Colette Kessler, USDA NRCS South Dakota
Many people believe that if you just focus on soil health, everything else will follow. This principal is prominently featured in a recent New York Times Magazine article, "Can Dirt Save the Earth?" which examines the practicality of regenerative agriculture.
Moises Velasquez-Manoof begins his lengthy piece with John Wick and his wife, Peggy Rathmann, two decades after they bought a ranch in Marin County, California, and began a quest to learn how to sequester carbon in the soil. The couple met with rangeland ecologist Jeff Creque back in 1998, after they noticed their land was quickly losing its vitality and an invasive weed was taking over. Creque suggested that the couple focus on cultivating what they wanted on their land instead of fighting against what they disliked.
<p>Creque also suggested that Wick and Rathmann hire some cows to graze their grasslands. Within weeks after the cows arrived, Wick was amazed at how the animals had already transformed the land. It made him realize what a mistake it had been to send away the neighbor's dairy cows when the couple first bought the land.</p><p>By summer's end, when Wick returned the cows to their owner, the animals had collectively gained about 50,000 pounds. Wick wondered where all the extra weight came from. In his article, Velasquez-Manoof explains:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Creque had an answer for him. The carbohydrates that fattened the cows had come from the atmosphere, by way of the grass they ate. Grasses, he liked to say, were like straws sipping carbon from the air, bringing it back to earth. Creque's quiet observation stuck with Wick and Rathmann. It clearly illustrated a concept that Creque had repeatedly tried to explain to them: Carbon, the building block of life, was constantly flowing from atmosphere to plants into animals and then back into the atmosphere. And it hinted at something that Wick and Rathmann had yet to consider: Plants could be deliberately used to pull carbon out of the sky.</p><p>This concept, now finally baked into the minds of Wick and Rathmann, is what took the couple on the path to learn just how much carbon they could actually sequester in their soil. They contacted <a href="https://ourenvironment.berkeley.edu/people/whendee-silver" target="_blank">Whendee Silver</a>, an ecologist at University of California, Berkeley. Silver agreed to measure the changes in their land to see if the soil carbon levels had changed since the cows' summer stay. After completing that task, for the next many years, Wick and Rathmann began studying how different techniques, including spreading compost on the land, could put carbon back into the ground.</p><p>"Regenerative food, farming and land use, including planned, rotational 'mob grazing' on restored pasturelands and grasslands is not only the next, more advanced stage of organics, but indeed our last and best hope for drawing down and sequestering enough carbon and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a> in our living soils to <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/4p1000" target="_blank">reverse global warming</a> and re-stabilize the climate," said Ronnie Cummins, international director for <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/" target="_blank">Organic Consumers Association</a> (OCA), a founding member of <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a> (RI) in response to the New York Times Magazine piece,</p><p>Velasquez-Manoof shares two other success stories of regenerative farmers who put their faith into <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/dirt-cure-why-human-health-depends-soil-health" target="_blank">restoring the soil</a> to not only benefit their land and produce healthy products, but to increase their return on investment through a more efficient and cost-effective way to farm.</p><p>Darin Williams, who lives near Waverly, Kansas, used to be a contractor. When his work dried up after the 2007 financial crisis, Williams decided to take a gamble and see if regenerative farming could turn around his family's land. Seven years later, he was glad he did.</p><p>"Had I not found this way to farm," he told Velasquez-Manoof, "we would not be farming."</p><p>Velasquez-Manoof described what he saw when he visited Williams farm last fall:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">In one of his fields, we walked down a lane he had mowed through his warm-weather cover crops—plants grown not to be harvested, but to enrich the soil—which towered over us, reaching perhaps eight feet. They included sorghum, a canelike grass with red-tinted tassels spilling from the tops, mung beans and green-topped daikon radishes low to the ground. Each plant was meant to benefit the earth in a different way. The long radishes broke it up and drew nutrients toward the surface; tall grasses like sorghum produced numerous fine rootlets, adding organic material to the land; legumes harbored bacteria that put nitrogen into the soil. His 120-strong herd of British white cattle—he introduced livestock in 2013—would eventually eat through the field, turning the plants into cow patties and enriching the soil further. Then he would plant his cash crops.<br>By focusing on soil health, Williams says he has reduced his use of herbicides by 75 percent and fertilizers by 45 percent. He doesn't use pesticides—he relies instead on beneficial insects for pest control—and he saves money by not buying expensive genetically modified, herbicide-resistant seed. He estimates that he produces a bushel of soybeans for about 20 percent less than his conventionally farming neighbors. Last fall, he claims, his yields ranked among the highest in the county. While doing all this, he has so far raised the amount of soil organic matter, a rough predictor of soil carbon concentrations, from around 2 percent to 3.5 percent in some fields.</p><p>North Dakota rancher and farmer Gabe Brown, who embraced the principles of regenerative agriculture in the 1990s, has more than tripled the carbon in his soil. An official with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service confirmed for Velasquez-Manoof that "the amount of carbon in Brown's soil—what his farming has pulled from the atmosphere—was between two and three times as high as it was in his neighbors' land."</p><p>The bottom line? Williams and Brown found ways to increase carbon in their soil while reducing their overall expenses, including inputs such as fertilizer and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticides</a>.</p><p>Unfortunately, Williams and Brown are still in the minority among farmers, and the regenerative farming methods they use are not yet the norm.</p><p>"More than 90 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs that Americans now consume come from cruel, unhealthy, highly-polluting, <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/boycott-factory-farm-foods-dont-forget-fish" target="_blank">climate-destabilizing factory farms</a> or animal prisons, where the confined animals are stuffed with pesticide-contaminated GMO grains and routinely dosed with dangerous levels of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antibiotics">antibiotics</a> and growth hormones," OCA's Cummins said.</p><p>"We can either have <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/factory-farming">factory farms</a> and so-called cheap food (not so cheap when you tally up the damage to human health and the environment), or else we can have a livable planet. We can't have both. <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/buying-guide" target="_blank">Consumers need to choose</a> healthy, humane, climate-friendly <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/organic">organic</a> and regenerative foods today and everyday."</p><p>But there's hope. Fortunately for consumers, and the health of the planet, regenerative agriculture is <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/2018/03/14/" target="_blank">taking off</a> worldwide—thanks in part to the work of <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a>, a nonprofit whose mission is to facilitate the global transition to regenerative agriculture and land-use practices and systems by communicating the important contribution of soil and its management as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate</a> solutions, and by <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/about-us/" target="_blank">building bridges</a> that bring together and promote best practices.</p><p>"Having the Velasquez-Manoff article in the New York Times Magazine is a breath of fresh air," said Precious Phiri. Phiri is founder of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EarthWisdom-595700663937241/?pnref=lhc" target="_blank">Earth Wisdom</a> and a member of the RI steering committee working on behalf of RI in South Africa. "We are finally getting out the urgent message of hope."<br><br>"From an African perspective, where about 80 percent of food comes from smallholder farmers, this write-up is critical," she explained. "We do not and cannot afford the luxury of high-input agriculture that has devastated most grasslands of the world, Africa included.</p><p>"We have to continuously and carefully incorporate ourselves into these living systems, learn closely from them and be a part of the life cycle, while regeneratively ploughing back. We have so much hope as humans, now more than ever, using the many solutions that have been discovered and can be applied in different contexts.</p><p>"The seed will sprout to many colors as the message of soil health has finally knocked on new doors," Phiri said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
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By Michael B. Commons
In my collaboration with Terra Genesis International, I have been given space and support to investigate what we may call "Regenerative Pathways," looking at real life examples of functional farming systems that we can identify as being on the "Regenerative Agriculture Pathway."
While these farms/farming systems might be called "Regenerative Farms," we see regeneration more as a long term process and continuum that we can evaluate through indicators such as soil health, water retention, biodiversity, community health and more.
<p>Of particular interest for us is to look at farms/systems that are producing "key economic crops" as so much of our land area is now dominated by "economic crops" and these crops' link to larger trade systems. With such a link there is the possibility to develop collaborative relationships to support regenerative practices and systems between farmers, consumers and intermediaries.</p><p>My wife and I, for many years, have been active members of the Thai Wanakaset (Agroforestry and Self-Reliance) network, which has a number of farmer members who live at the edges of natural forest reserves with wild <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elephants">elephant</a> populations. For most Thais in this situation, as well as farmers with whom I have spoken from Sri Lanka and Bhutan, this relationship and interaction is much more confrontational. </p><p>Generally, forest and wild areas are being reduced and transformed into farming monocultures, while the Thai wild elephant population is actually increasing 7 percent a year, according to a recent Thai PBS article. From my own observations living in this area around the Eastern Forest of Thailand, most all of the small marginal wild areas that served many species of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> have been removed in the last decade (converted to farmland or other uses). Therefore, the elephants are increasingly going out of the preserves and national parks to farms for food. </p><p>From what I have learned talking with those who live in and around the elephants, these four-legged beings are incredibly intelligent and adept learners, so they have learned and adapted to eat many new foods, like pineapples, corn and rice. My colleagues have told me that elephants can choose to politely harvest from fields rather than to destroy them. Yet for most Thai farmers, they don't accept any such sharing of their harvest. Thus, the greater focus has been on converting to crops that elephants don't like to eat, or using measures to prevent their entry or scare them away.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA3OTk5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5ODg0NDIzM30.1aZuJngrWd6tUvwV9_LqEKusJLYfO12a8DLa8woa9rc/img.jpg?width=980" id="3e27e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="99bb3637e04e7433777f040b363acdfb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Kanya shows banana trees next to her home that they have planted for the elephants. If the elephants are courageous to show themselves so close they can enjoy the banana stalks—which is what usually happens.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Michael B. Commons</small></p><p>The Wanakaset members of Pawa subdistrict, Chantaburi, have taken a very different path. They have developed diverse forest garden systems that allow space and place for wild elephants. Their farm environments have many different plants that the elephants can eat without needing to take or destroy the family's key crops. The stories these farmers tell are also quite amazing and inspiring. It seems that the elephants are completely aware of what the forest gardeners are doing and the lands they manage. They hold this coexistence in regard, coming regularly into these shared spaces and largely respecting the crops the humans ask to be left alone, while they enjoy other crops and places provided for them. </p><p>In my deeper vision of "Regeneration," I believe we need to heal the divide between humans and non-humans, and that humans can be stewards of lush gardens that provide valuable yields for humans and food and habitat for other living beings. As elephants are such a key species with great power, including the power to destroy, that we can find examples of a peaceful, balanced co-existence gives much hope. Thus I decided to embark on a journey to learn more from my farmer colleague, Ms. Kanya Duchita, to understand and share with others.<br></p><p>Kanya Duchita and her parents are students of Pooyai Viboon and practitioners of "Wanakaset," the philosophy and system of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/organic">organic</a> agroforestry and self-reliance that he taught. Wanakaset, like permaculture, is a design system that reflects the land, situation, needs, skills and interests of the people involved. The process should arrive at some form of an integrated forest garden system that meets the needs and interests of the farmer/gardeners who live in it and who guide its evolution. The land and climate of Pawa are favorable for wet tropical fruits (durian, mangosteen, langsat, rambutan) and rubber. Kanya's family land sits very close to Khao Chamao National Park, a healthy forest with a large number of resident wild elephants.</p><p>Michael Commons (MC): "Kanya you once told me that you practice Wanakaset because you are a lazy person. Can you really be lazy and practice Wanakaset (forest gardening)?</p><p>Kanya Duchita (KD): "The work of Wanakaset is light work all of the time, compared to conventional farmers who need to work very hard in periods, having to rush to complete their work. As forest gardeners we just need to do some light work and observation all of the time." </p><p>"As we work a bit all of the time, you might say we are not lazy, and we can choose to do more management and get better yields and returns, but at the same time our trees take care of themselves. If we just leave them alone they will be fine and we will still be able to harvest from them."</p><p>"We also have many diverse resources in our forest gardens during the whole year. Herbs such as bamboo grass (for heavy metal detoxification), Chamuang leaf (<em>Garcinia cowa</em> for heart disease and weight loss), we can harvest and process any time. That is, if we want to spend the time to harvest and process them. Even with fruits which are seasonal, we can sell fresh, but also process them for more value."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA4MDAxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDA2NjM2N30.CDu1obseVs_zkhK93Rbc9-kmwPNBD5RopEiqZL0-Z6I/img.jpg?width=980" id="2ae49" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="53531ae3153fc5a5f72df467b88e4d3b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A Mapram (Garcinia species) growing to the right of a productive rubber tree. This medicinal fruit tree came naturally once this rubber plantation was allowed to become a rubber forest. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Michael B. Commons</small></p><p>MC: "As I see most tropical fruit orchards are integrated and have durian, mangosteen, langsat and rambutan, how does your garden differ?"</p><p>KD: "As forest gardens we integrate more, like fiddle head ferns, pak wan pa (<em>Melientha suavis)</em>and different types of gingers and herbs that can live under the shade of these trees. We also plant pepper vines (black and long pepper) to directly climb up our trees. Most farmers would plant these separately, but we just let them grow up our trees and don't provide any other care. This is methodology derived from laziness."</p><p>"Most fruit gardeners don't like to have other trees around their durian trees as it can make harvesting (catching) the durian difficult. But we have observed that with this mix the soil quality is better and holds moisture much longer—meaning in dry season we need to water much less than conventional farmers, and when tropical windstorms come through we don't lose branches from our durian trees." </p><p>"Wild elephants are a big part of the reason we choose to practice forest gardening, if we only grow fruits (that we harvest and sell), then the elephants often come and eat this fruit and damage the trees. But in our very integrated system, we have many other trees with foods that elephants also enjoy to eat at the edges of our land, like bamboo and fishtail palms, which we do not mind at all if they eat. We have learned a lot from experience what is the best way to garden that can work for us and the elephants who are our neighbors and also come into our gardens."</p><p>MC: "You grow rubber as well, which we normally see only as a monoculture, but you have it in a very integrated garden system—does this affect yields?" </p><p>KD: "The yield (in rubber) per tree is not really different than in chemical plantations, but very different in terms of costs (much lower). In transitioning (to organic) we used manure for four or five years but since then did not need any fertilizer at all. Many older wild plants and trees came back after we stopped using herbicide. This includes wild vegetables, wild fruits, herbs and hardwoods. These produce valuable yields for us on top of the rubber. Now we are expanding our focus and cultivation of Mapram—a wild forest fruit related to mangosteen—which does very well in the shade of the rubber and is increasingly valued (probably <em>Garcinia hombroniana</em>)."</p><p>"So in some cases we have allowed the forest to come back under our rubber plantations—now rubber forests—but we also have planted rubber along with other species in integration from the start: sator beans (<em>Parkia speciosa</em>), boon nak, jantana (wood used for incense), dipterocarpus and ginger species, in between the rows of rubbers. In this case the rubber production is good for the whole year except for a break in the driest months, and then we have other valuable yields, such as sator-tree beans. My older brother also harvests many seeds for propagation as seedling trees to sell. The rubber yield is as good as others obtain with no use at all of fertilizer (including organic fertilizers beyond the first years). This rubber forest is still organized in rows and easy to enter and harvest."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA4MDAyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzY1NDA0Nn0.crMVtw3GZG9klGJvyU1-d2EyjlF-p8uELglA4CW6ZH8/img.jpg?width=980" id="8a8da" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="03275ad69ac30c5bbe933a923851f650" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A section of rubber integrated into a fruit and herb forest.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Michael B. Commons</small></p><p>MC: "How about native biodiversity and wildlife?" </p><p>KD: "All three of our gardens have good edible mushrooms growing with them, mycorrhizal and termite mushrooms. There are many birds everywhere and of many different species. These birds also help us in propagation—they have seeded rattan and pak wan (a delicious edible perennial vegetable) all around and brought some unusual varieties to our garden from afar. We also have many squirrels who do eat and sometimes damage our fruits. While many other gardeners shoot squirrels, we just leave damaged and unattractive fruit for them on the trees."</p><p>MC: "What about snakes as I have heard many rubber growers say that snakes are a threat harvesting in the very early morning?"</p><p>KD: "While snakes can be scary, I don't really feel we have more snakes, and maybe even less problem as it seems they have their own space to live and be apart from humans (in our garden) and don't bother us."</p><p>With Kanya, we see three garden types showing three different pathways to integration.</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Fruit forest, with rubber and herbs: This was their existing tropical fruit orchard—still with strong valuable productive fruit trees like durian. In some areas, they then added rubber trees into this mix as well bringing in and allowing many smaller herbs, vines and more to be under, on and around the trees. While there is ample space for access (and even to allow elephants through) the rubber is not at all in rows and the feel is like a mature forest.</li></ul><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Rubber forest: Let the rubber plantation evolve into a rubber forest—allow herbs, wild fruits and trees to come back. This seems like the easiest path towards regeneration, allowing Mother Nature and her helpers to take to the task. It is clear from what Kanya explained that there are seed and root reserves under and around always, so just by stopping the use of herbicide and allowing the forest to come back, it will. Birds also clearly play a key role in propagation. Then the gardener just manages to allow and support what comes, and removes what is not convenient or of particular interest or ready to be harvested.</li></ul><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Strip intercropping: Plant rubber trees in rows (7-8 meters between rows—according to best practices such a distance is needed for good production in any case—being closer creates too much competition between the rubber trees and less yields) and in between plant a row of different forest and fruit trees that do well in a garden forest environment and provide yields that the farmer/gardener knows how to use. This seems like the best path if starting fresh. However, Kanya and her family have developed a lot of knowledge and experience both in what grows well together, and in the different uses of many different species of trees, fruits and herbs. While the Duchita family shares their knowledge freely and encourages others to practice forest gardening, even someone without such contacts and with little experience can try and plant different trees and herbs that are interesting and may do well, but then observe, learn and evolve (with) his/ her forest garden over time.</li></ul><p>From an economic basis, this system wins on many levels: less cost, less work, no less yield in the key economic crops (rubber and tropical fruits), and far greater diversity of total yields. While there are many other indicators, just the peaceful co-existence of the wild elephants in these forest gardens is proof of their ecological success. Most farmers do not appear to be prepared to accept living in and around diverse forest systems with wildlife; adoption is quite low. However, the third method explained above could be easier to accept and adopt for someone who wants an organized and orderly system.</p><p>Another Wanakaset farmer who lives not too far away, Ms. Kamolpatara Kasikrom, explained to me more about elephant behavior. She said that resident elephants are territorial and spread out to different areas to feed. For a given territory, about one to three elephants will manage and eat from it. It seems clear that the forest gardens are considered by the elephants to be part of their managed territory, whereas most all farms where humans try to keep elephants out are not part of their territory. The greatest damage from elephants can come when a large herd transmigrates. Resident elephants will protect their territories from such herds and the damage they can bring. No such protection is offered to an unfriendly parcel. While elephants are exceptionally intelligent beings, I believe this may touch to the very core of both our problem and the solution. Here we see that if we consider our land not to be exclusively ours, but also to belong to the many other lifeforms, and we manage it accordingly, these other beings will come to hold the same vision and practice, also working to manage the land for sustainable health and productivity.</p>
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"...the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope." — Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays.
It was a soil scientist who reminded me recently of something we self-obsessed humans often forget: We don't need to worry about saving the planet. The planet will save itself.
<p style="">Planet Earth will survive in one form or another, no matter what damage we humans inflict on it. The question is, will we survive with it?</p><p>Or will we destroy Earth's ability to sustain life, all life, as we know it?</p><p style="">We had that conversation sitting around a table in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where about 100 people from 22 countries gathered in September for the second <a href="http://regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a> (RI) General Assembly. We were there to evaluate what the group had accomplished since our last gathering in June 2015, when we <a href="http://regenerationinternational.org/2015/06/08/scientists-business-and-farmers-from-21-nations-launch-movement-to-feed-the-planet-and-reverse-climate-change-via-regenerative-agriculture/" target="_blank">launched RI</a>, and what we wanted—and needed—to do next.</p><p style="">We came from different organizations, different countries, different backgrounds. We were scientists, farmers, activists, business leaders, policy wonks, writers.</p><p style="">Our concerns ranged from environmental pollution, health, food safety and food sovereignty to economic and social justice, the <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-regenerative-food-and-farming-can-reverse-rural-poverty-and-forced-migration-americas" target="_blank">global refugee crisis</a> and global warming.</p><p style="">We had come together to renew our commitment to the one movement that we believe has the power to address all our individual and collective concerns, the movement that holds the most hope for resolving the multiple and deepening global crises of hunger, poverty, crumbling political systems and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>.</p><p style="">The Regeneration Movement. The movement that begins with healing our most critical resources—soil, water, air—through better farming and land management practices. And ends with healing our local communities and global societies and <a href="http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/climate/ClimatePolicyBrief4.pdf" target="_blank">restoring climate stability.</a></p><p style=""><strong>A Movement By Any Other Name</strong></p><p style="">When the founders (<a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/" target="_blank">Organic Consumers Association</a> is a founding partner) of RI first came together to formalize the organization, we struggled with the word "regeneration." It was too long. Not memorable. No sex appeal.</p><p style="">In the end, we decided it was the right word. Turns out, it was also the right time.</p><p style="">The word—and the movement—have taken off far faster than we anticipated, and spread farther than we dared hope.</p><p style="">Increasing numbers of farmers, consumers, environmental and animal welfare activists, economists and scientists are talking about the potential power of regeneration.</p><p style="">Many aren't just talking, they're doing.</p><p style="">In the U.S. where <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness">industrial agriculture</a> has dominated (and degenerated) for far too long, a growing number of farmers are reclaiming their independence by returning to their roots.</p><p>It's happening In <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/scenes-regenerative-revolution" target="_blank">Nebraska</a>. In <a href="http://www.timescall.com/lifestyles/ci_31565418/boulder-longmon-farmers-market-mccauley" target="_blank">Colorado</a>. In <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/organic-farmers-sprouting-across-iowa" target="_blank">Iowa</a>. In <a href="https://agfundernews.com/pasturebird-expands-to-create-largest-pastured-poultry-farm-in-us-using-regenerative-techniques.html" target="_blank">California</a>. </p><p style="">In <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/2017/10/29/how-wolfes-neck-farm-is-combating-climate-change/" target="_blank">Maine</a>, Wolfe's Neck Farm, recently renamed Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, has not only gone regenerative, it has hired a scientist who's developing tools to measure how much carbon the farm is sequestering through its soil-management practices.</p><p style="">Consumers and citizen activists are directly and indirectly supporting organic, regenerative agriculture <a href="https://thebossmagazine.com/us-organic-food-sales-growth/" target="_blank">more than ever before</a>.</p><p style="">Last year saw the citizens of Tonganoxie, Kansas, fed up with factory farms ruining their communities, take on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tyson-foods-toxic-dead-zone-2504305201.html">Tyson</a>, one of the largest factory farm operators (and <a href="https://environmentamerica.org/news/ame/report-tyson-1-water-polluter-among-agribusinesses" target="_blank">largest polluters</a>). They shut down Tyson's project.</p><p>In Nebraska, a group of citizen activists who support <a href="https://theleap.org/portfolio-items/scenes-from-a-regenerative-revolution/" target="_blank">regeneration</a>, with help from the Nebraska Farmers Union, are working to keep a giant <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/costco-plans-fowl-project-nebraska" target="_blank">Costco factory farm</a> out of their state.</p><p style="">Activists and politicians in <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/04/13/put-halt-cafo-construction-iowa/100175314/" target="_blank">Iowa</a> and <a href="https://sustainruralwisconsin.org/" target="_blank">Wisconsin</a> are calling for moratoriums on the construction of new industrial <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/factory-farming">factory farms</a>.</p><p style="">An Idaho court just <a href="http://www.politicopro.com/f/?id=00000160-c2de-da3c-a371-c2fee5850001" target="_blank">ruled against</a> industrial agriculture by striking down most parts of an Idaho "ag-gag" law prohibiting undercover investigations at livestock facilities aimed at exposing animal abuse and violations of environmental laws.</p><p>At the federal level, despite the current pro-corporation administration, lawmakers are proposing new laws and programs to help more farmers transition from industrial to organic regenerative agriculture.</p><p style="">In an effort to fix the Farm Bill in a big way, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has introduced the <a href="https://blumenauer.house.gov/sites/blumenauer.house.gov/files/2017-11-15%20Food%20and%20Farm%20Act%20Highlights.pdf" target="_blank">Food & Farm Act</a>. The bill focuses on programs designed to promote healthy food and reduce industrial agriculture's impact on the environment by providing greater assistance to producers of organic and regenerative food.</p><p>Representatives Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), recognizing that <a href="https://action.organicconsumers.org/content_item/oca-email?email_blast_KEY=1383581" target="_blank">organic farming equals economic prosperity</a> for struggling rural communities, recently introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4671" target="_blank">Organic Farmers Access Act</a>. </p><p style="">On the policy level, the Organic Consumers Association has always and will <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/about-oca" target="_blank">continue to advocate</a> for policy reforms that shift agricultural subsidies and appropriations away from industrial monoculture commodity crop farming and industrial meat and dairy production toward support for farmers transitioning to an organic <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/2017/10/29/how-wolfes-neck-farm-is-combating-climate-change/" target="_blank">regenerative</a> paradigm that improves public health, revives strong local economies, renews biodiversity, reduces environmental pollution and restores climate stability.</p><p>But we'll need an engaged consumer and citizen base to make this movement a success.</p><p style=""><strong>Consumers Will Drive the Transition to Regeneration</strong></p><p>Concerns about chronic illness and rampant obesity have a growing number of consumers looking to change their diets.</p><p>Consumer demand is behind <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/196952/organic-food-sales-in-the-us-since-2000/" target="_blank">record sales of organic food</a> in the U.S. and in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/19/sales-of-organic-food-soar-fruit-vegetables-supermarkets" target="_blank">other countries</a>. But as consumers demand better quality and greater transparency, they're taking a more critical look at what organic means, and whether a product lives up to what has always been considered the gold standard—USDA organic.</p><p style="">Many organic producers do adhere to those standards. Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/13/more-than-a-million-hens-filling-barns-at-three-per-square-foot-and-yes-theyre-usda-organic/?utm_term=.a273ad9b853f" target="_blank">some don't</a>. Skepticism about "Big Organic" has led some consumers to look for more local suppliers, including farms they can inspect in person, in their own communities.</p><p>Distrust of big organic brands has also led to the creation of new certifications and standards for consumers who want to support regenerative producers. A collaborative effort with the Rodale Institute and other groups produced the new <a href="https://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerativeorganic/" target="_blank">Regenerative Organic Standard (ROC)</a>. The Savory Institute recently announced its new <a href="https://www.savory.global/landtomarket-old/" target="_blank">Land to Market (L2M) Program</a>. And earlier last year, the American Grassfed Association announced <a href="http://www.americangrassfed.org/aga-board-approves-grassfed-dairy-standard/" target="_blank">new standards</a> for grass-fed dairy products.</p><p>As more consumers demand higher standards, brands will have to respond. After all, when <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/12/19/mcdonalds-regenerative-agriculture.aspx" target="_blank">McDonald's starts talking "regenerative"</a> it signals a recognition—and validation—of consumers' changing preferences.</p><p>Exercising our purchasing power to move markets toward regeneration is one way consumers can propel the Regeneration Movement forward. We can also support policy change, at the local, state and federal levels, that supports the transition to regenerative agriculture.</p><p style="">But it will take more than that to scale up regeneration fast enough to restore Earth's health. It will take actively engaging in <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/first-steps-toward-building-regeneration-movement-your-local-community" target="_blank">building the movement</a> in our own communities—a call-to-action that both Organic Consumer Association and Regeneration International will emphasize and prioritize in 2018. (<a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/lets-make-2018-year-we-rise-and-regenerate" target="_blank">Sign up here </a>for more information).</p><p style="">The future of the Regeneration Movement depends on all of us. Will we rise to the occasion?</p>
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COP23: Climate Conference Tip-Toes Around Regenerative Agriculture as Solution to Global Warming
16 November 2017
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By Ercilia Sahores
On Nov. 6, the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicked off in Bonn, Germany, the nation's former capital. Germany is one of the world's worst offenders when it comes to pollution. It's also the largest polluter in all of Europe. But Germany is not alone in the polluting business—and countries are not the only big polluters.
The world's top 20 meat and dairy companies emitted more greenhouse gases in 2016 than all of Germany, according to a report published by GRAIN, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and Heinrich Böll Foundation.
<p style="">Let us briefly go back to COP23, where Big Meat and Dairy are also participating. Several statements have been made so far at the meeting and there have been a few surprises. Unfortunately, it seems that COP23 will not be particularly innovative, especially when it comes to agricultural policies.</p><p style=""><strong>COP23 Started Under the Following Premises:</strong></p><p style=""><strong>1. </strong>There is no time to waste and the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris agreement</a> must be implemented as soon as possible.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>2. </strong>The climate disasters we experienced in 2017 (devastating hurricanes and floods, long droughts and extreme temperatures) are not isolated, random events. Rather, they're directly connected to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a> and unless we do something about it, they'll become more and more frequent.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>3. </strong>With or without the U.S. being part of the negotiations, those countries that have signed up must commit to reaching the goal of making sure warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, and ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>4. </strong>Rich countries must compensate poor countries, which are the most vulnerable to climate change, even when they have been the least responsible for it. The financial commitment agreed upon in Paris is now being reviewed to see if it is sufficient and adequate. It's also crucial to determine how the funding that would have come from the U.S. will be covered once it officially leaves the agreement in 2020.</p><p style=""><strong>COP23 Surprises</strong></p><p style=""><strong>1. </strong><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/syria-paris-agreement-2507449170.html">Syria</a>, the only country that had not signed the Paris climate agreement after Nicaragua joined in late October, has finally agreed to be part of it. As a result, the U.S. has become increasingly more isolated as it's now the only nation on Earth that does not recognize the agreement.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>2. </strong>The general mood (COP's halls are usually the best place to get an idea of what people are really thinking about—beyond protocol) is that the U.S. government's decision to leave the agreement has only created a stronger sense of solidarity among nations, which can now implement and lead the charge to reverse climate change. Many nations are competing to be the recipient of international recognition, as well as the distribution of copious amounts of funding, which in turn will pave the way for the creation of a number of agencies, departments and many other intermediate bodies.</p><p style=""><strong>COP23 As Usual:</strong></p><p style=""><strong>1. </strong>The negotiation of agreements behind closed doors while civil society organizations and NGOs host side events. This is a way to prove that during COPs, there is civil society participation, but without ever really having to compromise.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>2. </strong>Giving more relevance to controversial solutions to which much capital has already been invested and promised, such as <a href="http://ecowatch.com/tag/geoengineering">geoengineering</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear">nuclear energy</a>. It's not a coincidence that despite saying the U.S. will not be part of the negotiations, the Trump administration sent a team to COP23 to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/protestors-cop23-bloomberg-2509352387.html">advocate for more fossil fuel use</a>.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>3. </strong>Pushing existing projects that have proven effective for fighting climate change, but don't seem to have the same financial incentive.</p><p style=""><span></span><strong>4. </strong>Unfortunately, from what we've seen so far, the negotiations seem to ignore <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/regenerative-agriculture">regenerative agriculture</a> as being the solution to climate change. While predictable, this is actually a greater setback than other COPs, which have at least mentioned agriculture, desertification and soil restoration as being key factors in reversing climate change.</p><p style=""><strong>Why Agriculture?</strong></p><p style="">As previously mentioned, last year the world's top 20 meat and dairy companies emitted more greenhouse gases than all of Germany. Industrialized agriculture, which doesn't account for the 500 plus million small farmers and 200 million herders that exist in the world, is a type of production that pollutes the atmosphere, our soils and waterways.</p><p style="">Industrialized agriculture has huge negative impacts on human health too. While producing and selling poison, Big Agriculture ruins not just local economies, but also the means of life and survival of thousands of farmers who rely on a healthy environment for their production.</p><p style="">At <a href="http://regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a>, we know that industrial agriculture is a critical part of the problem. But we also know that agriculture, done the right way or rather the regenerative way, is a fundamental part of the solution.</p><p style="">The conversations at COP23 would be entirely different if Big Meat and Dairy giants like Cargill, Tyson or JBS were held accountable for the health and environmental destruction they have caused—a significant portion of which has been funded by government subsidies.</p><p style="">COP23 negotiations could actually focus on real solutions if polluting corporations acknowledged their contribution to climate change, and transitioned away from chemical- and factory farm-based agriculture to a system focused on soil health, animal welfare, nutritious food and farmworker rights.</p><p style="">Instead, the negotiations have thus far focused on whether or not the Paris agreement is achievable, a lack of funding and Trump's latest insult. A genuine effort to hold polluting corporations accountable would shift the mood at COP23 from the same corporate rhetoric we so often hear to one centered on human health, environment and climate-related solutions.</p>
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How Regenerative Food and Farming Can Reverse Rural Poverty and Forced Migration in the Americas
06 November 2017
Insights + Opinion
One of the most politically charged debates today, especially in the U.S. and Europe, is the so-called "immigration crisis." There are approximately 250 million (3 percent of the world's 7.6 billion people) migrants in the world today. About 20 percent or 47 million of those, live in the U.S. Another 35 million live in Europe.
<p style="">Inter Press News Service <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/10/open-or-closed-borders-or-something-in-between/" target="_blank">reported</a>: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Recent elections around the world have clearly shown growing <a href="http://www.wsj.com/video/what-is-fueling-global-anti-immigration-populism/74C42776-FEBD-4B8A-BF67-8247C6393F88.html" target="_blank">public support</a> for candidates and political parties advocating the deportation of migrants and stricter restrictions on immigration, including halting it altogether. At the same time, <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-trum-travel-ban-reaction-20170925-story.html" target="_blank">opposition,</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration/u-s-civil-liberties-group-to-challenge-trumps-new-travel-ban-idUSKCN1C42XM" target="_blank">challenges</a> and <a href="https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/201-don-t-touch-our-children-french-citizens-rise-in-opposition-to-the-deportation-of-illegal-immigrant-families" target="_blank">resistance to deportations</a> and <a href="https://openborders.info/blog/resistance-u-s-immigration-restriction-echoes-opposition-fugitive-slave-laws/" target="_blank">immigration restrictions</a> have become more widespread, visible and vocal.</p><p style="">In the U.S., <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch">Donald Trump</a> has consolidated a mass base of support among white racists and conservatives by repeatedly vilifying the nation's 10 million undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants as "criminals and rapists." Trump has promised to build a wall along the Mexican border and to deport all "illegal aliens" including 800,000 "dreamers"—Latin American immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and don't have citizenship papers.</p><p style="">Trump and proponents of mass deportation fail to acknowledge that U.S. foreign policy—specifically the failed War on Drugs; longstanding support for corrupt regimes, police and military forces in Mexico and Central America; and the so-called Free Trade Agreements (NAFTA and CAFTA)—have brought about the systematic impoverishment of small farmers and rural inhabitants South of the Border, inflaming gang and drug cartel violence, forcing millions to cross into the U.S. illegally.</p><p style="">Meanwhile hard-working immigrants lacking citizenship or working papers in the U.S. pay billions of dollars in taxes, strengthen immigrant and low-income communities, send back billions of dollars in "remesas" (remittances) to their families and home communities every year. They often work several jobs, providing a major boost for the U.S. economy, especially in the farm, food processing, restaurant, health care and construction sectors, where work is hard and pay is low.</p><p style="">At the recent regional Summit on Migrants and Returnees in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala, Oct. 20-21, a new and promising solution to the global "immigration crisis" emerged: the creation of local, grassroots-powered economic development projects based on regenerative food, farming and land-use practices.</p><p style=""><a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regenerative food and farming</a> is the new gold standard for climate and environmentally friendly agriculture and land use across the world. An increasing number of food and farming leaders have described <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/regenerative-agriculture">regenerative agriculture</a> as the "next stage" of <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/organlink" target="_blank">organic </a>food and farming.</p><p style="">Regenerative practices are essentially enhanced organic and permaculture production methods that exclude pesticides, <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/categories/genetic-engineering" target="_blank">GMO</a> seeds and factory farm techniques. Regenerative practices focus on improving soil health, water retention and rainfall conservation, and on using crop rotation, agro-forestry and planned rotational grazing—with the intention of sequestering excess carbon from the atmosphere. </p><p>A growing number of regenerative farms and ranches worldwide are demonstrating how farmers and herders can restore soil health, improve food nutrition and increase yields, while at the same time strengthening local food systems and traditional practices (such as seed saving and small-scale animal husbandry), empowering women and youth, and restoring or enhancing community food security.</p><p style="">Participants at the Migrant Summit in Guatemala discussed how a "three-for-one" grassroots-powered matching grant or loan program of cross-border financing, supported by immigrants, returnees, citizens and local municipalities could potentially provide the resources for a major transformation of the region's food, farming and land-use practices.</p><p style="">Leaders of the newly formed alliance, Regeneration Guatemala, explained that the restoration of soil carbon and fertility, water conservation, rainfall catchment, and the utilization of organic and "beyond organic" grain production, agro-forestry and regenerative livestock (especially poultry) practices, could make Guatemala an agricultural leader in the region. By regenerating Guatemala's agricultural system, the country could eventually supply its 16 million people with affordable, high-quality, nutrient-dense food, and also provide employment and much-needed economic development in the countryside and adjoining urban areas, where poverty and crime are the major drivers of forced migration.</p><p style="">Guatemala is a predominately rural, indigenous and agricultural nation, similar to other nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, where forced migration has become a critical issue. A full 67 percent of Guatemala's citizens, as well as the majority of the over two million Guatemalan immigrants in the U.S. (75 percent of whom are potentially subject to deportation by the Trump administration) come from rural communities where poverty, malnutrition and environmental degradation are the norm. A similar situation throughout the region has driven millions of Mexicans, Salvadorans and Hondurans over the past few decades into forced exile in the U.S. and Canada.</p><p>As participants at the Xela Summit stressed over and over again, many of their compatriots in forced exile in El Norte (the North) would be happy to return to their families and home communities, if only there were jobs and social stability.</p><p style="">The more than 1,500 assembled delegates in Quetzaltenango applauded enthusiastically when speakers pointed out that Guatemala's so-called Green Revolution, which includes the heavy use of toxic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, monocrop production, GMOs and the agro-export model, has had a disastrous effect on their home communities and nations. The reaction was the same when speakers talked about the junk food/fast food model, represented by Coca-Cola, McDonald's, KFC and Burger King, and the so-called Free Trade Agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreements.</p><p>Conference attendees, representing a broad cross section of indigenous communities, small farmers, agricultural co-ops, students, church activists, migrant rights advocates, and "retornados" (immigrants who have returned or been deported from the U.S), enthusiastically endorsed the idea of using traditional and regenerative agriculture practices to restore food security, public health, climate stability and rural prosperity in the impoverished zones of Mexico and Central America where forced migration has become the norm.</p><p style="">As native Guatemalan Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin of the Minnesota-based <a href="http://mainstreetproject.org/" target="_blank">Main Street Project</a> and <a href="http://www.regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a> put it, by developing pilot regenerative agriculture systems, such as the <a href="http://www.granjasregenerativas.com/" target="_blank">Regenerative Poultry Project</a> throughout the U.S. and Mexico "can bring about a revolution of ideas and a flow of capital" into impoverished rural communities where so-called Green Revolution chemical- and energy-intensive farming practices have failed. (La Hora newspaper Oct. 21).</p><p style="">Beyond the discussion of Trump's wall, mass deportations and the racist discrimination faced by millions of undocumented Latinos in the U.S., the Migrant Summit attendees responded enthusiastically to the idea that communities "aquí y allá," ("here and there") could join together and raise the "seed money" for a new healthy, climate-friendly and economically viable system of food and farming.</p><p style="">I learned at the Summit that Guatemalan migrants in the U.S. already send back close to $7 billion a year in money transfers to their families and home communities—twice the amount of money that Guatemalan agro-exporters receive for all of their exports of products such as coffee and bananas. Salvadoran migrants send back a similar amount, while Mexican migrants will send back more than $70 billion dollars to their home communities this year. Channeling a strategic percentage of these remittances into community-based regenerative agriculture projects, along with pressuring local and federal governments to match these migrant "remesas," could not only restore hope and vitality to these rural communities, but also dramatically reduce the number of forced migrants. Even Donald Trump's fans of mass deportation might have trouble rejecting this type of cross-border "bootstrap" financing for local economic development.</p><p style="">As I explained to the conference attendees during the final plenary session, regenerative agriculture is not some new invention by organic farmers and ranchers in the Global North. It's the adaptation of ancient farming practices, such as the traditional Mayan system of agro-forestry, multi-crop "milpa" farming (corn, beans, squash and other vegetables), natural compost and holistic poultry and livestock management.</p><p style="">A form of what is now called regenerative agriculture, or regenerative organic agriculture, was practiced over thousands of years ago by Mayan and indigenous people throughout the Americas. The Mayans survived and thrived in harmony with the Earth—without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, GMOs or concentrated animal confinement. They fed themselves while also maintaining a proper carbon cycle (a balance between CO2 in the atmosphere and carbon in the soil and forests) and a biologically healthy and diverse <a href="http://blog.rolexawards.com/2016/02/anthropologist-challenges-traditional-view-of-maya-civilization/" target="_blank">environment</a>. </p><p style="">Our mission today as "regenerators" throughout the Americas and the world is to recapture, reestablish and scale up these traditional practices. We must modify them to match the specific ecological and marketplace conditions in our local areas and regions. In this manner we can regenerate the soil, dramatically improve yields and food quality, restore public health, eliminate the pressures that cause forced migration, and last but certainly not least, draw down and sequester enough excess carbon from the atmosphere through enhanced plant photosynthesis and reforestation to reverse global warming and climate disruption.</p><p style="">Beyond the still-utopian dream of open borders, Guatemalans and indigenous communities have begun discussing in practical terms what we can do right now to mitigate and eventually put a halt to forced migration. We owe it to them and to ourselves to change the discussion on the "immigration crisis" from walls and deportation to one of cross-border solidarity and regeneration.</p>
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Conscious consumers won't have to wait much longer for clear guidance on how to buy food and other products that are not only certified organic, but also certified regenerative.
On Wednesday, the Rodale Institute unveiled draft standards for a new Regenerative Organic Certification, developed by Rodale and a coalition of farmers, ranchers, nonprofits, scientists and brands.
When finalized, the certification will go "beyond organic" by establishing higher standards for soil health and land management, animal welfare and farmer and worker fairness.
<p style=""><a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/">Organic Consumer Association</a> and our <a href="http://regenerationinternational.org/" target="_blank">Regeneration International</a> project, fully embrace this new venture to make organic more climate friendly, humane, just and environmentally positive. <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/Andr%C3%A9%20Leu%20and%20Ronnie%20Cummins" target="_blank">As we've said</a> before, when it comes to food and farming—and as we veer toward <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate</a> catastrophe—"sustainable" doesn't cut it anymore. And certified USDA organic, though far better than <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/gmo-genetically-modified-organism/">GMO</a>, chemical and energy-intensive agriculture, doesn't go quite far enough.</p><p style="">The standard will be administered by <a href="http://www.nsf.org/" target="_blank">NSF International</a>, an Ann Arbor, Michigan based product testing, inspection and certification organization, and will be open to multiple certification partners, according to Rodale.</p><p style="">When companies like <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto">Monsanto</a> and Bayer claim to be "sustainable" and "climate-smart," those terms lose all meaning. When companies like Ben & Jerry's, which relies on an industrial dairy system fueled by GMO crops, <a href="https://action.organicconsumers.org/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19757" target="_blank">claim to be</a> "sustainable," we know that word has been co-opted—and corrupted.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"><iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode twitter-embed-893581108788547584" id="twitter-embed-893581108788547584" type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-893581108788547584&created_ts=1501881312.0&screen_name=EcoWatch&text=Glyphosate+in+Ben+%26amp%3B+Jerry%27s+Ice+Cream+%2B+%27Monsanto+Papers%27+%3D+Very+Interesting+Times+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FSbucvfmGLZ+%40NonGMOProject+%40GMOTruth&id=893581108788547584&name=EcoWatch" frameborder="0" data-rm-shortcode-id="FBX8GO1505737802"></iframe></p>
<p style="">We've always supported USDA organic certification—even though the standards are sometimes flawed and sometimes <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/organics-ferreting-out-fraudulent-few-while-demanding-higher-standards-better-enforcement" target="_blank">exploited</a> by a few bad actors—because we believe them to be the best way for consumers to avoid <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticides</a> and synthetic ingredients. We'll continue to fight for stronger, better organic standards, and we'll hold fast against allowing corporations to weaken or exploit them.<br></p><p style="">But we also believe it's time to do better. It's time to acknowledge the role organic regenerative agriculture plays reversing global warming, by restoring the soil's capacity to draw down and sequester excess CO2 from the atmosphere. It's time to acknowledge that organic, regenerative agriculture increases crop resiliency by restoring soil health and biodiversity.</p><p style="">It's time to recognize that <a href="http://regenerationinternational.org/2017/05/31/regeneration-next-stage-organic-food-farming-civilization/" target="_blank">regeneration is the next stage of organic food and farming</a>—and civilization.</p><p style="">This new Organic Regenerative Certification will help consumers identify those products that not only nourish their bodies, but also heal the planet.</p>
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"World governments spend $486 billion a year to subsidize an industrial food and farming model that the United Nations estimates, contributes 43-57 percent of total man-made greenhouse gas emissions," said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association.
"It's time to stop subsidizing agricultural practices that contribute to global warming, and start subsidizing food, farming and land-use practices that restore the soil's capacity to draw down and re-sequester excess carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil."
Speaking to a panel hosted by the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum in conjunction with the COP22 Climate Summit, Cummins told participants that "Climate-Smart Agriculture," is a clever term used to describe a limited approach to adapting to climate change and to addressing global food insecurity through agricultural practices that fail to meet the standard of regeneration.
"Scientists tell us that even if we achieve zero emissions tomorrow, the planet would continue to heat up for another thousand years," Cummins said. "Our best hope to avert a climate disaster, restore public health and revitalize rural economies must include a plan that not only achieves zero emissions, but also draws down the billions of tons of excess carbon already in the atmosphere. That plan exists. It's call regenerative agriculture or agroecology."
The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank coined the term "Climate-Smart Agriculture" at the 2010 Hague Conference on Food Security, Agriculture and Climate Change. The Food and Agriculture Organization floated the concept as a "triple win" for a type of agriculture that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help crops adapt to changing climate conditions and increase yields.
Last year, more than 350 national and international civil society groups, including the Organic Consumers Association and Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association, signed a letter urging decision-makers to reject what the groups called the "growing influence and agenda of so-called 'Climate-Smart Agriculture' and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture." The groups criticized the lack of criteria for deciding what can or cannot be called "Climate Smart" and pointed to the potential for agribusiness corporations that promote synthetic fertilizers, industrial meat production and large-scale industrial agriculture—big contributors to global warming—to co-opt the term.
In the U.S., fossil-fuel-intensive agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, who are members of the North American chapter of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, claim to be practitioners of "Climate-Smart Agriculture."
The People Take on Monsanto for Crimes Against Humanity in International Tribunal
13 October 2016
Popular
Starting tomorrow, 30 witnesses and legal experts from five different continents will testify before five international judges at the three-day Monsanto Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Their testimonies will attempt to hold the agrochemical giant accountable for their alleged "crimes against humanity" and destruction of the environment, or "ecocide."
This symbolic trial, which will be live streamed from Oct. 15, 8:30 a.m. GMT+2 on the tribunal website, will follow guidelines of the United Nations's international court of justice and will have no legal standing. Rather, its purpose is to gather legal counsel from the judges as well as legal grounds for future litigation.
"The aim of the tribunal is to give a legal opinion on the environmental and health damage caused by the multinational Monsanto," the tribunal organizers state on their website. "This will add to the international debate to include the crime of Ecocide into international criminal law. It will also give people all over the world a well documented legal file to be used in lawsuits against Monsanto and similar chemical companies."
Monsanto, which is inching closer to a $66 billion takeover from German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer, has faced a never-ending slew of health and environmental controversies over its products since, well, the beginning of the twentieth century.
Monsanto's historical line-up of products includes banned and highly toxic chemicals such as 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (a dioxin-containing component of the defoliant Agent Orange); PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl); and Lasso, a herbicide banned in Europe. Glyphosate, the controversial main ingredient in Monsanto's best-selling weedkiller RoundUp, is the most widely used pesticide in the world. Monsanto is also the world's largest genetically modified (GMO) seed maker, giving them a major hand over the world food supply.
The trial, which will proceed on the same weekend as World Food Day, is organized by Organic Consumers Association, International Foundation for Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) Organics International, Navdanya, Regeneration International, Millions Against Monsanto as well as dozens of global food, farming and environmental justice groups.
Tribunal organizer Vandana Shiva is an outspoken critic of Monsanto. "Monsanto has come to be seen as one of the most dangerous corporations on the planet," the physicist, author, activist and founder of Navdanya said in a statement.
"It has earned this reputation through a history of producing products toxic to humans and the environment, as well as well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, disingenuous PR efforts and applying relentless political pressure worldwide to promote its products. Life, society and democracy are under threat. We refuse to allow this future to unfold."
Andre Leu, president of IFOAM, said, "Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products, and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, and by manipulating the press and media. Monsanto's history reads like a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet."
Monsanto will not be present at the trial, calling it a "staged" event organized by the organic food industry "where the outcome is pre-determined."
"As this is a stunt staged and supported by the International Foundation for Organic Agriculture (IFOAM)—an umbrella organization of organic agriculture organizations, and their associates such as Navdanya and others who are fundamentally opposed to modern agriculture—we will not participate," states an open letter signed by the company's Human Rights Steering Committee.
"To address these ever increasing challenges collaboratively and advance our commitment to human rights, we welcome a genuine constructive conversation with diverse ideas and perspectives about food and agriculture production," the letter also states. "These conversations are much needed to help find sustainable solutions to those challenges."
Tribunal organizers have responded to Monsanto's allegations of a mock court. "Other similar tribunals have found both for and against corporations," Damien Short, director of the Human Rights Consortium at London University, told The Guardian. "This is a test of international law. It has moral force and the tribunal's decision will be evidence-based. Peoples' tribunals are testing the law."
"Under existing [international] law, it is impossible to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto or its management, for possible crimes against human health and the integrity of the environment," Lucy Rees, speaking on behalf of End Ecocide on Earth, also told the publication.
Greenpeace has been a vocal supporter of the tribunal. "The industrial scale of agriculture today has broken our food system," the environmental group said. "Giant agri-businesses fail to take into account the health of the environment and the communities who depend on it. Monoculture and dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides are taking its toll on the planet, animals and us."
According to a tribunal newsletter, witnesses and experts who will be present at the trial includes health experts, "victims" and representatives from communities affected by the spraying of pesticides in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, France, India, Sri Lanka and Paraguay; farmers and seed savers from Australia, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Canada, France; beekeepers from Yucatan, Mexico; and scientists from Brazil, Germany, France, the UK and the U.S. Former UN special rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter will also testify.