receiving attention during the post-war period was continuous cropping. A minority of farmers and agrologists had begun to challenge long-standing conventional wisdom regarding the need to leave land fallow every other year or every third year. A farmer from southern Saskatchewan described how his family became early adopters of continuous cropping and other min till practices in response to drought conditions in the 1960s:

Summer fallow was supposed to be a great moisture conservation measure. But it didn’t help you much if your soil blew away. The best Dad did when summer fallowing, the best crop I think he ever grew, was probably about 35 bushels an acre. Okay, but it took him two years to grow that. When you divide that by two it gives you 17½ bushels an acre. So with continuous cropping I’m getting 20, 24 bushels an acre. Sure, you’d maybe get more out of a summer fallow crop. But I still get my 20–24 bushels per acre and I get it every year. So the summer fallow guy, he’s getting his 35 once every two years. I’m getting my 40 or 50 when you take it over two years. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or mathematician to figure that one out. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 4, 5)

By the late 1980s, government researchers were conducting studies that questioned the benefits of tilled summer fallow. In its 1987 Guide to Farm Practice in Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan’s Department of Agriculture was reporting on studies from the federal research station at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, which suggested that leaving standing stubble on fields over the winter was possibly a more effective method for retaining moisture than leaving land idle for a year as tilled summer fallow (Saskatchewan Agriculture 1987: 100). Researchers had begun to speculate that the increased yield effects associated with summer fallowing were more likely due to the nitrogen-accumulating effects of tilled summer fallow than to the long-held assumption that it was entirely the result of moisture retention. If this was indeed the case, it could prove more cost-effective to forego summer fallowing in favour of continuous cropping combined with increased applications of nitrogen fertilizer. As we have seen, summer fallowing had been among the first innovations adopted by farmers on the Prairies during the early days of settlement. Now it appeared that it was a traditional practice that should be abandoned in the face of new and better information—and that is precisely what would happen on a large scale in the 1990s.

The series of dry years experienced in the 1980s frustrated proponents of continuous cropping. However, evidence was mounting that, under average moisture conditions or even moderate drought, continuous cropping could out-produce summer fallow farming—particularly in moister areas of the Palliser Triangle.

An RCAD respondent reflected upon the diffusion of continuous cropping in his neighbourhood:

I knew a guy who was an early adopter of continuous cropping, but he was trying it in the 80s and it wasn’t working. The idea was right but it was just too dry. Everybody was looking and saying, “see it doesn’t work.” But on further reflection people started to say, “I think it would have worked but we needed a little bit more rain.” (Warren and Diaz 2012: 92)

The Convergence of Forces in the Early 1990s

By the mid-1980s, the technological ingredients required to support the family of minimum tillage technologies in use today were essentially in place. Nonetheless, the explosion of widespread adoption, typical of the early and late majority phases described by Rogers (1962: 11), did not occur until the 1990s. Farmers interviewed for the RCAD (2012) project and by Warren and Diaz (2012: 5–6, 35, 60–61) attributed the rapid pace of change in the 1990s to the convergence of several key factors, including

• heightened interest in increasing drought resilience in the aftermath of the severe droughts of the 1980s;

• availability and awareness of locally manufactured, specialized minimum tillage and seeding equipment and chemical applicators suited to the large farm sizes typical of the Palliser Triangle region;

• a significant reduction in the cost of glyphosate herbicides in the early 1990s (i.e., glyphosate dropped in price from approximately $25 per litre in the 1980s to $10 per litre in the 1990s), which made chemical summer fallowing for weed control more cost-competitive with mechanical summer fallowing practices reliant on higher diesel fuel consumption and more labour;

• research and promotional activities, including on-farm field days, of farmer-operated soil conservation associations (sometimes supported by government extension agrologists, local manufacturers, and herbicide marketers), which encouraged min till practices including greater use of continuous cropping and chemical summer fallowing;

• development and promotion of new crop varieties such as pulses (annual legumes such as peas, beans, and lentils) that facilitated continuous cropping through crop rotations; and

• a population of innovative farmers and ready adopters who were amenable to developing and implementing new farming practices.

One of the notable differences in the pattern of diffusion associated with min till in the 1990s and previous phases of agricultural adaptation on the Prairies was the relative increase in the influence of farmer innovators as opposed to innovation co-led by extension agrologists from universities and government. While government agencies contributed funds toward the field testing of min till techniques and new crop varieties, government-backed crop insurance programs initially penalized producers who experimented with continuous cropping. Also of significant importance was the role played by Prairie manufacturers who built and marketed the necessary equipment and by chemical manufacturers and distributors who encouraged the shift to more chemical-intensive agriculture.

Min Till as the Product of an Adaptive Culture

The converging factors described above correspond to characteristics that Rogers (1962: 124–33) attributes to innovations that are likely to be widely adopted. These characteristics include the relative advantage offered by the innovation, often measured in terms of its ability to enhance economic profitability. Min till practices met this criterion by virtue of their capacity to conserve moisture, sustain yields, and protect soil from erosion more cost-effectively than conventional practices.

Another characteristic identified by Rogers (1962: 57–75) is the compatibility of an innovation with the values and past experiences of the adopters. This characteristic is reflected in the historical pattern of adaptation and the wide acceptance of inventiveness and adaptability as positive social attributes on the Canadian Prairies. An important contributor to the adaptive culture is the fact that most farms operating on the Prairies are second- or third-generation operations. Intergenerational learning within families and communities has contributed to an appreciation of adaptation as an iterative process that has helped enable succeeding generations to survive in agriculture. The valuable lessons provided by previous generations are not so much the particular innovations they adopted, but that they were flexible enough to adapt.

A producer from Wardlow, Alberta, reported that the experience of earlier generations was valuable because it demonstrated that being prepared to do things differently than one’s antecedents was integral to survival—and indeed it was that attitude which enabled subsequent generations of survivors in agriculture to succeed:

There are plenty of things that the older generations of ranchers and farmers learned about how to survive in this country and you have to respect that. But you don’t want to get into that mindset where you start to think their way is the only way. It’s tough to make a buck in this industry, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier . . . The point is, you need to keep adapting if you want to survive. A fellow told me one time that if you run into one of these guys who says, “If it was good enough for grandpa, and it was good enough for dad, it is good enough for me,” you can bet if he carries on like that, before too long there will be a “For Sale” sign on his gate. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 249)

An early adopter of min till technology characterized the reflexive mindset required for survival in family farm agriculture as planning that accommodates flexibility:

You need to spend some time on your butt thinking . . . A lot of fellows get into trouble because they fly out into the field and go to work without thinking. Another thing is to always have a plan B. Don’t go down the road there, with hard and fast rules that this is what’s going to be done come hell or high water. You’ve got to stay flexible and roll with the punches. You have to stay flexible or you’re history. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 5)

Interestingly, farmers interviewed for the RCAD project sometimes employed the language and concepts used by academics to describe the diffusion of innovations. Echoing Rogers’ (1962: 196) characterizations, inventors, innovators, and early adopters from the Palliser Triangle understand that they march to a different drummer and are somewhat deviant—but that theirs is a socially beneficial form of deviance. A farmer who was active in the promotion of min till practices in southwest Saskatchewan in the 1980s and 1990s describes how innovators appreciate that their early efforts can be met with skepticism but nonetheless proceed:

And of course there are those bright, eccentric, inventive farmers that you find here and there around the country who aren’t afraid to be criticized by their neighbours for trying something radically different. I recall talking to one of the first direct seeders in the country, a fellow who farmed up near Biggar. He told me how at first people thought his new methods were pretty goofy, but within a short time virtually everyone was into direct seeding. He said, “I went from wing nut to innovator in about five years.” (Warren and Diaz 2012: 60)

Many of the dozens of producers interviewed in connection with the RCAD project understood the importance of innovation and adaptation to survival in Prairie agriculture. They also demonstrated an understanding of how the process works. The following comments are not untypical:

That’s what happens, out of necessity somebody comes up with a new idea. His neighbours watch him for a while to see if it really works, and if it does, before long they’re doing it too. That’s what’s happened with lots of equipment. I remember the first time I saw an air seeder. A fellow had one in at the Farm Progress Show one year and before long all sorts of companies like Flexi-Coil were making them. It was the same with Friggstad’s from Frontier [Saskatchewan], they came up with a better header [a harvest machinery attachment] and pretty soon other people wanted them too. Some farmers are good at doing that in this country, not all the good ideas come from the universities or government research stations—we come up with a lot of them on the farm; especially new machinery. (Warren and Diaz 2012: 5)

Currently, min till practices have been adopted by most dryland farmers in the Palliser Triangle. Bruneau et al. (2009: 143) report that as of the first decade of the twenty-first century, conventional tillage was used on just 18% of the cropland in Saskatchewan and 25% in Alberta. Given that there are moister cropland areas outside the boundaries of the Palliser Triangle in both provinces, it is reasonable to assume that within the drier regions the proportion of farmers using min till is higher than the proportions reflected in the provincial averages.

Laggards as Innovators

Rogers (1962) contends that innovators, opinion leaders, and early adopters tend to be more cosmopolitan and modern in their thinking compared with those who are especially slow to adopt a new idea. There are indeed dryland farmers operating in the Palliser Triangle who have not fully embraced min till technology. That being said, many of these producers do not consider themselves to be atavistic Luddites but rather as innovators in their own right. They reject the heavy use of herbicides and chemical fertilizer associated with min till, preferring to farm organically. Organic producers interviewed in association with the RCAD project argued that chem fallow and continuous cropping were inimical to soil health—the very thing that those methods were intended to protect. Also influential are the human and ecological health concerns that organic farmers and many consumers associate with agricultural chemicals. Another detriment identified by RCAD respondents and the literature is that the cost-effective implementation of min till technology depends on the prices of fertilizers and chemicals, which are largely beyond the control of individual farmers (Argue et al. 2003). A spike in these prices has the potential to reduce the economic advantages of min till relative to mechanical weed control and summer fallowing.

The fact that min till mitigates wind-driven soil erosion during droughts is generally considered to be an environmental benefit. However, organic producers contend that this advantage needs to be considered within the context of the environmental problems it exacerbates. For example, the increased application of fertilizer required under min till farming has been identified as a factor that contributes to eutrophication (nutrient pollution) in prairie lakes (Environment Canada 2014; Carpenter et al. 1998 ).

Organic farmers argue that their products can obtain premium prices from health-conscious and environmentally conscious consumers, which offset differences in yield. They have, indeed, developed niche markets throughout North America and in Europe. One might reasonably assert that their ingenuity as marketers is equivalent to that of conventional min till producers. Notwithstanding the relative strength of the arguments advanced by organic agriculture over chemically supported agriculture, organic producers remain a minority of the farming population in the Palliser Triangle. For example, as of 2013, approximately 2,000 certified organic farms were operating in Saskatchewan, out of a total of about 37,000 farms (Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture 2013).

Organic farmers do not view themselves as backward-thinking but rather as innovators striving to avoid widespread maladaptation. Indeed, some RCAD respondents wondered whether the success of min till might encourage a sort of drought-defying hubris whereby overconfident farmers break lighter, erosion-prone land that had been seeded to grass in the wake of the droughts of the 1930s (RCAD 2012). Shifting land from permanent grass cover to cultivation was reportedly occurring at some locations in southwest Saskatchewan. The suspected danger is that crops and soil resources on this type of land could be vulnerable to erosion under severe drought conditions that exceed recent experience on the Canadian Prairies. Min till is assumed to have enhanced drought resilience since the 1980s. However, none of the droughts occurring since the 1980s have lasted as long as the drought of the 1930s or the megadroughts identified in paleoclimatic records by Sauchyn and Kerr (see Chapter 2 in this volume).

The min till versus organic debate suggests that Rogers’ characterization of laggards may not apply to everyone who fails to innovate. Rogers’ classification casts laggards as less cosmopolitan and economically astute than early adopters. These aspersions would be difficult to apply across the board with respect to organic producers in the Prairie provinces. That being said, during a long and severe drought the ongoing use of mechanical summer fallowing in organic farming on the Prairies would contribute to soil erosion and a reduction in drought resilience.

Conclusion

Agricultural producers in the Palliser Triangle have been adapting to dry conditions and drought for over a century. Farmers in the region understand that survival in agriculture under dry climate conditions, drought, and frequently unfavourable markets has benefited from adopting a series of technological innovations. Within the dryland farming community, innovation and adaptation are well understood and valued processes. Multi-generational survival of farming units is a matter of some pride, especially since tens of thousands of family operations have failed to survive. The governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba honour “century farms”—operations that have remained under the ownership of the same family for 100 years. Multi-generational survival suggests that intergenerational transmission of adaptive capacity has occurred.

The capacity to innovate is a matter of considerable pride as well. The contributions of farmer innovators, including those who developed local machinery manufacturing concerns such as Charles Noble, George Morris, Olaf Friggstad, and many others, are widely recognized. Innovation and the diffusion of innovations have been enhanced by the recognition of flexibility and adaptability as important values, as well as by the technological and mechanical proficiency available in dryland farming communities in the region. These are important facets of the human capital available in the region that have facilitated drought resilience, reducing vulnerability under the range of climate conditions experienced over the past century. Indeed, the adaptation-enhancing features of the culture of agriculture on the Canadian Prairies are largely consistent with Rogers’ contention that innovativeness “varies directly with the norms of his social system on innovativeness” (Rogers 1962: 311). Whether these cultural assets will prove sufficient in providing the resilience required to adapt to the climate conditions projected for the upcoming century is unclear (see Chapter 3 by Wheaton et al. in this volume)—but they should help.

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