What matters to Shireman, he said, is that “we can build and maintain healthy soil and pasture and actually see it improve year over year.”
Harborview: A Journey to ‘Planting Green’
Crops that will soon be harvested frame Harborview’s gravel drive—rows of corn to the right, rows of soy to the left—as visitors approach a central cluster of metal grain bins that tell the story of the farm’s generations.
The smallest were built by Hill’s grandfather; the mid-size ones, a little bigger, by his father; and the largest—one of which can hold 150 tractor-trailer loads of corn—by Hill himself.
Over three generations, the farm followed the trajectory of commodity operations across the country, scaling their production up and prioritizing higher yields to survive. But about 20 years ago, Hill began to do things a little differently.
First, he planted cover crops because the state of Maryland paid him to, as part of efforts to reverse decades of farm runoff that had polluted the Chesapeake Bay. Cover crops solve for that issue because the plants’ roots hold nitrogen and phosphorous in place in the soil, preventing those nutrients from leaching into groundwater and eventually the bay.
But cover crops have other benefits, and as Hill noticed changes on his farm, he sought out more information and started experimenting with other regenerative practices.
At Harborview Farms, corn is ready to be harvested for potential use as chicken feed in Maryland’s poultry industry. (Photo credit: Lisa Held)
“One of the earliest observations I had as we converted to cover crops and to mixed species and planting green and all that stuff was just seeing the different life around the field and in the soil,” he said in early September while standing at the edge of a soybean field, a steady hum of insects providing a soundtrack. “Before ‘regenerative’ was a word, I liked ‘ecological,’ because I was increasing ecological diversity around the field. It’s really easy to see. You can hear my beans singing to us now with the crickets and the bugs. You can hear the birds.”
By 2016, Hill was planting cover crops in all his fields and using a no-till system called “planting green.”
Most commodity farmers leave fields bare in the winter, tilling the fields before spring planting. Hill plants his cash crops—corn, soybeans, and wheat—while the winter cover crops are still alive, without tilling the soil. After planting, he uses some combination of herbicides and a machine called a roller crimper to kill the cover crops, making space for the new crop to grow.
The system maximizes the regenerative farming principle of having “living roots” in the soil at all times, within a commodity cropping system, though Hill does use chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Fertilizer is especially tricky, since cover crops can hog nutrients in the soil, creating a need for more nutrients that the corn and soy plants can access.
“Before ‘regenerative’ was a word, I liked ‘ecological,’ because I was increasing ecological diversity around the field.”
Over time, Hill has cut his herbicide use by more than half by incorporating the roller crimper and using a “see and spray” sprayer that combs the fields for weeds and then sprays them individually, rather than spraying herbicides across the entire soybean field.
Hill rarely sprays insecticides at all anymore, he said, but he does plant seeds treated with them. He’s up on research that shows those treatments may not be necessary, but in his fields, he sees a need for them based on pests in the soil.
Hill knows that some people see those practices as not fitting into a regenerative framework, and every year, he experiments with eliminating all chemical use in one field. Switching to organic production, after all, could allow him to get a much higher price for his crops.
But so far, he hasn’t had the success that organic commodity growers in other regions have, which he attributes to the Mid-Atlantic climate, where pest and weed pressures are incredibly high. To make organic work, he said, he’d have to till more to control weeds, which he sees as a worse trade-off than using herbicides, especially since the outcomes he’s getting with the current practices are positive.
Walking through the fields, he pointed to the uneven nature of the ground beneath the crimped cover crops as an example. The bumps were evidence of earthworm houses, piles of dirt that were prevalent in every direction.
“I do think that I offer a benefit to society. I think there are more birds, I think there are more bugs. I think the water coming off my fields is cleaner than it used to be,” he said. “We’ve got increased organic matter and we’re farming intensively. I did not think that was achievable.”
Hill is now hoping to pass the operation down to his daughter, who has expressed interest in farming. And no matter who ends up working the land, he said, “I just feel like it’s my obligation to not degrade the soil.”
No matter how regenerative is ultimately defined—if it is at all—the ways farmers determine what’s best for them will always be hard to capture.
