When Steve Groff finished high school and assumed responsibility for the family farm in the late 1980s, he learned that his farm was losing 17 tons of soil from each acre every year. So he revolutionized the way his farm operated. As a result, Steve has been recognized as a national leader in no-till farming and soil cultivation; he received the 1999 No-Till Innovator Award and numerous other awards.

Steve recalls "I was disturbed about soil erosion in the fields, I didn't think that was the right way to farm. I went to pesticide/fertilizer meetings, and what they were saying turned me off to conventional agriculture. Whenever there was a problem, they said 'what chemical can we apply to it?' By my thinking, that's the last line of defense, not the first. So I started using no-till methods, and within four years I saw major improvements in the soil."

On the 175-acre farm he runs with his father Elias, Steve grows a diversity of fresh-market crops including several varieties of tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers and broccoli, as well as 20 acres of processing tomatoes and 20 acres of Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins. Surprisingly, his is one of the larger farms on the rolling hills near Holtwood, Pennsylvania, where the average farm size is 82 acres and fewer than 5% of farms are more than 1000 acres. Elias Groff is responsible for marketing directly to local stores and through 3 produce auctions.

While direct marketing and diversified products sustain a stable and profitable business, Steve's no-till and cover-cropping systems help him maintain the delicate balance required to maintain farming into the future. "Everyone in agriculture sees that balance in a different way. For me it means improving profitability and increasing soil health over time - making the land better than when I found it," Steve says.

His soil conservation practices are designed to "bring out the best of what the soil is meant to do naturally." To this end, Steve eliminated tillage; some of his fields have been untouched for 30 years. He also developed an innovative "Permanent Cover Cropping System" beginning in 1991, the fundamental goal of which is to keep the soil covered at all times. In the process he has stopped soil erosion and cut herbicide use by more than half. The average organic matter content has increased from 2.7% in 1990 to 4.3% today, and soil aggregate stability has increased from 19% to 62%.

Steve remarks "With my new generation of cropping systems, the whole biological process is enhanced. In eight years the biomass of microbes and worms in the soil has tripled and erosion is a thing of the past. With living roots always present in the soil, the floodwaters from Hurricane Floyd ran from my fields nearly clear."

"All my produce is sold in the local community, or within the state, and I buy local as much as I can. Beyond food production, I try to stay involved in the church and other civic and social groups. Since farmers are less than 2% of the population, I also feel it is important to be pro-agriculture - to the general public, students, and other groups. There is just too much doom and gloom."

As a passionate advocate for sustainable agriculture, Steve feels it is important to back up his claims with numbers, to gain credibility with conventional farmers and the larger community. This is difficult he says, "because there are only so many researchers to go around, and many of them won't touch sustainable agriculture with a 10-foot pole, because they're not funded by people who would benefit from it. We need to search these people out and earn their respect."

Pumpkins from Ceadar Meadow Farms

"Many farmers have the misconception that researchers would not be interested in what they are doing. They seem to think researchers are only interested in their own controlled experiments, but there are many who want to try things out in a real live situation. I have been amazed how easy it was to bring them around to sustainable practices. I just have to take a little initiative and be willing to validate my ideas with science. I am now collaborating with people who five years ago would not have thought of themselves as sustainable agriculture researchers."

Steve reports that, although the SARE program is underfunded, the shift to sustainable agriculture research is a national trend that will continue to grow. "This trend is supported by building bridges, not making war. If sustainable agriculture is going to be the conventional agriculture of the future, we need to build relationships instead of tearing down the system, and we need to back up our claims."

Having documented the benefits of his systems, Steve shares what he has learned through annual field days, a no-till video and a website (www.cedarmeadowfarm.com). He also speaks nationwide.

Hairy vetch

His message is clear. "Aggressive tillage is a disaster for soil quality and soil life. There is a time and place for it, but too often, just like conventional farmers reach for chemicals to solve a problem, sustainable farmers reach for steel to solve a problem in the soil. There are alternative ways to address soil compaction, crusting and other problems through less tillage, stubble mulching, and use of cover crops. There actually times when certain pesticides are less harmful to the environment than tillage."

Steve takes a long view on changing agriculture in America. "We cannot leap from point A to Z - profit margins are too tight to take a huge risk to adopt new practices overnight. As farmers we need to find the middle ground. Farmers have to be comfortable with what they are doing, not just because it is ideologically correct, but because it helps improve profitability and conserve the environment. Changing agriculture will take a grassroots effort by farmers to stop buying chemicals and to succeed in new markets with a sharp business mentality."

"There are no hard and fast definitions of sustainable agriculture. Whether you are doing no-till or any other particular practice, what is sustainable is defined place by place. The three basic principles we can follow are: first, ensure profitability; second, take care of the soil; and third, blend in with aspects of the local community."

"Take an educated, calculated risk. Try new ideas out on a small scale, so if something fails, you can survive the failure. Learn by networking with other farmers, and connecting with research."

Steve Groff
Cedar Meadow Farms
679 Hilldale Road
Holtwood, PA 17532
Tel: (717) 284-5152
www.cedarmeadowfarm.com

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