Conventional farming’s narrow focus on yields has led to a decline in the nutritional quality of many crops, making our food less healthy than it was just 50 years ago. Yields have never been higher and we have access to ample calories, yet we’re getting sicker. “Hidden hunger” is a reality for many, and diabetes and obesity are on the rise.
Change starts on the farm
Know the facts:
- Plants get their nutrients from the soil.
- Industrial agriculture has depleted soils worldwide and bred plants for size and rate of growth – not nutrition – in a narrow pursuit of ever-increasing yields.
- The food we eat today contains less protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C than food produced just a half-century ago.
Healthy, nutritious food starts with healthy soil. Soil holds the key. Organic and regenerative organic farming practices make soil health a priority. Healthier soil grows healthier plants, and healthier plants are more nutritious plants. Rodale Institute is investigating the links between soil health and human health and proving that organic can feed the world through its Vegetable and Farming Systems Trials.
Vegetable Systems Trial
Rodale’s Vegetable Systems Trial (VST) is the first-ever long-term study designed explicitly to compare the nutrient densities of vegetable crops grown in organic and conventional systems under controlled conditions.
VST is specifically designed to analyse nutrient density in the finished crops. It’s the first of its kind—no other crop comparison study has been focused on exploring the links between soil health and human health.
What Rodale is researching
The Vegetable Systems Trial analyses root, fruit, and leaf crops including potatoes, butternut squash, lettuce, green beans, and sweet corn.
The VST has four unique growing systems. Mirroring the most common vegetable management strategies throughout the United States, two of the systems utilise tillage with black plastic mulch, further divided into organic and conventional plots. The remaining two systems employ reduced tillage strategies, with cover crops and no-till management in organic plots and herbicides in conventional plots.
Data collected will measure:
- Differences in nutrient density of vegetables
- Differences in soil health over time
- Drought resilience
- Resilience to insects, diseases and weed pressure
- Profitability
Why does it matter?
The nutrient density of fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. has declined in the past 50-70 years. That means many people today are struggling with “hidden hunger”—they’re getting enough calories but not the vital nutrients necessary for health.
We know organic systems create healthier soil. We know healthier soil means healthier plants. Now we need to know, are those healthier plants more nutritionally dense? Can they improve human health? Begun in 2017 and intended to run for more than twenty years, the VST is aimed at answering these important questions.
Source: Rodale Institute
