The Root of It All- A Quick Dive Into Regenerative Agriculture
Geoffrey Bishop - 5 minute read
During the 1900s we invented new ways of farming that revolutionized our relationship with the land and food. With advances happening at a rapid pace, we went from working with the soil to dominating the soil. We achieved our goals of producing the cheapest food in human history and maintaining feeding our growing population. But, through all of this advancement, what have we lost? Current agriculture practices are responsible for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions and drastic losses in topsoil due to soil erosion and overworking the land. It can take hundreds to thousands of years to form a centimeter of soil. But, that single centimeter of soil can be lost in a single year. It is now estimated that we are losing approximately 1% of topsoil every year. The clock is ticking for a shift in our agriculture practices.
Before we get into the solutions, let's take a quick look at how we got here. Agriculture used to be practiced holistically, meaning farmers used to have farms where animals and various crops worked together on one piece of land. Now with industrial agriculture, farmers have specialized in just one crop. This is known as monoculture. Due to large amounts of inputs and constantly working the land (i.e., over tilling), this style of agriculture leaves the soil bare and lifeless. Without planting a variety of crops, the soil has a difficult time participating in nutrient cycling, nature's recycling system, where energy and matter are transferred between living organisms and the natural world.
Additionally, before the industrial agriculture boom, farmers used to cut grains and harvest crops by hand. However, between 1900 and 2000 the agriculture workforce in the US dropped from 41 percent to just 2 percent thanks to the industrialization of farming practices. Inventions led to great advances in harvest efficiency, but the cost seen throughout the decades has turned our soil into dirt. When you change your farming practices from low machinery usage to high, you work against the natural processes of the Earth. Overworking the land leads to loss of soil organic matter (SOM), which is the part of the soil that consists of plant or animal material that are in various stages of decomposition. Most healthy agricultural soils have between 3 and 6% organic matter. When we lose SOM, we lose the life and nutrients in our land. Thinking we can just pump artificial nutrients back into the soil to mimic the natural processes that were embedded in the SOM is naive. Agricultural researcher Rick Haney spoke about our dependence on fertilizer, stating “We were applying fertilizers and getting these big yields, so that system seemed to be working — until we began seeing, for example, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico [created by algal blooms triggered by high nitrogen levels from fertilizer], and we started wondering if this was really working right. Are we putting on too much fertilizer? And the answer is, “Yes we are.” It’s like instead of feeding your children a balanced diet, let’s just feed them vitamins. That’s not going to work, is it?”
This mechanization and specialization led US farms to become dependent on chemical and pharmaceutical inputs. Prior to this industrialization, integrated agriculture practices ensured that various species of animals and plants occupied the same area. This led to ecological diversity and the suppression of pests, weeds, or disease. But when you take away diversity and create a monoculture, disease in animal agriculture runs rampant requiring heavy usage of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. In a monoculture, weeds and pests are unmanageable and require massive amounts of herbicides and pesticides. These chemicals leach into the soil and can decrease SOM.
So why does all of this matter? Well to start, our lives depend on just 6 inches of soil depth, which contains a world full of organic matter. With a 1 acre slice of soil containing approximately 60,000 lbs of organic matter, our soil is teaming with life. As we overwork and dump chemicals into our soil through our monoculture farming practices, we get closer and closer to losing the main resource that keeps us alive. We lose the very thing that we need for our food, our health, and our climate.
This is why the switch from industrial agriculture to regenerative agriculture needs to occur now. Regenerative agriculture is the most holistic and soil-friendly way to grow our food and materials for our goods and clothing. This style of agriculture is a system of practices that conserves resources and focuses on growing in unison with natural ecological processes rather than against them. Some key benefits include:
Putting nutrients back into the soil through the use of nitrogen-fixing plants. Generally, this style of agriculture utilizes the integration of animals and crops to play a key role in nutrient cycling. In contrast to monocropping, chemical and pharmaceutical inputs and mechanization is decreased because the natural world doesn’t need those inputs to thrive and produce what we need to survive.
Combating climate change by allowing for carbon sequestration to occur. Regenerative farming practices take carbon from the atmosphere and put it back into the soil for the plants to use as a key nutrient for growth.
Preventing overworking and erosion of soil. Perennial planting is a practice of regenerative organic farming that is essential for reducing soil erosion. Through this practice, farmers plant crops that do not need to be replanted or reseeded every year, which results in a reduction of tilling. Tilling is one of the greatest culprits of soil loss and it usually occurs after each harvest on monoculture farms.
We just need to regain an understanding of how the natural world works, and work WITH it to grow our food, not AGAINST it.
A constant elephant in the room for environmentalist dinner party conversations- animal agriculture. Okay maybe not for you, but it is for us at times. We have all seen the anti-animal agriculture documentaries and read countless articles about how converting to a vegan diet would save the world from climate change and species loss. Not to get too personal about our various eating habits, but from an ecological perspective, the soil needs animal integration in our farmland. Take for example cattle-cattle raised in highly industrialized farms are one of the main sources of Greenhouse Gas emissions in agriculture. But, when integrated into croplands and when their grazing schedules are rotated via a precise timeline, cattle can actually sequester carbon in the soil and provide vital nutrients to the crops.
Now that you know a little bit more about the soil problem and some ways regenerative organic agriculture can be integrated, you are probably thinking that this is nice and all but what can I do to help if I’m not a farmer? Here are a few of tips on how to get involved and play your part in the revolution:
Buy clothing from companies that are leading the way in regenerative agriculture practices. Check out Patagnoia’s new initiative for their Regenerative Organic Certification. They are blazing the trail for regenerative agriculture and conservation of topsoil around the globe. Thrifting is also a great option to reduce the impact on our soil.
Compost your organic waste and put it back into the soil in your yard, even if you aren’t growing a garden.
Shift your diet to primarily plant-based and buy produce from local farmers’ markets and from farmers that use regenerative organic farming practices. If you buy meat, make sure it is organic, grass-fed, or Land to Market Certified (a certification for food that’s farmed regeneratively).
Follow and support companies and groups that are leading the way for regenerative organic farming practices. We love Moonshot Snacks, which creates crackers using regeneratively farmed ingredients while also helping connect regenerative farms to other brands that want to create climate-friendly products. Here is a list of 17 organizations promoting regenerative organic farming practices around the globe.
Seeing progress gives us hope. It is imperative that we as humans continuously innovate. When we become complacent and stuck in time, progress halts and global decay excels. Where would we be if we saw that cavemen created fire and said “well that’s it, that’s all we need”? What if progress halted? That is essentially what we have done with agriculture. We had incredible advances that need not be overlooked, but many of those advances have caused us and our planet great harm. Now it is time to innovate on those advances and create a new world of cultivation that preserves our soil, climate, our health, and our communities.
