Before we can begin to understand Regenerative Agriculture, we must first understand the background from which it came. How then do we define Agriculture?
When thinking about agriculture and its definition I quite like the definition posed by Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It is a science, it is based on science but practicing agriculture is also an art in itself. Having knowledge is one thing but putting it into practice daily requires creativity, skill, and understanding and it is from these things that art derives. I bet you farmers never thought of yourselves as artists before. Artists create things of beauty and in my mind so do farmers.
As we have seen when defining agriculture, it is clearly a noun or a thing that is tangible. But the same cannot be said for the word Regenerate! To regenerate is an act of doing. It is a verb. This is important to understand because unlike the noun agriculture which is used to describe many aspects of farming, to regenerate is to make new or restore. In fact, dictionaries don’t even agree on the definition.
Merriam Webster gives us – restored to a better, higher, or more worthy state. Dictionary.com states to effect a complete moral reform. While Cambridge implores us to improve a place or system, making it more active or successful. WikiDictionary suggests re-creating, reconstituting, or makeover, especially in a better form or condition. One thing is common amongst these definitions though, that is to regenerate involves renewal, re-creation, and improvement.
So what happens when we combine these two words? As we have discussed to regenerate is to restore but what exactly are we restoring and why? If our farmers are artists and our agricultural practices are to be regenerative in nature, it goes to our understanding that the nature of our farming or agricultural practices should be re-creating and renewing. Our agricultural lands should be restored and regenerated or improved through our management not devalued or denuded.
Regenerative Agriculture is greater than the sum of its parts. It builds on what is there now for the future and increases in health and beauty over time. Remember I said farmers are artists. Artists seek to create beauty. So I assert to you now that Regenerative Agriculture creates beauty. Without beauty, there can be no regeneration.
Humans have been farming the land and its animals for over 100,000 years. From humble beginnings of gathering and hunting to actively cultivating grains and domesticating animals. We have relied on the land and her bounty for our existence since time began. Our modern farming methods have really only developed in the last 200 years. With the advent of machinery to assist us with tasks that used to take a village to manage, we migrated to the cities only when our food systems were able to supply us with our needs. Did you know approximately 60% of the earth’s arable land is farmed not under what we would call conventional agriculture but by Subsistence farming – a practice that satisfies family or local needs alone, with little left over for transport elsewhere. It is intensively practiced in Monsoon Asia and South-East Asia. An estimated 2.5 billion subsistence farmers worked their lands in 2018 and continue to do so.
Around the time of the American Revolution, 90% of the population were farmers. Today, only 3% of the U.S. population is employed on a farm, and 2% of U.S. farms produce 70% of all domestic vegetables. So how did we get here?
The first significant inflection point for the agrarian economy came with the Industrial Revolution in the 1850s, which brought with it the use of machinery to increase productivity and reduce labor. Farmers began to use fertilizers, often in the form of natural organic material like animal waste and manure, and learned to rotate crops to achieve better soil productivity.
Between the 1930s and the late 1960s, The Green Revolution accelerated new methods and technologies that increased agricultural production worldwide, including the transition from animal to mechanical power, the increased use of chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals and synthetic pesticides, and single cropping practices. The rapid industrialization of agriculture during this time period required farmers to become more efficient to remain competitive. It resulted in small farms, which had historically grown a wide variety of crops, being pushed out by large, corporate farms specializing in large-scale monocultures of single high-yielding crop varieties, like corn, soy, or wheat. These corporate farms were able to produce large quantities of food more efficiently to feed a growing population. Yet, this progress occurred at an environmental cost: the proliferation of synthetic pesticides, widespread soil depletion, and a heavy carbon footprint. With the advent of huge commercially viable monoculture crops came the issue of pest and disease control.
Many of the earliest pesticides were simply based on dried plant leaves.
One product familiar to many gardeners, Pyrethrum, is based on a plant-derived organic compound sourced from flowering Chrysanthemum plants, which was used by the Persians as early as 400 BC.
Beginning in the 1940s, chemists and chemical companies started to more widely utilize organic chemistry to synthesize and commercialize pesticide products. Many of these were broad-spectrum (i.e. poisonous to entire groups of organisms) and initially proved spectacularly effective compared to previously available compounds.
However, high levels of residual toxicity and the indiscriminate use of many of these broad-spectrum, first-generation pesticides resulted in significant harm to both the environment and human health. These problems are clearly illustrated by the story of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane).
A broad-spectrum insecticide, DDT was one of the first synthetic organo pesticides to be released for widespread use. Despite initially proving to be of great benefit for pest control, the cautionary tale of DDT is well known, owing in large part to the 1962 publication of “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson, which documented both the ecological devastation caused by indiscriminate use of DDT and the problems emerging due to the widespread evolution of insect pest resistance. Its legacy continues to be unearthed to this day.
Not only do these agrichemicals kill the target pest or disease but increasingly we have become aware of other effects, such as Alzheimer’s, Breast Cancers, and more. Waterways were sprayed and polluted with this chemical and as consumers, we were convinced by marketing we were not only safe, but these chemicals were good for us and our health. Children were routinely sprayed to prevent polio (it didn’t), used as an anti-lice powder for those who had been in concentration camps, and the military, and traveled from abroad to even plastering it on the walls of our children’s bedrooms. Farmers were told of the increased yields in vegetable and fruit crops due to it use as well as the obvious insecticide properties the company marketed this silver bullet cure-all for decades. This insidious marketing went on for years until Rachel Carson’s book raised public awareness of the issues behind these types of chemicals and the US Environmental Protection Agency was set up and called for the removal from use of DDT in 1972 and worldwide by 2004.
With the removal of DDT from use, there had to be a replacement.
Around this time Monsanto released Glyphosate or Roundup with a fanfare of claims. This chemical has now been in use around the world for more than 50 years.
It is now the most used herbicide in the world. It has given rise to genetic modification of plant material to resist glyphosate spraying of weeds in crops grown in almost every western country in the world.
It is now known to be a probable carcinogen. One of the most insidious chemicals of our time is found in waterways, drinking water, rain, on our fresh foods, and even in breast milk. There is now more and more research detailing the effects of glyphosate on the human body including being an endocrine disrupter. Imbalances of the endocrine system may trigger diabetes, kidney diseases, osteoporosis, Cushing’s, Infertility, and a host of other dysfunctions.
This chemical is so widely used globally that the University of Sydney created a map on its toxicity in soils.
There are very few countries in the world that are not using this chemical. The evidence is growing that this chemical is having a massive impact on global health from humans all the way to soil microorganisms.
But where to from here and what does this all have to do with Regenerative Agriculture? Regeneration creates beauty remember. Where is the beauty in dead, lifeless soils and fields as far as the eye can see of monoculture? The organic industry has since the early 1990’s been trying to show us how good, real food tastes without the chemicals but the majority of fruit and vegetables sold in this country are still conventionally farmed. However, there is a field of agriculture making BIG inroads into how farming is done. Regenerative Agriculture or Regen Ag is transforming lives and livelihoods.
Principles of Regenerative Agriculture
Indigenous cultures have long been aware of the innate knowledge of many of regenerative agriculture’s techniques. These practices have existed for centuries, but the term itself has only been around for some decades, and as of late, has increasingly shown up in academic research since the early to mid-2010s in the fields of environmental science, plant science, and ecology. Allan Savory gave a TED talk on fighting and reversing climate change in 2013. He also launched The Savory Institute, which educates farmers on holistic land management. Abe Collins created LandStream to monitor ecosystem performance on regenerative agriculture farms. Eric Toensmeier and countless others have published books on the subject. Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute began championing the benefits of this type of agriculture as far back as 1971.
Rodale penned the first principles of Regeneration which have broadly been developed to the following:
- Increased Diversity
- Keeping the Ground Covered – no bare soil
- Reduced Chemical Use
- Reduced Tillage
- Restoring the Water Cycle
- Integrated Pest Management
- Holistic Animal Management
- Carbon Sequestration
- Feeding the Soil Food Web
Increasing Diversity
Increasing Diversity – not only in our plantings such as multispecies cover crops which we will talk about next but in the wildlife, and insect populations. In the soil and all around. Nature has never worked in a vacuum. Nature must have balance and she will work toward that balance at every opportunity.
Nature wastes nothing, everything in nature has a purpose and a role to play. Many weeds not only can tell us about the soil condition but also about our management practices. For example, overstocking or poor management of grazing animals will have the ground bare and compacted, and erosion from wind and water but nature will do everything in her power to heal the land. This may be with the use of vegetation to reduce erosion and hold the soil together or it may be, in the use of vegetation that covers the soil and begins the decompaction process.
Nature has a language of her own and it is useful for us as gardeners and farmers to understand these patterns and learn how to read this language. Reading our landscapes is half of the battle but this is not taught in schools or garden books. It is a pattern language we must learn to read in order to work with nature. In regenerative terms, everything has a function and a place, we can utilize these functions to help us restore and renew.
Cover Crops – No Bare Soil
When soil is bare and uncovered – it dries out and begins to form a crust. Carbon dioxide leaves the soil and we begin to bake the microorganisms within.
If left in this state, our soil is also prone to erosion from wind and water. The life which lives below (the soil micro-organisms) needs the warmth and security that comes with a blanket of living plants. The best way to achieve this is actually to use a diversity of cover crops. They may be forage crops or simply a meadow of flowering plants but either way we need to keep the ground covered.
Living plants actually feed the system below ground and aid in the production and uptake of the very minerals and elements they need to support their growth. In some way, the plants are actively farming the soil microbes.
There is a lot to learn about life in the soil. Dr. Elaine Ingham is probably the best-known soil biologist for her work on the Soil Food Web. She was able to explain the life that lives within the soil and how it interacts with plants.
Dr. Christine Jones and Nicole Masters have taken us further into the lives of these thriving metropolises beneath our feet. All agree there is one critical aspect to Regenerating the land and our agricultural systems. Look after and care for your underground army for they are the engine room of your crops and without them, you simply have dead soil or dirt to be precise.
Reduce Chemical Use
Agricultural Chemical use as described earlier is to blame for a lot of issues. The biggest of these is clearly our health but what comes a close second that we haven’t discussed is what those chemicals are doing to your soil.
Nature has never needed the help of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, neonicotinoids, and countless other things the chemical companies have been flogging for years. Spraying chemicals is killing your underground workforce and turning your plants into drug addicts. Plants directly interact with your soil microbes to create optimal conditions for their growth and success. Bacteria, Arachia, Protosa, Fungi, and plenty more microbes work in consortia with the plant. They exchange minerals and vitamins with the plant in return for sugars that the plant emits from its roots. And what is more, the plant will tell this underground army exactly what it needs through pheromones in the sugars. This relationship provides every molecule that the plant needs, while also feeding the workforce. When we kill off one part of the cycle the plant is now dependent upon you the farmer (and the chemical companies) to provide what it would have otherwise obtained itself.
The transition to regen ag does not mean you can’t use any chemical but it does assist you to reduce the chemical load and in so doing will reduce the costs associated with their use.
This is a huge topic and beyond the scope of this discussion but if you are interested to know more please shoot me an email or book a chat via our coaching page.
Reduce Tillage
We now know that for every pass with the plow we are opening the soil to not only transpiration but also emission of C02 and other elements that belong in the ground, not in our atmosphere. Farming today is being hammered to find ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing tillage plays a huge role in this but it also is critical to the small water cycle and maintaining your microbial populations. Take note here I am not saying no-tillage, the distinction for reduced tillage goes back to no bare ground and increasing diversity. As human beings we are smart – we have devised ways to do a huge range of things more efficiently and reduction in tillage is another of those. By reducing the exposure of our soils to sun, wind, water, and atmosphere we can make a huge difference in the liveability of the human race as well as the improving our livelihoods, lifestyles, and ability to continue farming the land in the future. Yeoman’s plow is one example of this by slicing through vegetation and delivering the seed without the need for complete tillage. There are many other examples of reduced tillage but the key takeaway is to aim for no more than 6 days per year when the soil is uncovered. This will reduce greenhouse emissions, reduce water transpiration, reduce erosion, reduce losses in microbial populations and improve the soil over time. It’s a win-win.
Restoring the Water Cycle
We have all benefitted from sitting or standing under the shade of a large tree. But did you ever stop to consider why it is cooler under the tree? Vegetation of all types needs water but it also makes water. Walter Jehne former scientist with CSIRO and academic from the University of Canberra has done decades of work on the small water cycle and as a result, we know that bacteria are the drivers of this water cycle. These bacteria live on and in our plants as a result of the small water cycle. Did you know that 2/3rd of all rainfall over land is a result of the small water cycle? The best way we can stabilize our climate is actually to plant trees and shrubs, cover the ground with living plants, and as a result sequester large amounts of carbon. It is the interaction of carbon and living plants that will restore the water-holding capacity of our soils. Are you beginning to see a theme here?
Integrated Pest Management
As gardeners and farmers, we have all reached for the pesticide at one time or another. Snails, slugs, aphids, thrips, and countless other problematic pests have plagued our attempts at growing or farming. At this point, I would like to bring you back to our first point of increasing diversity but before I do I would like to remind you that nature is in control. Nothing in nature is wasted and everything has a job to do. Remember that.
So back to our pests. When we build an ecosystem we must consider the food sources for that ecosystem right. We don’t have a dog or a child for that matter and do not consider how we will feed it. Every ecosystem is the same – there are apex predators who require food, their food source requires food, and so on. We call it the natural food chain. So at what point did we think that stops? If there is something eating something else then it stands to reason that thing also needs food. So back to our aphids, ants actually farm aphids for the sugars that they produce, aphids are also a food source for small birds, wasps, and lady beetles. I am sure you can where I am going with this. Integrated pest management simply acknowledges that something will eat or kill the issue and seeks to protect the overall system by encouraging the right conditions for the food chain to continue. A good example of this is the dung beetle. These miners and distributors of manure are also providing another landscape function as well as pest management at the same time. With the burial of manure balls deep in the soil, the dung beetle is fertilizing your soil and removes fly larvae. Many cattle farmers are now using dung beetles as a control method for buffalo flies, rather than sprays, tags, and drenches. This is just one example there literally are thousands of these integrated pest management strategies that can be deployed.
Holistic Animal Management
Holistic Animal Management is another of our principles in Regen Ag. There are many reasons for this but the most commonly purported is its use in carbon sequestration and grazing management. By utilizing smart grazing techniques not only are you sequestering carbon but you are also improving soil water holding capacity, feed quality and quantity, and the all-important bottom line. There is not a lot to dislike about holistic animal management. Allan Savory’s book is a go-to resource for this as is RCS Consulting here in Australia. Farmers have been reaping huge benefits from implementing this practice.
Carbon Sequestration
Finally, Carbon Sequestration and feeding the soil food web are the last two principles on our list. We have actually already given you a number of techniques and reasons to do this but you will notice that once you start down this regen ag path all these things come from your simple practice of regeneration. Carbon sequestered in the soil occurs when your landscape is functioning the way it should, in harmony with nature. Similarly, feeding your soil microbes will supercharge this ecosystem function. Land recovers, profitability improves, lifestyles and livelihoods improve and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have indeed created something of beauty. Regenerative Agriculture is greater than the sum of its parts. It builds on what is there now for the future and continues to increase in health and beauty over time. Remember I said farmers are artists. Regenerative Farmers truly do create beauty and they do it for the benefit of all.
If you are a regenerative farmer I want to say thank you. Thank you for creating the beauty this planet needs to survive. Thank you for creating the beauty that we as human beings enjoy seeing and interacting with. Thank you for working with nature. If you would like to know more about getting started please reach out – we would love to work with you to regenerate your landscapes and livelihood.
