Talk on the Wild Side
with Derrick Wyle

Transcription

Vikki Locke

I am Vikki Locke with C2 Communications, and this is Talk on the Wild Side brought you by the Florida Wildlife Federation, and today we’re talking to Derrick Wyle. He is District Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service or NRCS. Hi, Derrick.

Derrick Wyle

Hi.

Vikki Locke

Now, what you do it’s all about the land, but basically, it’s all about the food, right?

Derrick Wyle

That’s right. We work with agriculture producers to produce our food, feed, and fiber to feed our country, whether they’re a beef producer, a dairy producer, a vegetable grower. These are the folks who are out there working the land to provide us food that we find in the grocery stores, farmers’ markets, CSAs, or what-have-you.

Vikki Locke

So soil conservation is huge.

Derrick Wyle

That’s right. All of this food is somehow tied to the soil. The exception may be aquaculture, but even that relies on some sort of production on the ground, and so farmers and ranchers are aware of this. We used to say that a good beef producer was the best grass manager. Now we know the best grass manager is the best soil manager, so helping agriculture producers manage for healthier soils manages that community so that they can produce either better vegetables in the long-term, better forage for their livestock, and in turn, grow higher quantities of food in a sustainable way on their acreages.

Vikki Locke

How do farmers find out all this information about what’s good for the soil? What they’re doing wrong. What they’re doing right.

Derrick Wyle

There’s lots of information. It’s becoming more prevalent to hear about soil sustainability to being talked about. Many farmers now are becoming more and more educated on their own, and thanks to the internet, they can look up ideas on soil health practices and sustainability. Natural Resources Conservation Service has been around for nearly a hundred years, helping farmers with that exact idea. How do we conserve our soils? How do we use our soils to the best benefit of the nation as a whole? And so, reaching out to us is a great first step for farmers. If they want to have somebody come to their property giving an evaluation of their practices and have some ideas, and a dialogue, about what they can do to manage better or repair issues. Whether it’s erosion, organic matter depletion, organic matter building, all these kinds of things that NRCS is technically expert at. Farmers and ranchers can reach out directly to us and have somebody help them with their operation.

Vikki Locke

Boy, things have really changed. I think of farmers back 100 years ago; they didn’t have the technology now they do so. What kind of a difference have you seen over the years?

Derrick Wyle

Technology has really come a long way from precision agricultural methods they have, to better apply nutrients, or seeding, to new implements, just to minimize the amount of tillage we have to do to grow a crop in the ground. There are also no-tillage implements that have been invented over the last 50 years that reduce soil disturbance so that soils can be more resilient, have better aggregate stability, pull water better, build more soil carbon. All these new technologies are really helping both do that along with new cover crop varieties to work in different climatic conditions. All these things contribute to the whole soil building process. When agriculture producers can integrate them into their operation, we can see the benefits from doing that.

It’s the same with gracing land operations too. Using grazing rotation systems, high-intensity grazing, better-preserved forage crops, and improved forage yields, the net benefit is not for just the soil but the agricultural operation.

Vikki Locke

They are maybe in the same ballpark, but you can absolutely farm organically in an unsustainable way because organic agriculture doesn’t necessarily rely on soil health practices to be the basement-level work that they’re doing. In some cases, I’ve seen it on the ground in my old work where I know what I listed USDA organic operation is having to implement practices that are actually more harmful to the soil than someone who is focused rather than just on having that organic label but actually building soil. They want to be similar, but they’re really not. Soil health and sustainability does not necessarily have to be organic, and organic isn’t necessarily sustainable.

Derrick Wyle

What’s the difference between sustainability and organic? Some people I talk to you think it’s one of the same, and sometimes they say it’s just a buzzword that’s going to go away. It’s not, right?

Vikki Locke

Why are organic vegetables, when I go to the grocery store, so much more expensive?

Derrick Wyle

The yields are usually lower on an organic operation because they don’t have access to the same treatments that a traditional or an inorganic operator does so that they will have more losses from pests and disease. Not organic producers can spray for insects, and they can manage weeds with chemicals when an organic operator can’t. That affects yield. If you grow fewer tomatoes per acre, you’re going to charge more per acre to do that, and then also typically require more labor hours to farm those crops because you’re having to lie by hand or you’re having to weed by machine instead of using chemical herbicide.

Vikki Locke

Gotcha. People that think, okay, this sounds like something that maybe I would like to do, students maybe. How did you get into this? What did you study?

Derrick Wyle

I studied Agricultural Operations Management in college, so my degree was in the College of Art and Sciences at the University of Florida. I worked in a soils lab during part of my undergraduate and those classes that you want to take if you want to learn about farming and you want to work with farmers, you should take agriculture classes. Environmental sciences classes tend to focus more on ecology and these kinds of things, but if you want to walk onto the operator’s farm and talk about the kind of equipment they have, talk about what kind of things they’re growing, it helps to have a background in soil and agronomy, ag equipment, ag safety and all these different things that educate you about real-life farming and not just the environmental side of it. So having a mixed background with both those things helps you be prepared to walk onto a farm sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Vikki Locke

And one last question, what personally gives you the most satisfaction in what you’re doing?

Derrick Wyle

I get a lot of satisfaction from working one-on-one or with a family of agriculturalists. Typically it’s family farms, and family operations that I’m dealing with, and those folks are always looking for a way to keep the ranch or the farm afloat, keep it productive, pass it to the next generation. When we cooperate with them and we can provide some protective service or advice that improves their operation; our angle is we want to help improve your operation as long as it’s sustainable, as long as it’s going to have a net positive benefit on the ecosystem, in the community around us. Whenever we can come together on a project that works for that producer, we go home and know that that also works for the landscape, that helps wildlife, that benefited soil-carbon sequestration. Those are things they can’t put in their pocket at the end of the day, or they can’t put in their bank account, but knowing that what you did help them, that is going to help their operation and help the environment, that’s really good satisfaction.

Vikki Locke

That’s fantastic. Thanks so much for being with us today, Derrick.

Derrick Wyle

Thanks for having me, Vikki.

Vikki Locke

Let’s all do our part when it comes to conservation. There’s so much more we can learn. Check it out at floridawildlifefederation.org.