Konrad Schreiber: "Sustainability is not growth or degrowth, but a cycle that works eternally, the cycle of life"

Konrad Schreiber is one of France's leading figures in carbon agriculture. In December, the L'Era association and the agricultural schools of Manresa and Amposta joined forces to bring it in three days that generated great expectation and had a lot of attendance. The practices it disseminates are based on the detailed and detailed observation of the symbiosis of plants with the soil and its microbiology, producing, consuming and recycling without energy or material losses, in a perfect closed cycle. With his argument, this engineer almost turns the main foundations on which organic fertilization is based in agriculture, putting life and biodiversity at the center of the equation.

Text: Charles-André Descombes, Josep Ramon Sainz de la Maza and Alba Gros.

What do we need for soil fertility to work well?

What is needed is a plant; The plant is the best tool. And all the biodiversity that serves to degrade plants in the soil. It is the plant that will feed this animal cycle and create organic-mineral fertility.

Is this plant as useful alive as it is dead?

The plant is always useful: it grows by itself, builds the earth on which it proliferates and while alive reinjects sugars into the soil. The beings that live there – bacteria, fungi – take advantage of all this work of the plant. In the end, when the plant dies and leaves its remains, they are degraded by the biological rhythms of the soil. Therefore, the plant continuously serves the system that, in fact, it itself builds. And it is also she who at the end of everything takes advantage of the cycle she has established.

Can we say that the new methods of non-plowing and permanent soil cover that you propose correspond to the recent discovery of the importance of carbon?

I would say that the new practices I suggest of not working the soil are not the result of recent discoveries. For 7000 years, the Indians of America have never been working the soil. Therefore, they had a different knowledge of the plant world. To grow plants, it is necessary to do it without working the land so that they grow themselves on a soil that is a house for biodiversity. The Native Americans had understood this perfectly and knew how to manage it. We draw on this ancient wisdom with our new knowledge about carbon.

Why is this element so important?

Carbon is an essential element in the cycle of living matter. In the crisis of climate warming we perceive carbon as responsible for all the problems when, in fact, it is not. Carbon is the solution to the problem, what happens is that it is not fossil carbon, but the renewable carbon of plants.

What is the element you are inserting lately into your approach to improving agricultural and livestock production?

The autonomy of the agrarian system. The plant grows on its own, the farmer should not have to resort to nitrogen. He should get it back from the air for free. It should not weed, it should be able to manage the plants among themselves so that there is a weeding in fact, with crop associations, among others, which should allow to suppress both the work of the soil, as well as the purchase of nitrogen, phytosanitary products, etc. When we analyze the carbon cycle, we see that this is totally possible except for an element that we continuously export as mineral to cities, that is not recycled well and that ends up in treatment plants to the sea: phosphorus.

What about phosphorus?

Phosphorus is a very important limiting factor of plant growth. Phosphorus participates in ATP, which is the molecule for the transport of cellular energy. So, in my opinion, we are very bad at the phosphorus issue. From the vision of plant autonomy, it is a question of pointing out the errors of water and phosphorus management, which will certainly be the two essential limiting factors of the agriculture of the future.

Based on what you say, can we consider that there is an imbalance between the countryside and the city?

It is the city that makes the agrarian policy, the CAP. However, she is not at all attuned to the challenges we face. It is captivated by some old references of industrialized agriculture of the Green Revolution. Although it is difficult to see, we should rally around plants as an essential solution to a lot of problems that will arise: lack of water, vegetables will help us; lack of food, vegetables will help us; lack of biodiversity, plants will help us; lack of water quality and erosion, plants will help us. But we have forgotten the plant in our debates.

Can we do in Spain the same as you do in France despite the climatic and rainfall differences?

I would say that in terms of principles, it is exactly the same. They are the same reasoning, the same agriculture, the same cycles, the same biology, but yes, Spain will have to make an even greater effort. We will need to plant the soils, but with plants that will have to be able to survive in the drought, such as arrhythmol or non-climbing ivy. When we look at the roadside, the slopes and the woods... There are plants in all these places, but we consider them weeds. There are miraculous plants because they resist the sun, resist drought, can cover the earth like lianas...

In your opinion, what are the keys to the sustainability of European agriculture?

When we have looked for sustainability in nature, we have found it in the vegetable cycles of plants, where everything is consumed and everything is recycled. Thanks to this cycle we realize that sustainability is neither growth nor degrowth, but a cycle that works eternally, the cycle of life. We must manage the three main phases of this cycle: vegetable production, use and recycling. Recycling is done with the biology of the soil, it is what nature has built.

Can this approach be transferred to our civilization in general?

Yes, we have to know how to print this vegetable cycle on society. Society must understand that if it wants to be sustainable, it must enter a cyclical world. Even without resources, he will always have enough, which is what nature has taught us. Lack of energy? It is not a problem, we will have enough if we know how to recycle it. Currently, with the physicochemical approach, this is impossible, while the plant tells us that it is possible, simply by rowing in the right direction. We are too much into physics and chemistry, and not enough into biology. Only by introducing the biological approach can you see that cycles are infinite, eternal. Biology is this infinite cycle located in a finite world, our planet.

What do you think is the Achilles heel of European agriculture?

The Achilles heel is the idea of having to stop producing following the idea of degrowth. Vegetables tell us exactly the opposite: to do better, we must do more, but with fewer resources because we recycle everything. The great Achilles heel is that we rely too heavily on trade and energy. Since we have not built agrarian autonomy, we will pay dearly for it.

How do you see agriculture in 2050?

We will have beautiful agriculture that will be bio-logical, organic matter will be everywhere. There are immense opportunities in agriculture, which are not simple, certainly. We see this agriculture of 2050 within this organobiological cycle where everything will go towards biology; We see it as very productive in providing food but also energy, biomaterials and also certainly green chemistry. Our phones will need to be made of wood or renewable vegetable fibers. Here are immense bets for the future that, in fact, are possible from today.

What should we know and what should we know how to convey to arrive at that image you describe to us?

We need to know a lot about biology, especially about the carbon cycle, and know how to convey the desire to know. In a world where almost everything remains to be discovered, I would say that we will witness a real revolution around biology and molecular biochemistry. Now, what sciences were born in the twentieth century and that we can routinely apply in the twenty-first century? There are two. First quantum physics, which is the science of what is infinitely small. The other element of twenty-first century science is the discovery of the DNA strand and the understanding of how this mechanic of amino acids, the molecular mechanic, is constructed. Again something infinitely small. The entire twenty-first century will routinely apply these two sciences. We will realize that we can produce energy with water, that we have free energy in infinite quantity, where everything can be recycled in this meccan at the same time biological and molecular. This will have to be put into practice: living soils, soil conservation, planting, biomass production... And we, farmers, will rely on biology, on biodiversity in general, to manage the system. This is how things worked millions of years ago and there is no reason to think that we are stronger than biology. So we have to trust her.