What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is the process of restoring the environment through agriculture. The soil has the ability to store green house gases and fight climate change. The problem is that the soil has been destroyed through our current practices. So much so that data shows we on have about 60 harvests left if we do nothing. With the soil being decimated, the green houses gasses go up because there is not as much to sequester carbon.

Tilling and Mono cropping

Tilling the soil consists of using a tractor-like machine to turn the soil over faster and increase crop yield. It opens up aggregates to make microbes to decompose organic material faster. Tilling also kills microbes and erodes top soil. This is used with mono-crops especially. Mono cropping is very inconsistent with nature. It’s planting an entire field with only one crop. This type of agriculture attracts only certain types of pests, as opposed to nature. Nature has a variety of plants which attracts a variety of pests. The pests eat each other and everything is in balance. Because mono cropping only attracts the same pests that eat the one plant, a wide variety of pesticides need to be used. Mono cropping has to kill everything in sight to be established. If we let the soil be and do what it’s designed to, the microbes will do the job of tilling in a way that recycles nutrients and is restorative to the environment.

Pesticides and GMOs

The way pesticides effect the environment depends on four factors: Persistence, mobility, non targeted toxicity, and volume of use. Persistence is how long it’s in the environment, mobility is its ability to move to other areas. non targeted toxicity is how toxic it is to organisms other than the pest. Volume is how much of it was used. Pesticides can become volatile and cross contaminate other farms. There is some evidence that GMOs are harmful, but not a lot. what we do know with out a shadow of a doubt that what ever is sprayed on them is. Glyphosate is commonly sprayed on them.

Rotational Crops and Grazing, and Biodiversity

Crop rotation is planting each major plant family in different areas each year. This is done to protect against certain diseases, avoid nutrient depletion in the soil, and weed removal. Rotational grazing is the process of shifting where the cattle eat to prevent over grazing. This can be done with a fence to guided the cattle. Biodiversity is using a wide variety of plants and animals in agriculture. This promotes the overall health of the farm, and protects against soil depletion and mono cropping.

Is it Possible to Feed the Expanding world in a Regenerative Way?

There is a myth that we can’t feed the expanding earth in a regenerative way and have to use other methods. This is absolutely not true. The numbers that say this come from the land we use for feed lot beef, which is unsustainable. In contrast however, pasture raised beef actually creates more grassland and restores our environment. Growing more land means more animals and agriculture. We have about 5 billion Hectares of land, which is more than enough to feed the population.