What exactly is regenerative agriculture? For many years, Kim and I have been saying that it's not good enough to be sustainable - why would we want to sustain a degraded environment? We need to be improving it. This is basically what regenerative agriculture (regen ag for short) is. It's improving the farming and grazing soils to a point that is even better than what they were before "modern agriculture". The "date"of modern agriculture is flexible - the Middle East, it may have been many thousands of years ago (around 10000), Europe, probably not quite as long, America - a few hundred and Australia is only young - since white man turned up, a couple of hundred years. We are rapidly desertifying our planet and a movie I watched a little while ago, suggested that we have 60 more harvests in America before the soil and/or water is gone.
Sobering......
The movie was Kiss the Ground and it's available to watch on Netflix - please watch it if you can. I'm currently listening to the audio book, which is available on Borrowbox - the free library for audio and ebooks.
It's difficult to go into to an in-depth explanation of regen ag, and it's not simply organic farming. Animals are easy - they should be on pasture and free to roam - not locked up in yards or sheds. Cattle/sheep/goats etc on pasture only and managed in a rotational grazing/resting/mob stocking system. Pigs and chickens on pasture (also rotational) and supplemented with grains grown by regenerative farming practices.
Grain/pulse/seed growing is a little trickier. For many years Australian farmers have been changing over from "conventional" farming to zero till farming. This Conventional method is where you plough (till) the soil to get rid of weeds and to prepare a seed bed (similar to how most people prepare a garden bed). Zero till farming as mostly done in Australia, requires the extensive use of chemicals to kill weeds before planting. Sometimes this is done 4-6 times per year as the belief is that weeds are using up moisture that the future crop will need. The latest wisdom amongst regenerative farmers is that soil needs to have living plants in it all the time to retain moisture and enable the biology in the soil to become abundant. Tilling the soil (which is also why you should practice no-dig gardening) damages soil biology. The most common chemical used to kill weeds is glysophate and it destroys biology in the soil.
Tilling can damage biology, but it also releases carbon into the atmosphere. Living plants take carbon from the atmosphere and draw it down into the soil. Gabe Brown, who is featured on Kiss the Ground, has some great Youtube clips on this if you want to learn more. Another fellow is Mark Sheppard and his book Restoration Agriculture. While talking movies/books, Biggest Little Farm (on Stan) is an amazing example of farming regeneratively. I'll put some links at the bottom of this post, but be aware, you will get sucked into the rabbit warren that is youtube!
We are concerned about Climate Change, and rightly so. The climate is changing and yes it's getting hotter (some places are getting colder) and yes there are more extreme weather events. Climate change is something that will be easily fixed and it's not really up to Governments to fix it. Waiting for "someone else" to solve the problem will take too long. We as a human population, are doing the wrong thing for our environment - we are the ones that need to fix it.
My thoughts are that there is really only one major thing we as consumers need and should be doing.
Change the way we consume - Food and Things
Food - support regenerative farmers where ever possible. It's really difficult to know if you are or not, unless you are buying direct from them. The supermarkets will not be buying any of their food from regenerative farmers, it simply isn't being done at the scale that they would need to purchase at. Not everyone is in a position to grow or make everything they need, so how you shop is very important. Please think before you automatically shop at the supermarket for food or other things that you can buy elsewhere. Yes, it may be more expensive (but not always) however, because you'll be spending less on stuff (as per the following paragraphs) you may be able to buy from smaller retailers or markets. This is also more likely to support a small local business, which is a win!
Stop consuming things that are made in ways that contribute to climate change.
Plastic - don't buy it (whenever possible). Don't buy food wrapped in it. Don't buy single use plastic items.
Stuff - We just don't need excess stuff! Repair, and reuse. Try to limit buying new things - clothes, household furniture, electronics, everything. Think before you buy something - can you buy it second hand or do you in fact really need it?
We need the world to have a lot of people doing good things imperfectly, rather than a few doing it perfectly.
Grow some of your own food, support the local farmers market, order online from regenerative farmers. There are so many ways that we can do something. The sooner we get away from our reliance on the supermarkets, the better.
The benefit of all this is that we will have a lot less pollution. Pollution is killing our oceans. Us humans aren't content destroying the land, we also want to destroy our water.
If we want to stop the use of fossil fuels to create power, think about the solutions. Is it better to use solar and batteries that require the use of rare earths, that are mined by child slaves? We can stop the use of coal fired power stations in Australia, but can we stop the use in other countries? Do we tell India and China that no, they can't have electricity? Is it better for poor people to cut down trees to provide the material to cook their food or perhaps use electricity or gas. Are we all going to be able to cope without air conditioning when the power fails, because there just isn't enough without coal fired power stations. Are we going to be happy with the price of power? Do we want nuclear power?
The solution isn't to completely stop the use of fossil fuels - this is also an almost impossible feat worldwide. Even if we did, we would still be losing carbon to the atmosphere - every time the soil is tilled, every time a tree is cut down, every time soil is left uncovered of plant material, carbon is released. Every plant that is actively growing, is actively storing carbon - drawing it out of the atmosphere and into the soil. It is the simplest and fastest way to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere and start cooling the earth. It is possible to feed the world farming this way - watch Gabe Brown and don't listen to Big Ag. The more plants growing, the more carbon is being captured and the biggest benefit of this is that more water will be getting stored in the soil!
There are a lot of components to a successful regen ag business and farmers/graziers shouldn't be demonised for doing the wrong thing. Everyone needs to be educated - the Governments, the farmers and the consumer. Starting with the consumer is something we can all do - we all consume - simply start shopping in a conscious way. Start supporting local regen farmers and stop supporting the big supermarkets! You can only change yourself, so work on that first rather than trying to push others to change.
Some Links:
For a definition and some good links: About Regen Ag
Gabe Brown Farming as an Ecosystem
Mark Shepard Restoration Agriculture
Biggest Little Farm Movie Preview
