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By Claire O'Connor
Agriculture is on the front lines of climate change. Whether it's the a seven-year drought drying up fields in California, the devastating Midwest flooding in 2019, or hurricane after hurricane hitting the Eastern Shore, agriculture and rural communities are already feeling the effects of a changing climate. Scientists expect climate change to make these extreme weather events both more frequent and more intense in coming years.
<p>Agriculture is also an important — in fact a <em>necessary </em>— <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/melanie-sturm/stewardship-wetlands-and-soils-has-climate-benefits" target="_blank">partner in fighting climate change</a>. The science is clear: We cannot stay beneath the most dangerous climate thresholds without sequestering a significant amount of carbon in our <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/soil">soils</a>.</p>
<p>Agricultural soils have the potential to sequester, relatively inexpensively, 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gasses annually — <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references" target="_blank">equivalent to the annual emissions of 64 coal fired power plants</a>, according to National Academy of Sciences.</p><p>But we can't get there without engaging farmers, turning a source of emissions into a carbon sink. Here are just a few of the ways the Natural Resources Defense Council works to encourage climate-friendly farming: </p><ul> <li><strong>Creating New Incentives for Cover Crops: </strong>Cover crops are planted in between growing seasons with the specific purpose of building soil health. Despite their multiple agronomic and environmental benefits, adoption is low — only about <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/lara-bryant/good-news-about-cover-crops-census-agriculture" target="_blank">7%</a> of U.S. farmland uses cover crops. NRDC is working to scale up cover cropping through innovative incentives delivered through the largest federal farm subsidy: crop insurance. We've worked with partners in <a href="https://www.cleanwateriowa.org/covercropdemo" target="_blank">Iowa </a>and <a href="https://farmland.org/let-us-celebrate-illinois-department-of-agriculture-accepts-the-crop-insurance-reward-program-for-cover-crops/" target="_blank">Illinois</a> to launch programs that give farmers who use cover crops $5/acre off of their crop insurance bill. And partners in Minnesota and Wisconsin are exploring similar options. While we're delighted at the benefit this program has for farmers in those individual states, we're even more excited about the potential to scale this program to the 350 million acres that <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/resources/covering-crops-how-federal-crop-insurance-program-reforms-can-reduce-costs-empower-farmers" target="_blank">utilize subsidized crop insurance</a> nationwide. A recent study suggests that cover crops <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaat1869" target="_blank">sequester</a> an average of .79 tons of carbon per acre annually, making cover crops one of the pillars of climate-friendly farming systems.</li></ul><ul> <li><strong>Supporting Carbon as a New "Agricultural Product": </strong>Championed by Senator Ron Wyden, the 2018 Farm Bill created a new program, the Soil Health Demonstration Trial, that encourages farmers to adopt practices that improve their soil health, and tracks and measures the outcomes. NRDC worked alongside our partners at <a href="https://www.e2.org/events/carbon-removal-a-new-american-agricultural-product-how-carbon-farming-and-building-soil-health-will-fight-climate-change/" target="_blank">E2</a> and a number of commodity groups, farmer organizations, and agribusinesses to secure passage of this provision. The Demonstration Trial will create a new, reliable income stream — farmers will get paid for the carbon they sequester regardless of how their crops turn out, and it builds the data needed for confidence in any <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/lara-bryant/spring-has-come-soil-carbon-markets" target="_blank">future carbon markets</a>. USDA recently announced the first round of awards under this new program, totaling over <a href="https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/programs/financial/cig/?cid=nrcseprd1512816" target="_blank">$13 million</a> in investments to improve soil health. Senator Cory Booker has since drafted legislation that would increase funding for the program nearly 10-fold to $100 million annually; Representative Deb Haaland released a companion bill in the House.</li></ul><ul> <li><strong>Scaling up Regenerative Agriculture:</strong> <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/ellen-lee/digging-deeper-regenerative-agriculture" target="_blank">Regenerative agriculture</a> is an approach to farming that looks to work with nature to rebuild the overall health of the system. Regenerative farmers use a variety of tactics, including reduced chemical inputs, diverse crop and livestock rotations, incorporating compost into their systems, and agroforestry, among others. Our team is in the midst of interviewing regenerative farmers and ranchers to learn more about what's working for them and what challenges they've faced in their shift to a regenerative approach. We're planning to analyze our interview results and combine them with a literature review to identify what role NRDC could potentially play in helping to scale up regenerative farming and ranching systems. We'll also be sharing quotes and photos from our interviews on social media every Friday starting in January, so stay tuned for some inspiring farm footage!</li></ul><ul> <li><strong>Supporting Organic Farmers: </strong>Organic agriculture by design reduces greenhouse gas emissions, sequesters carbon in the soil, does not rely on energy-intensive chemical inputs, and builds resiliency within our food system. Practices integrated into organic production will become increasingly more important in the face of a changing climate. NRDC supports organic farmers through policy initiatives like <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/allison-johnson/organic-means-healthy-people-and-healthy-soils" target="_blank">the Organic Farm-to-School program</a> that was introduced in the California legislature last year. In the coming year, we'll continue to work to support organic farmers in California.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Reducing Food Waste:</strong> Food waste generates nearly 3% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and NRDC is working hard to reduce that number, and improve soil health in the process. Some of our policy proposals include securing passage of <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/confused-food-date-labels-congress-aims-set-them-straight" target="_blank">date labelling legislation</a> to eliminate confusion about whether food is still good to eat, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/food-matters" target="_blank">working with cities</a> to reduce waste and increase rescue of surplus food, and supporting efforts at all levels to increase <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/composting-way-easier-you-think" target="_blank">composting</a> of food scraps. Adding compost to soils improves their ability to sequester carbon, store nutrients, and retain water. Composting food scraps also helps to "close the loop" on organic matter and nutrients by returning them to the agricultural production cycle, rather than sending that organic material to landfills, where it generates methane (a powerful climate pollutant).</li></ul><p>Climate-friendly farming also offers a host of important co-benefits. For example, when farmers use complex crop rotations to break weed, pest, and disease cycles, they can reduce the amount of synthetic chemicals they need to use. When they use practices like <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/lara-bryant/climate-change-wreaking-havoc-farms-cover-crops-can-help" target="_blank">cover crops</a>, no-till, and adding compost to protect and restore the soil, they reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers that emit greenhouse gasses. And when farmers can reinvest the oppressive amount of money they had been previously spending on expensive, synthetic inputs into the additional labor required to carbon farm, they bring new jobs to economically-depressed rural areas.</p><p>Farmers understand better than many of us the harsh realities of climate change, regardless of their opinions about what's causing those changes. And tight margins and trade wars make the potential of new value streams particularly attractive for farmers right now. By working alongside the farmers and farmworkers who tend the land, we can bring new allies into the fight against climate change, restore the health of our soil, and create a healthy, equitable, and resilient food system.</p>
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By Brian Barth
Late fall, after the last crops have been harvested, is a time to rest and reflect on the successes and challenges of the gardening year. But for those whose need to putter around in the garden doesn't end when cold weather comes, there's surely a few lingering chores. Get them done now and you'll be ahead of the game in spring.
Tool Maintenance
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA4ODc1My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjgzNzk2N30.xH4pp9AuzBdEKJrjZgpKzl_SIuhLUVzAG-5kmfDPq3g/img.jpg?width=980" id="4f50f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="714609ce8150e039db3a31d74d88f286" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Tools take a beating during the year, and the offseason is the perfect time to give them a little TLC. At a minimum, wash off the dirt, dry them with a towel, and store them in a rain- and snow-protected place. You may also wish to sharpen cutting blades, and oil the joints on pruners and other hinged equipment. Hardware stores often offer the service for a modest fee.</p>Hose Repair
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA4ODc1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTY5ODM1Mn0.5xmze--FN2FTVco252fwsqbXc7OXJUVGOWfSCoR0Pwk/img.jpg?width=980" id="17aed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="10e570d03c6ad7a27b840bddb82305da" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Ditto on the TLC treatment for your hoses. There always seem to be a few leaky connections that you never have time to repair throughout the year. Often, all that's required is a new rubber washer in the female end of the hose. Any out-of-commission hoses that were cut or split open during the year can be repaired with an inexpensive coupling, rather than discarding them. You will find hose washers and repair kits at any garden center or hardware store.</p>Mulching
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA4ODc2Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTkwNTY0Nn0._-al8MpcaDkYVQHf0M8izLo7lgR5Jjrn7zIDhvTh9Eo/img.jpg?width=980" id="ef70a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="796853ece8704090cc87f52b5447d640" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Wise gardeners know that bare soil is the enemy. It washes away in the rain and turns into a brick in the summer sun. Late in fall, after the vegetation has died down, is a great time to take stock of the places in the garden that could use a covering of mulch. Besides, you're likely to have some fallen leaves on hand, a free and high-quality form of mulch that enriches the soil more than wood chips.</p>Build Something with Wood
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA4ODc4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTMwNjQ2Mn0.OQWw9CNw0Ue7Afr4lNAFZdC5VYPcSyss70cbX9DSRD8/img.jpg?width=980" id="697a2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8fcecb95c81fa5a8aaf6ff9a404a1748" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Not all gardening projects need to take place outdoors. If you have a shed, garage or basement, along with a few power tools and a little carpentry know-how, now is a prime window for building that new planter box you've been dreaming of or the hand-painted birdhouse that your spouse would love as a Christmas gift. Avid gardeners never have time for such indulgences during the growing season, so knock yourself out while you can.</p>
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A verdant and productive urban garden in Havana. Susanne Bollinger / Wikimedia Commons
By Paul Brown
When countries run short of food, they need to find solutions fast, and one answer can be urban farming.
<p>That was the remedy Cuba seized with both hands 30 years ago when it was confronted with the dilemma of an end to its vital food imports. And what worked then for Cuba could have lessons today for the wider world, as it faces growing hunger in the face of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_blank">climate crisis</a>.</p>
<p><em>The Rapid Transition Alliance is coordinated by the <a href="http://www.newweather.org/" target="_blank">New Weather Institute</a>, the <a href="https://steps-centre.org/" target="_blank">STEPS Centre</a> at the Institute of Development Studies, and the <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/global/" target="_blank">School of Global Studies</a> at the University of Sussex, UK. The Climate News Network is partnering with and supported by the Rapid Transition Alliance, and will be reporting regularly on its work. If you would like to see more stories of evidence-based hope for rapid transition, please sign up <a href="https://www.rapidtransition.org/" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></p><p><em><em>Do you know a story of rapid transition? If so, we'd like to hear from you. Please send us a brief outline on info@climatenewsnetwork.net. Thank you.</em></em></p><p><em><em></em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/cubas-urban-farming-shows-way-to-avoid-hunger/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.</em><br/></p>
<p>When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, most of Cuba's food supplies went with it. To stave off severe malnutrition the people of the capital, Havana, found an imaginative answer: urban gardening. That's now seen as a possible blueprint for the survival of city populations in a warming world.</p><p>The Rapid Transition Alliance has published a longer account of <a href="https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-post-cold-war-cuban-food-experiment/" target="_blank">Cuba's very fast move towards self-sufficiency</a> as part of its series Stories of Change, which describes cases of large-scale, rapid transformation that can seem difficult to achieve but which have often worked before.</p><p>The problem of hunger for the Cubans arose because during the Cold War they had stopped producing food of their own and turned over most of their farmland to sugarcane plantations to supply the Soviet Union. In return for these mountains of sugar Moscow provided Cuba with food, chemical fertilizers and fuel oil for its cars and tractors.</p>
U.S. Sanctions
<p>The Soviet collapse brought the breakdown of this trade, and food rationing for city dwellers. And Cuba lost its main food supply while it was still coping with strict U.S. sanctions. Reverting to conventional farming would have taken time and was in any case difficult because the Soviet fertilizers, fuel and pesticides had also dried up.</p><p>So the highly-educated urban citizens, faced with rationing which reduced the average Cuban's daily calorie intake from 2,600 in 1986 to 1,000-1,500 in 1993, organized themselves to grow their own food in improvised urban allotments.</p><p>At first, struggling with little know-how and without fertilizers, their yields were low, but by producing compost and other organic growing mediums, plus introducing drip-fed irrigation, they began to see improvements.</p><p>Short of chemicals, the gardeners resorted to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324615797_Effects_of_marigold_on_the_behavior_survival_and_nutrient_reserves_of_Aphidius_Platensis" target="_blank">biological controls like marigolds</a> (where opinions today are mixed) to deter harmful insects.</p><p>By 1995 Havana alone had 25,000 allotments tended by families and urban cooperatives. The government, realizing the potential benefits, encouraged the movement.</p><p>Soil quality was improved with a mixture of crop residues, household wastes and animal manure to create more compost and soil conditioners. The extra fresh vegetables and fruit this provided quickly improved urban dwellers' calorie intake and saved many from malnutrition.</p><p>In the Cuban climate, with irrigation changes and soils undergoing constant improvement from added organic matter, the allotments could produce vegetables all year round. Lettuce, chard, radish, beans, cucumber, tomatoes, spinach and peppers were grown and traded.</p><p>There is evidence as well that the extra exercise which these urban gardeners got from tending their allotments, plus the time they spent outdoors in the open air, benefited their health.</p><p>Eventually, realizing that self-sufficiency was the only way to feed the population, the government banned sugarcane growing altogether. Lacking fertilizer, many former plantations were turned over to organic agriculture. The shortage of oil for tractors meant oxen were used for ploughing.</p>
Partial Solution
<p>Cuba's experience of urban agriculture <a href="https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/viva-la-produccion-urban-farming-in-cuba/" target="_blank">inspired many environmentalists</a> to believe that this is at least part of the solution to <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rainfall-changes-food-production/" target="_blank">the food shortages threatened by climate change</a>. By 2008 food gardens, despite their small scale, made up 8 percent of the land in Havana, and 3.4 percent of all urban land in Cuba, producing 90 percent of all the fruit and vegetables consumed.</p><p>As a result the calorie intake of the average Cuban quickly rose to match that of Europeans, relying on a diet composed mainly of rice, beans, potatoes and other vegetables — a low-fat diet making obesity rare.</p><p>Because of the climate, though, wheat does not grow well in Cuba, and the island still has to import large quantities of grain for bread. Meat is in short supply and also has to be mainly imported.</p><p>Despite this, Cuba's experience since the Cold War ended in the 1990s shows that large quantities of fresh food can be grown in cities and that urban agriculture is sustainable over decades.</p><p>For other countries vulnerable to sudden loss of food supplies, Cuba's experience suggests that urban farming can be one way of staving off potential famine when imports are restricted, expensive or simply unobtainable.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Wesley Martinez Da Costa / EyeEm / Getty Images
By David R. Montgomery
Would it sound too good to be true if I was to say that there was a simple, profitable and underused agricultural method to help feed everybody, cool the planet, and revitalize rural America? I used to think so, until I started visiting farmers who are restoring fertility to their land, stashing a lot of carbon in their soil, and returning healthy profitability to family farms. Now I've come to see how restoring soil health would prove as good for farmers and rural economies as it would for the environment.
<p>Over the past several years, I drove through small towns from Ohio to the Dakotas visiting farmers to research <em>Growing A Revolution</em>, my book about restoring soil fertility through regenerative <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/farming">farming</a> practices. Along the way, I saw a microcosm of the national economy in which run-down farms and hollowed-out towns stood in stark contrast to farms and communities thriving with renewed vitality.</p>
<p>These revitalized farms came in all sizes — hand-worked three-acre vegetable farms to horizon-spanning ranches where enormous remote-controlled contraptions seemingly cast out of Star Wars seeded and harvested fields with GPS-guided precision. Yet it was not size or technology that distinguished these places, but how they worked the land.</p><p>After the Second World War, an expanded reliance on chemicals boosted the yields from soils degraded during decades of intensive farming. At the same time, American farmers increasingly specialized in and became very good at growing a large amount of a small selection of crops. This newfound bounty manifest as a surplus of corn, wheat, and other agricultural commodities. Over time, this drove down the price farmers got for their harvest as the cost of fertilizer, diesel, and pesticides rose — squeezing farmers in the middle.</p><p>From 1960 to 1970 <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/2532/corn-prices-historical-chart-data" target="_blank">corn prices</a> rose from just over $1 to $2 a bushel — the equivalent of about $8 in inflation adjusted dollars today. In 2019, however, corn prices have stayed around $4 a bushel, so farmers are getting half of the real income for growing the same harvest as they did when we put a man on the Moon. At the same time the inflation-adjusted <a href="http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart" target="_blank" title="">price of a barrel of oil tripled</a> from about $20 in 1970 to more than $60 today. Over the same period, global fertilizer prices <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/fertilizer-and-pesticides" target="_blank">roughly doubled</a>. Today's conventional farmers spend a lot more to grow crops they can sell for far less than their grandparents did.</p>
<p>The mantra became "get big or get out" as the average size of American farms grew. The number of farms declined as smaller ones were consolidated or went out of business. Small towns struggled to retain people, and economic vitality declined in rural areas as a smaller population supported fewer services and local businesses. Driving through America's heartland today, it's hard to miss the fallout: shuttered stores, closed restaurants, and half-vacant mini-malls.</p><p>Interviewing farmers who had already improved their soil, I found hope that we might turn around this almost century-long trend and economically revitalize rural America. Their practices not only restored soil health, but returned profitability to family farms in the span of a few years, as opposed to the decades you would expect.</p><p>If we restore soil health and save farmers substantial input costs, we can restore smaller farms as a means to a secure living and revive the economic viability of farming communities across small town America.</p><p>So how did those farmers do it?</p><p>The successful regenerative farmers I visited all combined three unconventional practices that cultivate beneficial soil life: They parked their plows, planted cover crops, and grew complex crop rotations. Some also reintroduced livestock to their fields, employing a shifting mosaic of single-wire electric fences to frequently move cattle and implement regenerative grazing methods. These farmers were rethinking how they saw and treated their land.</p><p>This combination of unconventional practices — no till, cover crops, and complex rotations — allowed farmers to use far less fertilizer, pesticide, and diesel to grow and harvest as much, if not more, than they did growing one or two crops under conventional farming practices. At conferences, other farmers related how it took just a couple of years for this new farming system to rebuild soil fertility enough to become more profitable than neighboring conventional farms. From then on, these regenerative farmers spent less money to grow more, a surefire recipe for a better bottom line. </p>
<p>I could see the difference around the countryside. In parts of the Dakotas where no-till and cover crops had been widely adopted, the landscape was dotted with new grain silos and barns. Shiny new pickup trucks streamed by on the roads. But in counties where black dirt fields still marred the view, things looked worn down and worn out, and topsoil blew across the highway. In Kansas, I was struck by the contrast between bright, well-maintained equipment dealerships in counties that had gone no-till, and sad lots of rusting gear in those counties still hitched to the plow.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/regenerative-agriculture">Regenerative agriculture</a> is not just about restoring the life of the soil. By making smaller farms profitable once again, it could bring more people back to the land and thereby boost the economy in small towns across America. </p><p>You don't have to take my word for all this.</p><p>These points are backed up by a recent paper by Claire LaCanne and Jonathan Lundgren who <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/4428/" target="_blank">compared regenerative and conventional corn fields</a> on 20 farms in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. They ranked farms from most regenerative to most conventional based on whether farmers tilled, planted cover crops, used insecticides or other pesticides, and let cattle graze off cover crops and crop stubble. They then divided them into two groups of fields: regenerative fields that were not tilled, received no insecticides, and included livestock grazing; and conventional fields that were tilled at least annually, regularly received insecticides, and had bare soil in between cash crops.</p><p>For each field, LaCanne and Lundgren measured the amount of organic matter in the soil, pest insect populations, corn yield, expenses, and profit. What they found directly contradicts key tenets of conventional agriculture. They found that pest insects (such as corn rootworms, European corn borers, Western bean cutworm, other caterpillars, and aphids) were 10 times as abundant on conventional farms that used insecticides than on farms that relied on regenerative, pest-resilient cropping systems with no insecticides. The lower pest abundance in regenerative fields was likely due to competition from greater insect diversity, and because insecticide use kills predatory insects (like ladybugs) capable of keeping pests in check. This becomes a problem because pest populations rebound before their predators.</p>
<p>LaCanne and Lundgren also found that regenerative corn fields were almost twice as profitable as conventionally managed corn fields due to lower seed and fertilizer costs, a price premium if the crops are organic, and the added value of cover crop grazing for meat production on the regenerative fields. The profitability was unrelated to grain yield, but positively correlated with soil organic matter. In other words, restoring soil paved the way to restoring farm profitability. A profitable farm was less about how much the farmer grew and more about how they treated their soil.</p><p>Other studies have also found higher economic returns from adding cover crops to no-till systems in order to improve soil health. One example comes from a four-year study of the <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/cover-crops/cover-crop-economics" target="_blank">economic impacts of cover crops</a> conducted by the National Association of Conservation Districts and Datu Research on a farm in northwestern Missouri. Over the course of the study, cover crops averaged a positive return of $16 per acre among all fields, and reached up to $100 an acre in some places. The cost of cover crop seeds and planting was more than offset by lowering fertilizer costs by up to $50 per acre, increasing corn yields from 120 bushels to 153 bushels per acre, and raising soybean yields from 38 bushels to 52 bushels per acre.</p><p>Such results are not an anomaly. In 2019, the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program released a report on <a href="https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Bulletins/Cover-Crop-Economics/Text-Version-of-Cover-Crop-Economics" target="_blank">cover crop economics</a> based on data from several hundred farms that concluded cover crops generally provide a positive return within three years and that profit margins continued to grow for at least seven years. Corn and soybean yields were consistently higher in cover cropped fields, especially in drought years. Such examples show that spending less to grow more is a winning combination for farmers.</p><p>Whether on large commodity crop operations or on small boutique farmsteads supplying farmers markets and restaurants, the key to a more profitable farm lay in the health of the soil. And we need more small farms near cities to provide fresh foods and vegetables, much as we need regenerative grain and dairy and grazing farther afield. Bringing life back to the soil can help farm profitability across America's rural landscapes. It's time to reverse and revise the "get big or get out" mentality to "get small and get back in." Restoring the soil on smaller, more profitable farms holds the key to restoring rural communities.</p><p>The soil is the historical root of American prosperity, the foundation of our country. But since the American Revolution, our nation's soils have lost <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/3/2936" target="_blank">half their organic matter</a> — half their natural fertility. Policies that promote efforts to rebuild healthy soils offer fertile ground to help restore prosperity to family farms and farming communities. Reinvesting in our soils is a natural infrastructure program, <a href="https://theconversation.com/restoring-soil-can-help-address-climate-change-121733" target="_blank">a sound investment</a> in the foundation and future of America. This would not only put a lot of carbon in the ground, it would reduce the environmental damage from agrochemical use and help bring life back to the land and rural communities. Having more people on the land isn't the problem, it's the solution.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/soil-farm-health-rural-community-20191018" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2641025788#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Unsplash
In addition to a long list of incredible benefits for farmers and their crops, regenerative agriculture practices help us fight the climate crisis by pulling carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in the ground.
<p>We know that to solve the climate crisis, business as usual will not cut it. Not in electricity production. Not in industry. Not in transportation. And certainly not in agriculture.</p>
<p>The agriculture sector is one of the biggest emitters of CO2, the greenhouse gas (GHG) most responsible for the changes we are seeing in our climate today. Together with forestry and other land use, agriculture is responsible for just under <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter11.pdf" target="_blank">25 percent</a> of all human-created GHG emissions.</p><p>But it also has a vital role to play in helping us end this crisis, and create a safe, sustainable future without carbon pollution. One where we can provide our booming world population with fresh, healthy food grown in a sustainable soil ecosystem.</p><p>Sure, it may seem like a contradiction. So don't take it from us – <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter11.pdf" target="_blank">take it from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a>: "Leveraging the mitigation potential in the [Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use] sector is extremely important in meeting emission reduction targets."</p><p>But how?</p><p>We've got two words for you: regenerative agriculture.</p>
How it Works
<p>In short, regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that seeks to rehabilitate and enhance the entire ecosystem of the farm by placing a heavy premium on soil health with attention also paid to water management, fertilizer use, and more. It is a method of farming that "improves the resources it uses, rather than destroying or depleting them," <a href="https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/rodale-white-paper.pdf" target="_blank">according to the Rodale Institute</a>.</p><p>A great deal of emphasis is placed on looking holistically at the agro-ecosystem. Key techniques include:</p><ul> <li>Conservation tillage: Plowing and tillage dramatically erode soil and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They also can result in the kind of bare or compacted soil that creates a hostile environment for important soil microbes. By adopting low- or no-till practices, farmers minimize physical disturbance of the soil, and over time increase levels of soil organic matter, creating healthier, more resilient environments for plants to thrive, as well as keeping more and more carbon where it belongs.</li></ul><ul> <li>Diversity: Different plants release different carbohydrates (sugars) through their roots, and various microbes feed on these carbs and return all sorts of different nutrients back to the plant and the soil. By increasing the plant diversity of their fields, farmers help create the rich, varied, and nutrient-dense soils that lead to more productive yields.</li></ul><ul> <li>Rotation and cover crops: Left exposed to the elements, soil will erode and the nutrients necessary for successful plant growth will either dry out or quite literally wash away. At the same time, planting the same plants in the same location can lead to a buildup of some nutrients and a lack of others. But by rotating crops and deploying cover crops strategically, farms and gardens can infuse soils with more and more (and more diverse) soil organic matter, often while avoiding disease and pest problems naturally. Always remember, bare soil is bad soil.</li></ul><ul><li>Mess with it less: In addition to minimizing physical disturbance, regenerative agriculture practitioners also often seek to be cautious about chemical or biological activities that also can damage long-term soil health. Misapplication of fertilizers and other soil amendments can disrupt the natural relationship between microorganisms and plant roots.</li></ul><p><em style="">The overriding theme: If you take care of your soil, it will take care of you.</em></p><p><a href="https://kisstheground.com/regenerative-agriculture-partone/" target="_blank">According to Kiss the Ground</a>, a nonprofit organization devoted to sustainable farming practices that improve soil health, "If regenerative means: 'renewal, restoration, and growth of cells, organisms, and ecosystems,' or 'renewal or restoration of a body, bodily part, or biological system (as in a forest) after injury or as a normal process,' then regenerative agriculture is agriculture that is doing just that."</p><p>The benefits of doing so are numerous: Regenerative agriculture practices increase soil biodiversity and organic matter, leading to more resilient soils that can better withstand climate change impacts like flooding and drought. Healthy soils beget strong yields and nutrient-rich crops. It also diminishes erosion and runoff, leading to improved water quality on and off the farm.</p><p>Importantly, regenerative agriculture practices also help us fight the climate crisis by pulling carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in the ground. <em>(More on that below.)</em></p>
The Climate Connection
<p>The health and vitality of soil everywhere, from the smallest backyard garden to the largest Midwestern farm, plays an integral role in food production — and it's threatened by the climate crisis.</p><p>In addition to rising temperatures that are themselves changing where and how things can be grown, the climate crisis has fundamentally altered the water cycle around the world. The result is shifting precipitation patterns and increased evaporation that causes more-frequent powerful rainfall events and more severe droughts. In many areas, rainfall has become either increasingly abundant or in desperately short supply, relative to longtime averages. It's a classic case of feast or famine.</p><p>Extreme downpours can lead to polluted runoff and erosion because the ground simply isn't able to absorb the precipitation at the rate it's falling. And at a certain point of inundation, plants can drown. On the other end of the spectrum, less stable precipitation together with increased heat is causing more and more drought, and in extreme circumstances near-desertification, leading to a complete loss of farm production in some areas.</p><p>So, when it comes to agriculture, climate change is doing what it does best: exacerbating existing problems to the point of crisis. But if a farmer is using regenerative methods and not disturbing the soil, he or she is instead mitigating climate change effects by building organic matter. And the more organic matter you have in the soil, the more water-holding capacity you have.</p><p>Not only does adopting regenerative agriculture practices help farmers deal with current climate change impacts by making their farms more resilient and adaptive to what is happening around them now; it allows them to take action to fight it long-term by being part of a larger solution to the crisis, through carbon sequestration.</p>Farms Are Making the Switch
<p>Regenerative agriculture allows farmers to play an active role in mitigating an existential threat to their livelihoods.</p><p>"We don't have to wait for technological wizardry: regenerative organic agriculture can substantially mitigate climate change now," <a href="https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/rodale-white-paper.pdf" target="_blank">Rodale Institute writes</a>.</p><p>When plants photosynthesize, they take carbon dioxide from the air and — using the sun's energy, water, and nutrients from the soil — transform it into carbon the plant uses to grow leaves, stems, and roots. The excess carbon created through this process is transported down the plant and is stored in the surrounding soil, sequestering the carbon in the ground. This carbon in the soil is known as soil organic carbon and it feeds microbes and fungi, which in turn provide nutrients for the plant. Soil organic carbon is the main component of soil organic matter, providing more structure to the soil and allowing it to store more water.</p><p>Carbon can remain stored in soils for thousands of years — or it can be quickly released back into the atmosphere through farm practices like plowing and tillage, where soil is prepared for planting by mechanical agitation methods such as digging, stirring, and overturning.</p><p>For farmers, regenerative agriculture is thus a win-win — it's an approach that leads to better, more resilient crops grown using sustainable methods that at the same time fight a crisis that presents a threat to all agriculture.</p><p>And that's why some of the biggest brands in the world are going all in.</p><p>General Mills, makers of some of your favorite cereals, granola bars, and other foods, is <a href="https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainability/Regenerative-agriculture" target="_blank">taking a multipronged approach</a> to its support of regenerative agriculture. They've partnered with other organizations to develop resources and training to help farmers work toward the widespread adoption of soil health practices, including plans for "2 and 3-day soil health academies where famers will receive education from leading technical experts" and a verified regenerative sourcing program for some of its brands that will "allow consumers to easily identify food that has been sourced from farms verified to increase water, soil, and climate health."</p>Learn More
<p>In the end, <a href="https://modernfarmer.com/2018/04/practicing-regenerative-agriculture/" target="_blank">Modern Farmer sums it up best</a>: "This is how land should be taken care of and food should be grown – with benefits for the environment and the consumer."</p><p>It's just that simple.</p><p>Read more about the climate crisis' effect on the health of our soil – and the future of our food – by downloading our free e-book, <a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/content/right-under-your-feet-soil-health-and-climate-crisis" target="_blank"><em>Right Under Your Feet: Soil Health and the Climate Crisis</em></a>. In it, we get you the facts on:</p><ul> <li>The impact of climate change on soil health.</li></ul><ul> <li>What's at stake.</li></ul><ul><li>What you can do to support a world where we can provide people with fresh, healthy food grown in a sustainable soil ecosystem.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/content/right-under-your-feet-soil-health-and-climate-crisis" target="_blank">The climate changes, <em>but these facts don't</em>. Download our free <em>Soil Health and the Climate Crisis</em> e-book now</a>.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Healthy Soil, Coming to a Theater Near You: 5 Lessons From 'The Biggest Little Farm'
09 May 2019
Popular
The Biggest Little Farm [Official Trailer]
By Karen Perry Stillerman
An email in my inbox last month caught my attention. It was from author, environmental advocate, and Academy Award-winning film producer Laurie David (An Inconvenient Truth), and it offered a preview of The Biggest Little Farm, a new documentary film David had coming out soon. "I promise you that any person that goes to see this film will leave inspired and caring a whole lot more for the planet," her note said. "I promise you it will help your organization achieve your goals!"
<p>I clicked on the link, watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfDTM4JxHl8" target="_blank">the trailer</a>, was intrigued. The movie looked gorgeous. But would it hold up to scrutiny from skeptical agricultural scientists?</p><p>A few days later, in a conference room with several members of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/staff/staff/food-agriculture" target="_blank">food and agriculture team</a>, I dimmed the lights and let the film roll. <em><a href="https://www.biggestlittlefarmmovie.com/" target="_blank">The Biggest Little Farm</a> </em>(in theaters this month) chronicles the adventures of filmmaker <a href="https://www.johnchester.com/" target="_blank">John Chester</a> and his wife Molly as they leave their lives in Los Angeles behind to start a diversified farm on an exhausted piece of land north of the city, where they intend to live and grow food "in perfect harmony with nature."</p><p>At first, the storytelling seems to veer toward the precious. John documents the promise they made to their rescue pup Todd about how much he'd love being a farm dog. The narration, over cute animation, extols the idyllic life John and Molly imagine for themselves. But I soon realized he was setting up viewers for the same jolt he and Molly would soon get — repeatedly — about the harsh realities of farming, especially when you're trying something new and complex.</p><p>Because it turns out this kind of farming isn't all rainbows and puppies and adorable baby goats. It's also exhausting and sometimes heartbreaking. Before long, the story got real — very real — and I was hooked. After the credits rolled, my colleagues' reviews came in:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>A really beautiful, honest, and engaging film. It shows the many tough challenges of farming with nature rather than against it, but leads with the opportunities and a hopeful optimism.</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>I don't think I've ever seen such a stunning illustration of the ecology of diversified farming – the challenges, the potential, and all the interconnectedness of a complex farm ecosystem. </em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>More dead chickens! Why did you make me watch this??</em></p><p>Indeed, midway through the film, the casualties start to pile up. John, Molly and their team face a seemingly never-ending string of predator attacks, pest and disease outbreaks, and other deadly natural phenomena as they struggle to make <a href="https://www.apricotlanefarms.com/" target="_blank">Apricot Lane Farms</a> a sustainable enterprise. Although the relentless mishaps challenge their core belief in working with nature rather than against it, they persist, learning something from each experience and finding creative ways to adapt.</p><p>Their story, while unique in many ways, contains some key lessons for U.S. agriculture:</p>
<p><em>The Biggest Little Farm</em> opens this Friday, May 10, in Los Angeles and New York, and nationwide May 17.</p>
Soil is paramount.
<p>When the Chesters first arrived at Apricot Lane Farms, their newly acquired soil was so compacted and devoid of organic matter, they could hardly break it with a shovel. "The soil is dead," John says flatly. "And we have no idea how to bring it back to life." But with the help of consultant and soil guru Alan York, they set about enriching it. "Plants build soil," Alan said as they seeded cover crops. They also installed a <a href="https://growingsolutions.com/using-compost-tea/" target="_blank">state-of-the-art compost tea system</a> and added animals (so many animals!) for their manure. And indeed, by the end of the film—which spans a seven-year period of <a href="https://www.drought.gov/drought/california-no-stranger-dry-conditions-drought-2011-2017-was-exceptional" target="_blank">historic California drought</a> followed by an <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/very-wet-2017-water-year-ends-california" target="_blank">unusually wet year</a>—the Chesters' <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/food-agriculture/advance-sustainable-agriculture/turning-soils-sponges" target="_blank">spongier soil</a> seemed to have paid off, as it held water better during dry periods and soaked up more of it when the rains fell. At a time when climate change is driving more weather extremes in every part of the country, building healthy soil will be critical to ensuring that farmers can be successful.</p>2. Increasing a farm’s biodiversity is critical (and hard).
<p>Someone recently said to me that farmers are the only manufacturers who work outside, completely exposed to the elements. There's truth in that, for sure, but the choice of the word "manufacturers" is revealing. Factories typically make one thing, over and over, day in and day out. And farming in the United States has become a lot like that—an overwhelmingly industrial process, divorced from nature and, in fact, often fighting it tooth and nail. In the film, we see Alan explaining how the Chesters must emulate how natural ecosystems work (we call this <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/marcia-delonge/the-abcds-of-agroecology-what-is-it-all-about-926" target="_blank">agroecology</a>). His mantra: "Diversify, diversify, diversify." John and Molly take this to the extreme, eventually farming 200+ crops and animals across pastures, orchards, and a large vegetable garden. A plethora of wildlife also returns, including new pests that require more creativity and further diversification to combat. Alan promises all this diversity will become simplicity, but as John notes, "a simple way of farming is just not easy."</p>3. Few farmers can go to the lengths the Chesters have. But most don’t need to.
<p>The 76 varieties of stone fruit trees John and Molly now tend is…probably a bit much for most farmers. And without access to investors like they recruited, few farm startups can afford fancy composting systems, miles of new irrigation line, and the costs associated with repeated trial and error. It is never clear, in the film, how much up-front and continued investment was necessary to do what they did at Apricot Lane Farms (though we can assume it was a lot). Nor do we know at what point in the saga that investment was fully recouped, if it has been. But recent research has shown that even more limited and lower-cost efforts at diversification on farms—for example, expanding <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/food-agriculture/advance-sustainable-agriculture/rotating-crops-turning-profits" target="_blank">from two crops to three or four</a>, or planting <a href="https://www.nrem.iastate.edu/research/STRIPS/content/what-are-prairie-strips" target="_blank">prairie strips</a> around the edges of crop fields—can have substantial benefits. And <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/marcia-delonge/the-bipartisan-2018-farm-bill-brings-some-consequences-cautious-optimism-for-conservation" target="_blank">federal farm programs provide help</a> (though not nearly enough) for farmers to do such things.</p>4. One way or another, the ecological debts of our industrial farming system must be paid.
<p>Apricot Lane Farms required substantial upfront investment not only because the Chesters had ambitious plans, but also because they needed to pay down an enormous ecological debt racked up on that piece of land over the years. Industrial agriculture has been <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012019/climate-change-agriculture-farming-consolidation-corn-soybeans-meat-crop-subsidies" target="_blank">called an "extraction industry"</a> because it takes nutrients from the land without replacing them, allows precious soil to wash or blow away, and sends rainwater running off the surface rather than percolating down to refill underground aquifers for later use. Due to decades of short-sighted management, this is the situation on farmland all across this country. And while John, Molly, and their investors had the means to take on Apricot Lane's ecological debt, it's not fair or realistic to expect farmers to make up for the damage caused by industrial practices and the public policies that have incentivized them. Rather, "The Biggest Little Farm" shows once again why shifting agricultural policies to help farmers diversify the landscape and rebuild their soil and is a smart investment in the future.</p>5. Nature is breathtakingly beautiful.
<p>The film's message is in line with what the science tells us about farmland diversification and healthy soil, and it comes at a time when legislators in <a href="https://soilhealthinstitute.org/resources/catalog/" target="_blank">many states</a> and <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/karen-perry-stillerman/farmers-are-excited-about-soil-health-thats-good-news-for-all-of-us" target="_blank">in Congress</a> are looking to expand policy supports and public investments to help more farmers advance soil health. Even though Apricot Lane is just one farm, and a unique one at that, my hope is that this film adds to the conversation. But you don't have to be an advocate for healthy soil policy to appreciate the movie, which above all is visually stunning and brimming with optimism. You'll marvel at the ways John Chester's cinematography captures the beauty and devastation of nature and life on a diversified, ecologically-based farm—from aerial footage of painstakingly designed orchards to images of playful lambs and terrifying wildfires, infrared footage of nocturnal predators, and superslomo shots of the hummingbirds and beneficial insects who return as part of the farm's renewal. If you like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmhdx_kRd-w&cid=wwa-us-kwgo-iphone-slid---+iphone++commercial-b&mtid=20925d2q39172&aosid=p238&mnid=sONjxlDdV-dc_mtid_20925d2q39172_pcrid_343878260391&anonymizeip=set" target="_blank">that iPhone commercial</a>, you'll find this film equally appealing.</p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz
By Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz
Oil spills don't stand a chance against the cleansing power of mycelium.
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTM3OTQ4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NjM1NTk4OH0.DRJkVCbgoe2V7NB7Jy-Pq9cxoCGABN0lpR4Mw_D46SE/img.jpg?width=980" id="05ca8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dee7da06f50542afce870cd884bf7d39" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/dirt/natural-clean-up-mushrooms-environment-infographic-20190408" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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By adopting three practices—no-till farming, cover crops and diverse crop rotations—farmers worldwide can help preserve the world's soils, feed a growing global population, mitigate climate change and protect the environment.
This was the key message of a presentation by David Montgomery, professor of geology at the University of Washington, at the Iowa Organic Conference in November.
<h2>Eroding Soil 20 Times Faster Than Building It</h2><p>Montgomery, author of several books including his most recent, <a href="https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294995584" target="_blank"><em>Growing a Revolution</em></a>, began his talk by describing how the earth's soils are being degraded by agriculture and the catastrophic impacts that result.</p><p>"Humanity is losing 0.3 percent of our global food production each year to soil erosion and degradation and 30 percent every 100 years," he said, referring to a United Nations report on soil.</p><p>Montgomery said soil degradation and loss has been a problem since the beginning of agriculture and played a major role in the demise of past civilizations including Mesopotamia, classical Greece and ancient Rome. It also caused the downfall of the Piedmont region of the southeastern U.S. as a leading agricultural producer, which it had been in colonial America.</p><p>Montgomery said the "villain" in soil degradation is the plow and not deforestation.</p><p>"The invention of the plow fundamentally altered the balance between soil production and soil erosion, dramatically increasing erosion," he said. "Nature clothes herself in plants, and the invention of the plow left soil unprotected to erosion."</p><p>Based on a number of studies, Montgomery estimated that 1.54 millimeters (mm) of soil are lost each year worldwide, while only 0.01 to 0.02 mm are being built each year.</p><p>"We are eroding soil 20 times faster than we are building it," he said. "We've drawn down the batteries of farmlands. This is a global problem, and agriculture has to change."</p><h2>Visited Farmers Worldwide Practicing Conservation Agriculture</h2><p>Despite the potentially catastrophic consequences this problem presents, Montgomery said: "I'm very optimistic we can solve this problem and do it quickly and economically."</p><p>In the research for his book, <a href="https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294995584" target="_blank">Growing a Revolution</a>, Montgomery traveled around the world visiting farms that are building soil and soil organic matter. The practices these farms had in common were no plowing or no-till, keeping the ground covered year round using cover crops, and growing diverse crop rotations to reduce weeds and insects. Together he calls the three practices "conservation agriculture."</p><p>"There was minimal or no disturbance to the soil, maintaining permanent ground cover and diverse crop rotations," Montgomery said of the farms he visited.</p><p>Conservation agricultural practices stimulate soil microbial activity, the "soil food web" as Montgomery describes it, to build fertile soils, which in turn produce healthy plants.</p><p>He visited Duane Beck, a conventional farmer in South Dakota, who has adopted all three practices. As a result, Beck has reduced the use of pesticides, diesel fuel, and synthetic fertilizer and increased crop yields.</p><p>Kofi Boa, a farmer in Ghana, who operates the No-Till Center, was able to stop soil erosion while tripling yields of corn and cowpea and reducing herbicide use.</p><p>David Brandt, a farmer in Carroll, Ohio has practiced no-till farming for 44 years. His farming costs are $320 per acre while his corn yields 180 bushels per acre. He also uses only 1 quart of Roundup herbicide per acre. By contrast, Brandt's neighbor plows his fields, pays expenses of $500 per acre, and uses five times as much Roundup. His corn produces yields of only 100 bushels per acre.</p><p>"David's secret is the soil," Montgomery said. "His soil is 8 percent organic matter."</p><p>Montgomery describes Brandt, who farms conventionally, as an "organicish" farmer.</p><p>"I would love to see conventional farmers move closer to organic but not organic farmers move to conventional practices," he said.</p><p>Another "organicish" farmer Montgomery visited was Gabe Brown in North Dakota, who has built a growing reputation as a leading advocate of "regenerative" farming. Brown also uses all three soil-building practices as well as grazing cattle.</p><p>Montgomery initially thought cattle were responsible for soil degradation but after visiting Brown's farm he said, "Cattle can be a tool of soil regeneration instead of degradation."</p><p>Brown's soil is 10 percent organic matter, according to Montgomery.</p><p>He also uses no insecticides and synthetic fertilizers and so little herbicide that Montgomery said he is "essentially an organic farmer." </p><h2>"Soil Health as the New Foundation of Agriculture"</h2><p>In summarizing, Montgomery said the keys to building soil are to "ditch the plow, cover up, and grow diversity."</p><p>The benefits of such conservation agriculture practices, according to Montgomery, are higher profits, comparable yields, less fossil fuel, fertilizer and pesticide use for the farmer, increased soil carbon and water retention and less pollution.</p><p>"Using agriculture to improve the land is a total game changer, but needs a different way of thinking," he said.</p><p>The need to build soil goes beyond the debate over conventional and organic farming methods. "It centers on a different perspective on how soil health works in both systems," Montgomery said. "It's about how to build soil and look at soil as an ecological system."</p><p>Montgomery sees soil health with its focus on building soil biology as the new agricultural revolution supplanting the green revolution and its focus on chemicals and biotechnology.</p><p>"We are poised to unleash the idea that soil health should be the newest foundation of agriculture," he said. "It can help us feed the world and mitigate climate change and environment degradation."</p>
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The climate needs your help, the water needs your help, the land needs your help. In 2019 be part of the solution. The soil you walk on and grow food in holds a secret to some of the biggest problems facing the planet today.
<p>Here are just some of the ways you can be part of the solution to regenerate the planet in 2019 and beyond, starting with soil:</p><p><strong>1. Watch and share our new video.</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/kissthegroundCA/videos/2294807857423260/" target="_blank">Learn how</a> to make 2019 the year you got involved in the movement to regenerate the planet. Watch the video below: </p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f8379afbfc94c34b9574c5bf09431ad6"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/kissthegroundCA/videos/2294807857423260/" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div>
<p><strong>2. Compost at home.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Because <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-waste">food waste</a> is food for the soil that grows your food! Learn more about how cool composting is via <em><u><a href="https://kisstheground.com/thecompoststory/" target="_blank">The Compost Story</a>.</u></em><br></p><p><strong>3. Grow your own food.</strong></p><p>Learn how to create your own <a href="https://kisstheground.com/5-ways-to-make-your-garden-regenerative/" target="_blank">regenerative garden</a> in your backyard. Check out the post below: </p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="bfedd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5F0NZQ1576663728"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1047794252338659328" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">5 Ways to Make Your Garden Regenerative https://t.co/iM7wdFBxew</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1047794252338659328">1538648591.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p><strong>4. Become a Soil Advocate!</strong></p><p><strong></strong>The next Kiss the Ground <a href="https://kisstheground.com/speaker-training/" target="_blank">Soil Advocate Training</a> begins on Jan. 15. Learn how to powerfully present the topics of soil health and regenerative agriculture as solutions to climate change, water scarcity and feeding the world.<br></p><p><strong>5. Support a Farmer to be Trained in Regenerative Agriculture!</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Our Farmland Program provides scholarships for producers to attend trainings and provides the technical support needed for them to successfully transition to soil focused regenerative agricultural management practices. For $5,500 you can fund the transition of a farm to one that regenerates land. This includes training, travel costs, consulting time, and soil testing. <a href="https://kisstheground.com/become-a-member/" target="_blank">Learn more</a> about our new <a href="https://kisstheground.com/become-a-member/" target="_blank">Fund a Farmer</a> Program.</p><p><strong>6. Become a Kiss the Ground Member.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>By becoming a member, your monthly donations make it possible for us to educate youth, consumers, and businesses, create media, train farmers, and advocate for healthy soils across the globe. In addition, members are granted access to resources and monthly member "Living Regeneratively" webinars designed to provide you with tools to help you explore regeneration in your own life, decolonize your mind, connect to nature, and become a steward of the planet. <a href="https://kisstheground.com/become-a-member/" target="_blank">Learn more</a>.</p>
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Planting a garden has the power to change the world. Regenerative gardens can help reverse global warming by restoring soil health. We're bringing victory gardens back. This time, it's for the climate.
<p>Our friends Ron Finley and Rosario Dawson explain how you can make your home garden regenerative in this new video premiere from Kiss The Ground and <a href="http://www.greenamerica.org/" target="_blank">Green America</a>.</p><p><strong>What is a Climate Victory Garden and Why Is It Important?</strong></p><p>"Climate Victory Gardens" were inspired by the "Victory Gardens" planted during the first and second World Wars. By 1944, nearly 20 million victory gardens produced eight million tons of food, equaling over 40 percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. at the time. These victory gardens fed Americans at home, to make more farm-raised food available for the troops abroad.</p><p>We are once again in the position where we, as everyday citizens, have the opportunity to use our gardens as a force for change. Instead of gardening in support of war efforts, we are gardening to fight global warming.</p><p>Even your small home garden can utilize regenerative farming practices like keeping the soil covered, not tilling, encouraging biodiversity, using compost, avoiding the use of chemicals and creating fertility onsite.</p><blockquote>"We have communities nationwide that are food prisons that could be producing their own organic food while addressing climate change. By educating the public about regeneratively homegrown food, Climate Victory Gardens are raising awareness about one of the biggest global challenges of our time and showing Americans how they can make a difference for themselves, their households, and their communities. Soil Equals Life."<br><br>— Ron Finley of <a href="http://ronfinley.com/the-ron-finley-project/" target="_blank">The Ron Finley Project</a><br></blockquote><p>A very special thanks to <a href="http://www.greenamerica.org/" target="_blank">Green America</a>, Rosario Dawson, Ron Finley and the <a href="http://ronfinley.com/the-ron-finley-project/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=5+Ways+To+Make+Your+Garden+Regenerative&utm_campaign=5+Ways+To+Make+Your+Garden+Regenerative" target="_blank">Ron Finley Project</a>, our amazing film crew and to <a href="https://www.kellogggarden.com/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=5+Ways+To+Make+Your+Garden+Regenerative&utm_campaign=5+Ways+To+Make+Your+Garden+Regenerative" target="_blank">Kellogg Garden Products</a> for their support in bringing this video to life—and thank YOU in advance for helping us share this video and supporting the regeneration of our planet, one garden at a time.<br></p>
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Cows graze on Brown's ranch. Gabe Brown
By Jeff Turrentine
Sometimes enlightenment arrives as a flash of epiphany: a gravity-obeying apple that falls from a tree, for instance, or a blinding light that freezes you in your tracks on the road to Damascus.
Other times, though, it's more of a process. That's how Gabe Brown came to regenerative agriculture. About 20 years ago, Brown nearly lost his 1,760-acre farm outside Bismarck, North Dakota, which he had taken over upon his in-laws' retirement in 1991. Just as his wife's family had done since the 1950s, Brown continued to till, fertilize, graze and chemically treat the land—all of which were considered best practices at the time.
<p>In high school and college, he said, "I was taught the current production models. That's all I was exposed to. I learned the conventional mind-set—how to use all the fertilizers and pesticides and fungicides, and how to give growth hormones to cattle to get them to grow faster."</p>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Gabe Brown poses at his ranch in Bismarck, North Dakota.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Gabe Brown</small></p>
<p>Then, in 1995 and 1996, a pair of massive hailstorms destroyed his crops. A blizzard followed in 1997, leading to the deaths of many of the cows the Browns had been relying on to generate income in the wake of their successive crop failures. Brown and his wife steeled themselves and regrouped, only to have a <em>third</em> freak hailstorm destroy their crops once more. In discussing these events and their aftermath, Brown tends to refer to this dark time in his farming life as "the four years," in the kind of hushed tone typically reserved for myths and legends.<br></p><p>He didn't give up. Having already been introduced to the central ideas of regenerative agriculture, Brown was eager to give them a try—to fortify his weakened farmland by minimizing synthetic inputs and restoring ecological balance. Put simply, regenerative agriculture aims to boost microbial activity, carbon retention and water infiltration in soil so that plants can get more of what they need more efficiently. Paradoxically, the best way to achieve this agricultural state of grace is to do<em> less</em>, not more.</p><p>Some examples of regenerative ag include reducing or refraining altogether from tilling, which farmers have been doing for centuries but which can destroy soil structure, inhibit water infiltration and increase erosion; ending the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, so that healthy microbial biodiversity can flourish underground; and planting cover crops in multispecies combinations to "armor" the soil, further preventing erosion and promoting the generation of organic matter. Brown had heard the stories from scientists and <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/soil-savior" target="_blank">other farmers</a> about how these strategies could result in higher crop yields and greater soil resilience, irrespective of location. After enduring the four years, he and his wife knew something had to change.</p>
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<p>And so it did. Brown now runs <a href="http://brownsranch.us/" target="_blank">a flourishing 5,000-acre ranch</a> with his wife and their son, Paul, and has become a well-known champion of soil health in the bargain. His story is recounted in a new book, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Soil-Familys-Regenerative-Agriculture/dp/1603587632" target="_blank">Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey into Regenerative Agriculture</a></em>, which also serves as a primer for farmers, ranchers, and policy makers who want to better understand how one can boost the operations of an entire farm by <a href="http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/0802/regenerative.shtml" target="_blank">putting the health of the soil above all else</a>. Moreover, Brown's conversion experience suggests a possible way out of our modern agricultural predicament, wherein centuries of mechanical and chemical disturbance have rendered soils nutritionally depleted and highly vulnerable—locking farmers into cycles of constant (and costly) interventions that only serve to perpetuate the underlying problem.<br></p><p>Once Brown started to think of his soil not just as a medium for other living things but as a living thing itself, he was stunned by the immediate results. In one early experiment, he planted several one-acre plots with different monoculture cover crops: radishes, turnips, lupine, and so on. But on one plot, he planted all of these together in a biodiverse polyculture "cocktail." Over a two-month period marked by very little rain, production was three times greater on the polyculture plot.</p>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A healthy cut of soil from Brown's land.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Gabe Brown</small></p>
<p>By 2010, Brown stopped using synthetic fertilizers and today, his crop yields are 20 percent higher than the average yields in his county. He's also seen water-infiltration rates skyrocket—from one-half inch per hour, back in 1991, to one inch in<em> nine seconds</em> in 2015. Carbon-retention rates have risen dramatically, too. "On our home place, where we've done in-depth, significant testing, our soils have 96 tons of carbon per acre in the top 48 inches," he said—compared with the 10 to 30 tons of stored carbon typically found in conventionally farmed soils of the Northern Plains.<br></p><p>"I tell people that many of the ills we're seeing today—whether we're talking too much carbon in the atmosphere and not enough cycling in the soil where we need it, problems with our watersheds, nitrates in our estuaries or in the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/back-dead-zone" target="_blank">Mississippi Delta</a> or the Gulf of Mexico or <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/algae-almost-ate-toledo" target="_blank">the Great Lakes</a> or the Chesapeake—we can solve all of those," Brown said. And there's consequences for human health, too. "We no longer have healthy, functioning soil, so we don't have the ability to move nutrients out of the soil and into plants," he said. "People aren't getting the necessary nutrition they need from the food that's being produced."</p><p>Brown now spends nearly as much time touring the country and spreading the regenerative agriculture gospel as he does working his land. He's hopeful that the message is breaking through to a younger generation of farmers. "They're looking for something else, because the production model we're in is just wrong; it's broken," he said. "But what's wonderful today about these younger producers is that they have the experience of all of us—the ones who went before them—to draw upon." The seeds of regenerative agriculture have been planted.</p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/how-did-farmer-brown-bring-his-dying-land-back-brink" target="_blank">onEarth</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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