Pulse crops filling gaps as drought intensifies

If livestock grazing is the key to preventing wildfires why is ranch country still suffering from near daily high even extreme grassland fire danger indices? 

Because of the deleterious impacts of livestock production on the environment plant-based diets are replacing animal protein in much of the world and even in the United States as eaters learn the levels of glyphosate, a known endocrine disruptor found in corn sugars and in small grains and hay fed to the creatures people eat, is incompatible with human life.

Warnings of drought coming from the National Weather Service and US Army Corps of Engineers are prompting farmers to plant less corn. Ethanol being grown for motor fuel is produced by burning diesel fuel. How is that either conservative or sustainable? The number of acres in agroecosystems has tripled since the 1940s but ag practices like tiling have made soils unable to absorb rainfall creating elevated levels of salinity and concentrated animal feeding operations contribute to nutrient runoff. 

Today the Chinese ring-necked pheasant isn't wildlife but it is a canary in a chemically and genetically engineered corn mine. Pulse crops like lentils, split peas, pintos, black beans and chickpeas or garbanzo beans are legumes that restore lost nitrogen in corn-damaged soils. 

Farm to table is now.

USA Pulses, a nonprofit trade association, notes that the crop is currently grown in nine states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington. The legumes are drought-resistant, require few inputs and fix nitrogen in the soil. An annual crop, they are often part of a rotation with other row crops, like wheat. Chickpea seeds are planted in April, and the pulses (the dried, edible seeds that grow in pods) are harvested in September. After harvest, growers sell their chickpeas to processing facilities to ensure the crops get from field to table. Chickpeas are often hailed as an ideal replacement for meat in vegan and vegetarian diets, but the powerful pulses aren’t just popular with those on specific diets. In fact, a nationwide interest in healthy, sustainable protein alternatives has allowed chickpeas to develop major staying power. [How chickpeas became America’s favorite superfood]

Our Lady of the Arroyo and an interested party are considering chickpeas for the garden this year.

And beyond simply being lower down on the food chain, pulses and legumes offer a broader suite of opportunities for food system sustainability. As members of the legume family, pulses fix nitrogen from the air into nitrogen that plants can use, thanks to the help of friendly bacteria that live in the plants’ roots. The upshot is that pulses require little or no manure or synthetic fertilizer. Additionally, they reduce the fertilizer needed for other crops in a farmer’s rotation system. And yet, the demand for pulse proteins is greater in other parts of the world, especially Far East Asia and Africa. Canada is the world’s largest exporter of both pulses and dry peas. The US is the third-largest exporter of pulses. [The Promise of Pulse Proteins]

Canada not only buys most of America's exported ethanol she's become the biggest foreign landowner in the US.