Seth Watkins used to strive to grow more bushels with more crop inputs, no matter what happened.
Well, something happened.
Spencer, the Clarinda, Iowa, farmer’s son, was born with a rare chromosomal disorder that caused cognitive delays and low muscle tone issues.
Before Watkins and his wife, Christy, had another child, both underwent genetic counseling and genome mapping.
“The doctors told us, ‘You’re perfect. There are no family history issues, no concerns. You’re good to go,’” Watkins said.
Their excitement grew when a doctor told them they were expecting twins.
However, their anticipation quickly morphed into anxiety. Normally, identical twins have their own amniotic sac. However, the rare twin type they were to have — monochronic — shared the same one.
“The risk of entanglement is high, and we lost one twin during the pregnancy,” Watkins said.
Their surviving twin, daughter Tatum, was born with an abdominal wall defect in which part of her colon was outside her body.
Doctors were puzzled, since tests showed nothing in the Watkins’ genetic background that could spawn such rare genetic conditions in their children.
Then, one doctor noticed they farmed.
“Where do you get your water?” she asked.
Partnering with nature
The Watkins went home and raised their children.
“Spencer’s doing great,” he said. “We play unified golf, and he helps me on the farm. Tatum’s doing wonderfully, thanks in part to many surgeries and some phenomenal surgeons.”
Initially, Watkins was upset at the doctor’s water question, thinking she was insinuating he was doing something wrong as a farmer.
Over time, however, he thought about what physicians told him regarding how endocrine disruptions could have spurred their children’s genetic maladies.
Some agricultural pesticides, such as atrazine, are endocrine disrupters. A Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published in JAMA Network Open found an association between atrazine use and his daughter’s condition, called gastroschisis.
This gnawed at Watkins, as did reports about how excess nitrates in drinking water due to agricultural runoff could cause cancer and other health problems.
He said he cannot prove that his children’s genetic conditions stemmed from agricultural practices. Still, these maladies spurred Watkins to nix the use of atrazine and reduce reliance on commercial inputs to farm more in line with nature.
Steps included:
- shifting calving from February and March to May, which improves chances of better calving weather and, in turn, helped him cut feed, fuel and energy inputs
- intensively grazing small pastures for short periods of time before moving cattle to the next pasture
- no-tilling to minimize soil disturbance
- diversifying his crop lineup to include alfalfa, corn, oats and barley
- planting cover crops
Agronomic steps such as slashing tillage and subbing manure for a share of commercial nitrogen application have enabled him to slice crop input costs $60 to $80 per acre compared with a traditional beef and crop farm, Watkins said.
These steps are good for water quality, he added. Plus, farming more in line with nature has enabled him to maximize return on investment rather than production.
“The only way you are going to achieve better ROI is to make nature a partner,” Watkins said.