Soil and Climate Change
What is Regenerative Agriculture?
Regenerative agriculture is a way of farming that focuses on soil health. Soil health affects everything from plant health to human wellbeing and the future of our planet. Regenerative agriculture prioritizes soil health while simultaneously encompassing high standards for animal welfare and worker fairness. The idea is to create farm systems that work in harmony with nature to improve quality of life for every creature involved. The key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only “does no harm” to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment. Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies.
Pillars of Regenerative Agriculture
The exact mix of regenerative approaches appropriate to a farm varies depending on what is being produced and the goals of the farmer and landowner. Some soil and climate conditions can also impact what farming practices it makes sense to use. For farmers growing commodity crops or annual fruits and vegetables, some common regenerative approaches can include the following practices.
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.
Diversity
Different plants release different carbohydrates (sugars) through their roots, and various microbes feed on these carbohydrates 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.
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.
Water Quality
Protecting the quality of natural waters and improved stewarding of scarce water resources is essential to regeneration. A more strategic approach to irrigation–from sprinkler, to drip and sub-service irrigation–minimizes water evaporation compared to surface irrigation. Digital technology is also helping farms understand when land requires water, which can prevent over-use.
Potential of Regenerative Agriculture Practices to Mitigate Climate Change
The thinking behind regenerative practices as a climate mitigation strategy is to remove carbon dioxide out of the air by storing it as organic carbon in soils. While practices like adding manure can increase soil carbon, the feasibility of scaling such practices over large areas to substantially increase soil carbon and mitigate climate change is much less clear. However, there is limited scientific understanding of what keeps soil carbon sequestered, and, as a result, uncertainty about whether regenerative practices such as no-till actually sequester additional carbon.
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