Regenerative Farming to Save the Climate

Regenerative Farming to Save the Climate from Catastrophe 

I have been studying about regenerative farming for the past few years and lately the science has been quite conclusive. 

This is the synopsis of what I have learned from a multitude of sources:

Regenerative farming can heal the planet from climate change, according to scientific proof available today. 

Dead soil, caused by chemical industrial agriculture, is releasing stored carbon in soil. This is a major contributor to climate catastrophe. Up to forty percent of our heritage atmospheric carbon is there because these toxic agricultural processes have released it in the past few decades. These slash and burn type practices, as farming has often been done in years and centuries past, farming a spot of land for a few years, exhausting it and moving on, has greatly depleted the soil as well. But healing is possible.

This first was addressed on a large scale in the dust bowl years in America, when the landmark soil conservation act was passed in congress. They were debating the act when its sponsor pointed out the window of the capitol and dramatically said, “here it comes now”. Indeed, at that exact moment, as the lawmakers looked out, the sky darkened with a huge brown cloud of dust. It was composed of the soil particles blown all the way from the dust storms in the western states, arriving just in time to make his point. That persuaded them to pass the bill. The bill rewarded farmers for planting cover crops, and other soil conservation techniques. We may be able to build on that start.

Later short sighted profit hungry chemical based industrial scale agribusiness came along and poisoned the air, water, and earth. Part of the damage was to sterilize the microbial community living in the soil. These actions released lots of carbon into the atmosphere. To repeat, up to forty percent of the carbon out there now came from this kind of destructive agriculture. 

But the really great news is that by reversing these practices we can revivify the soil, prevent desertification, even create up to two centimeters of new soil per year. The old dogma was that it takes two hundred years to build up that much soil. But ceasing to poison the soil microbiota, and instead, protecting and nurturing them, and planting green manure, (which is like a “cover crop”not animal poop, btw) we can reverse the loss of productive soil on Earth, feed all of the people, and reverse global climate catastrophe!

 Even desert sands can become productive using these methods. Scientists now estimate that up to ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the excess carbon in the atmosphere today can be sequestered in this simple way. Plus, it is no more expensive for the farmers to use these methods. It simply requires shifting to different ways of doing it. 

Moving grazing to fields in timed rotations instead of feedlots, composting, multi plant “cocktail” ground cover planting, mulching, and reducing or eliminating tilling are the methods that are demonstrated to restore the beneficial soil microbiota, retain moisture, mitigate temperature extremes, protect pollinators, fortify crops from storm damage, produce abundant harvests, and yes, pull the excess carbon out of the atmosphere in huge quantities. And, in so doing, by the way, we can stop poisoning the air and water too.

It turns out that those biodynamic and organic practices of small scale and traditional old time farming are now the proven key to saving the world! We hippies were on the right track when we went back to the land to dig the soil, man. The scientists are starting to take notice and it is time for policy makers to act on this timely issue.

We don’t need energy intensive nuclear powered high tech factories to suck carbon out of the air, we don’t need to block out the sun to slow warming and sabotage our needed transition to solar power. If you are banging your head on the wall over and over again, the first thing to do for your headaches is to stop doing that, not take ever stronger and more toxic painkillers.

In addition to the very important need to advocate for policy change, just eat a plant based diet that supports your local organic farmers. How you eat, what you eat, and how it is grown, is perhaps the most important daily contribution you can make to healing the climate. An official United Nations report says that only small scale diversified organic farming can feed all of the people.

If they need something constructive to do, let the apparatus of industrial chemistry be turned into a solar power manufacturing industry. It is currently just a byproduct offshoot of the dying fossil fuel industry anyway, and needs to be repurposed.

“Plants removing carbon from the air is, in fact, how the earth’s vast coal deposits were formed.” 

- Mark Shepard

There is a new documentary movie about this subject, where you can find out much more, and also there are links to get involved. Check out Kiss the Ground.