Regenerative Agriculture: Healing the mother that feeds us

Dec 31

This is the first of a series of articles on the theme of redesigning agriculture to bring about positive effects for the planet and its people, while also enhancing economic opportunities for farmers. It is a subject dear to my heart. Having spent several summers in my university undergraduate years as foreman of a large Southern Ontario cash crop farm, I have seen pretty clearly the way modern farms work against the bio-system rather than with it. But does it have to be this way? There are confluence solutions that can lead to positive environmental AND economic results. It will take both government incentives and the innovative skill and efficient capital mobilization of free markets. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s look first at how agriculture got to this point.

Farming the land is about as natural a thing as we homo sapiens can do. Yes, we were all hunter-gatherers at one point. But a seminal development in the evolution of our species occurred when humans first experimented with growing crops and raising livestock for their food, instead of just harvesting their wild counterparts. In time, this led to surpluses which allowed pursuits other than just chasing subsistence to develop... specialization of economic activities, urbanization, leisure, culture. Today, over 4.6 billion acres worldwide is committed to agricultural cultivation, approximately 38% of the landmass of the Earth and half of all habitable land. A significant portion of the population is engaged in raising food, transporting it, processing it, marketing it, preparing it in restaurants, etc. In short, to state the obvious, farming remains vital to humanity. Without it, we don’t eat.

But humanity’s relationship to the land which provides this bounty has radically changed in the past century as the pressure of rising population inspired a monumental growth of new technologies. These technologies have allowed us to feed ourselves, but at a heavy cost to the planet.

Avoiding the Malthusian trap

In 1798 Thomas Malthus published his famous ‘Essay on the Principles of Population”. In it, he argued that affluence, stimulated In part by the burgeoning industrial revolution, would spur population growth to the point where it would outpace the ability of agriculture to keep up.

“The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation...But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population?”

Cheery stuff!! Yet Malthus has been proven wrong, as have his latter-day theoretical followers like Garrett Hardin (“The Tragedy of the Commons”) and Paul Ehrlich (“The Population Bomb”). Globally, the human population has grown from 1 billion at the time of Malthus to nearly 8 billion now, yet the developed world at least has avoided the sort of famine predicted. Parts of the developing world still tragically seem to reel from one food crisis to another, but there are many other factors at work there that are worthy of exploration in another article.

Why was Malthus wrong?

Since the 1950s, what is broadly called the Green Revolution has brought about a huge expansion of crop yields which has lifted food supply beyond population growth, resulting in lower relative food prices for much of the world and thus much higher overall calorie intake on average. The key parts of this revolution include:

Technology: Tractors, combine harvesters, milking machines, etc which replaced horses, oxen and man in most farm tasks, greatly lifting productivity.

Irrigation: Has opened up vast new areas for farming.
Chemicals: Heavy application of fertilizers to artificially lift soil productivity and pesticides, herbicides and fungicides to reduce erosion of crop yields by pests, weeds, etc
Genetic innovation: Biotechnology has created higher yielding and disease resistant seeds. For example, from the 1960s through the 1990s, yields of rice and wheat in Asia doubled. Even as the continent’s population increased by 60 percent, grain prices fell, the average Asian consumed nearly a third more calories, and the poverty rate was cut in half. Advances in stock breeding, feeds and veterinary care also increased livestock yields.
Scale: From the enclosures during the agricultural revolution in England to the rise of today’s massive farms, scale has enabled full use of mechanical equipment, irrigation and production systems, thus bringing effective employment of capital to bear and increasing efficiency and yields.
Storage and distribution: In the West, at least, much less food is wasted than in the historic past thanks to refrigeration, packaging, processing and effective transport to markets. This is still a huge problem in less developed parts of the world and a major source of overall hunger. Globally, it is thought that roughly 1/3rd of all food produced never makes it to market/processor/table. As a result, tragically, hunger is a fact of life for 800 million people worldwide. Solving this problem alone would lead to a massive improvement in the lives of so many in the developing world.

Impact on the planet:

The achievement of human ingenuity, technology and capital in vastly raising agricultural yields and feeding the world cannot be overstated. It is remarkable!
However, as farming methods have moved further and further from symbiosis with the natural world, deleterious impacts have started to multiply and now threaten our ability as a species to build further on those productivity gains, as will be needed if the UN’s prediction comes true and our global population rises a further 22% to reach 9.8 billion in 2050.
The impact of industrial-scale agriculture can be seen in excessive tillage of soils which depletes fertility, reduces water holding content, increases erosion and undermines carbon sinking ability.
Mono cropping multiplies these effects, seriously eroding the fertility of the soil which is the basis of all agricultural production. It is simply not natural for one crop to dominate a huge swath of land and have everything else destroyed in the name of harvesting efficiency. Nor is it healthy for the soil.
Soils denuded of life have to be pumped with fertilizers, which then run off with rain or excessive irrigation into rivers and lakes, causing algae blooms and killing marine life.
Biodiversity gets largely eradicated by pesticides and herbicides, which present their own dangers to the humans who eat the fruit of the land.
Salinization due to over-watering via irrigation undermines the soil and its richness.
And then there are the factory farms and massive feedlots which are notorious for the polluting runoff they cause, the inhumane way in which animals are treated and the antibiotics that have to be forced into them to stop them from getting sick in such dire conditions. In the midst of a pandemic, it is worth heeding the warnings from many scientists about the risk of another deadly virus coming out of this factory feedlot environment.
Modern farming, of course, is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from machinery and livestock. The typical calorie of food energy in your diet requires about 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce. As for livestock, the CO2, nitrous oxide and methane emissions they produce are thought to account for c.18% of global greenhouse gas output, second only to fossil fuels. If cattle were a nation, they alone would rank as the world’s third-largest source of such emissions on the planet. (World Resources Institute, Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Future, 2019)

Can we turn this around?

What if farming could have a positive impact on the planet? What if it enhanced biodiversity and soil fertility, reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions while increasing carbon storage in the soil and at the same time producing safer and better quality food? In short, what if farming techniques celebrated the earth rather than trying to bludgeon it into submission?

I am not trying to blame farmers for the practices that have caused all these negative results for the planet. They were responding to the need to make a better life for their families in the face of the perilous vagaries of weather and prices, while also unconsciously increasing production to feed humanity. But we know more now about the environmental impacts of modern farming and the danger that these will undermine the productivity gains we have achieved in time. So shouldn’t we adjust practices accordingly?

Of course, the need to continue expanding food production to feed our rising population is paramount. This will require ongoing innovation and effective employment of technology and capital. But as with industry and energy production, such innovations need to also take into consideration the ‘natural capital’ that is the basis of all life on this planet. If we destroy that natural capital, in this case, the fertility of the soil and the biosystems that make agriculture work, then Malthus’ predictions will indeed come true. Nature seeks to remain in balance. But humanity has become so dominant that it has thrown that balance out of kilter. We need to find our way back home in agriculture as in so many other spheres of human endeavor. To do so is by no means impossible. But it will require some redesign of our current agricultural methods.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Simply put, it is a system of farming principles and practices that seek to rehabilitate and enhance the entire ecosystem of the farm by placing heavy emphasis on restoring the fertility of the soil, the basic building block of all agricultural production. The central view here is that the next Green Revolution needs to come from the soil itself. Regenerative agriculture methods are also designed to rebuild biodiversity and ween the farm off of dependence on chemicals, the production of which has a very high greenhouse gas footprint and the use of which involves real dangers for the bio-system and human health. Let’s have a look at a few of the techniques involved in regenerative farming and the impact they can have on the environment and the farmer.

Low or no tillage:

The standard practice in modern farms over the past 5+ decades has been to start every spring by plowing or discing and then cultivating the soil, followed by fertilizing and planting. I spent the first month or more of every summer I farmed doing this on a tractor. The process is meant to prepare the land for planting. But is it the right thing to do? The evidence increasingly indicates the answer is ‘no’.
Aggressively tilling or turning over the soil dries it out, exposes it to erosion by wind and water and undermines the biome–the mix of flora and fauna in the soil that gives it its fertility. To overcome this, we ply it with fertilizer and till it even harder, requiring yet more fertilizer...and so the circle continues.
As a result, according to a UN estimate, about one-third of the world’s topsoil is acutely degraded. That will worsen dramatically if we don’t change course, thus undermining the ability of the land to feed our burgeoning population.
The practice of no or little tillage, which is gaining wide acceptance now in many parts of the world, seeks to reverse this degradation. Farmers avoid plowing the soil. Instead, they use a drill to put seeds into it.
Where soil disturbance is kept to a minimum and organic matter from plant residue is kept in the ground, microbial life proliferates, worms increase, soil texture improves, nitrogen increases, fertility rises.
The healthier the soil, the healthier the crop. When plants have the nutrients they need to thrive, they build strong root systems that hold the soil and reduce erosion.
Healthier soils also retain more water which means crops are more drought-resistant–something that is becoming increasingly important as the effects of climate change take hold.
The entire ecosystem of the farm improves. Biodiversity rises, feeding back into the loop of improving system health and fertility.
The farmer benefits from similar and sometimes higher crop yields, but also lower costs as less or no artificial fertilizer or pesticides are needed and less fuel is used for plowing and the like. Profits rise.
The consumer, meanwhile, benefits from more nutrient-dense food with fewer chemicals in it.

Use of cover crops:

Rotating cover crops like legumes and alfalfa between the target plant rows, sets nitrogen in the soil and so enhances fertility.
These plants also tend to crowd out weeds and provide a different target for pests.
Biodiversity increases. Birds, bees and native animals return, which are natural pollinators. They also tend to reduce insect infestation. Studies by the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that “ Pest problems in agriculture are often the product of low biodiversity… In our studies, farmers that replaced insecticide use with agronomic forms of plant diversity invariably had fewer pest problems than those with strict monocultures. Reducing insect diversity and relying solely on insecticide use establishes a scenario whereby pests persist and resurge through adaptation.”
Cover crops protect the soil from wind and water erosion, lower the temperature of the soil, and feed the microorganisms within it when they die.
Again, water retention is increased.
The whole farm ecosystem gets healthier year by year.
When cover crops are consumed by livestock as part of pasture cropping, natural fertilizer is left behind to further enhance the soil. And the farmer gets two crops from the land–the planted one and the meat, milk or wool.

Managed grazing:

Where original grasslands are still intact in places like the Serengeti Plain, they are wildlife abundant with carbon-rich soils many feet deep.
Managed grazing seeks to imitate what migratory herds of herbivores do on these grasslands: they cluster for protection, munch grasses to the crown, disturb the soil with their hooves, fertilize it with their waste and then move on, often not returning for a year. In this way, ruminants co-created the great grasslands.
But put those animals inside a fence and you get a very different story. When grasses are continually grazed, nutrient reserves in the roots trail off to the point of exhaustion. Such overgrazing now affects some 1 billion acres worldwide.
Managed grazing tries to increase forage capacity by optimizing the best amount of time to have animals graze on each area of land and how long to rest fields before the next grazing. It takes a lot of knowledge and calculation as each field has its own soil mix, etc. But the net impact has been shown to significantly increase soil fertility, forage productivity and so meat and milk yield. (Drawdown, p.72, see link at the bottom of this article.)
Biodiversity rises. Native grasses can re-establish themselves, meaning the farmer does not need to sow pasture, thus saving on time and fuel and so costs. Farmers make higher profits.

Silvopasture:

Cattle ranching has been a major cause of deforestation, especially in the tropics. An estimated 12 million acres of forest a year (or five Yellowstone National Parks) is chopped down or burnt to make way for grazing.
This not only releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere through burning, but destroys the forest with all its carbon absorption ability. The land becomes prone to erosion. Soil fertility is denuded quickly. The slash and burn farmers move on.
Silvopasture provides an alternative to this destruction by integrating forest stewardship with livestock raising. Rather than seeing trees as something to be removed, it turns them into an asset.
Grazing animals within a forest gives them a greater variety of nutrient-rich vegetation to munch on. Livestock yields in silvopasture tend to be 5-10% higher as a result.
Farmers benefit from two or more crops: nuts, fruit, wood and other products from the trees and meat/wool etc from the animals.
The trees protect the land, reducing erosion. And they continue to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, helping to reduce global warming.
A good example of this is the Dehesa system of silvopasture famous in Spain for Jamon Iberica, which has worked well for many centuries.
Encouragingly, it is estimated that silvopasture is now practiced on some 350 million acres across the globe. If this were increased by 57% to 554 million acres by 2050, it could reduce CO2 emissions by c.31 billion tons. (Drawdown, p.51)

Regenerative agriculture is a net win for farmers, consumers and the planet

The above are just the major elements of regenerative agriculture. Others include active crop rotation, pasture cropping, use of compost, tree inter-cropping and more. Now, lest you think that regenerative agriculture is some sort of la-la land that sounds nice but cannot possibly compete with the productivity of modern farming, be assured that this is not the case.

Regenerative agriculture is a practical movement, not a purist one. This is not about returning to some idyllic pre-industrial world. Farm machinery is of course still used and the most modern scientific techniques are employed to manage organic and regenerative farms to ensure optimal results. But by adopting sustainable methods, healing the soil and bringing farming back into balance with the natural world, farmers have proven they can often maintain or even raise yields on a sustainable basis, while significantly reducing costs, thus improving profits. Benefits accrue to both the environment and the farmer’s pocketbook. (Read more here.)

Nor do we really have a choice. According to soil scientists, at current rates of destruction (decarbonization, erosion, desertification, chemical pollution), within 50 years we will not only suffer serious damage to public health due to qualitatively degraded food supply stemming from poor soil fertility, but we will literally no longer have enough arable topsoil to feed ourselves. See Royal Society Publishing, Sept 2015.

Regenerative agriculture also has a part to play in the battle against climate change:

As evidence of global warming becomes more and more apparent, it is clear that all parts of the economy need to make wholesale adjustments if we are to prevent disaster. That includes agriculture.
One aspect of this is reducing emissions from livestock and fossil fuel use by farm machinery, as well as lowering the use of chemicals with their large greenhouse gas footprint.
But another is carbon absorption. The world needs, not just a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but also negative emissions, ie absorption of carbon out of the atmosphere. After the oceans and forests, soil is the next largest source of carbon absorption on the planet.
Plants employ photosynthesis to convert CO2 in the air into sugars with the help of the sun. This carbon matter is stored both in the plant itself and in the soil. Once there, it can be retained in the soil for thousands of years–or it can be quickly released back into the atmosphere through farm practices like plowing and cultivating.
Regenerative agriculture seeks not only to reduce carbon release from the soil, but to enhance the health of the soil and thus its ability to sequester carbon. The pace at which this happens is up for debate, but a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine study in 2019 estimated that increasing carbon sequestration of soil could remove 250 million tons of CO2 per annum in the USA alone = 5% of the country’s annual CO2 emissions.
Acknowledgment that carbon-smart farming can play a role in the climate fight has led to markets emerging that pay farmers for adopting regenerative agricultural practices that store more carbon in the soil.
Nori, a Seattle based startup, seeks to sell credits for carbon storage by farmers. Companies like Microsoft and General Mills and philanthropist large and small are pushing millions of dollars into soil climate initiatives. Thousands of farmers, working more than 18 million acres across the country have expressed interest in these projects.

How do we make the transition to regenerative agriculture?

Confluence, as set out in the articles in this blog, is the place where the environment, economy and capitalism meet to bring about positive change in a world so desperately in need of it. To achieve this place will require the determined efforts of government, but also the innovative skill and efficient capital employment of free markets. The same applies to regenerative agriculture

The role of government:

Government’s job is to create a level playing field by recognizing that there is a real cost to destroying the natural capital of the planet and taking action accordingly.
Step one should be to get rid of the vast subsidies given to destructive and polluting farming practices. Factory farms and feedlots not only do not pay for the damage they do to our air and water, but they are also subsidized to do it. This must end! Ending subsidies will raise their costs and so the prices of their products, creating a more level playing field for regenerative farming innovators and their goods. Yes, the price of food in the supermarket and fast-food restaurants may go up for a time. But supply and demand will adjust, bringing prices back down again.
The need to cut subsidies also applies to uneconomic practices like the growing of corn and other grains for the production of ethanol; one of the biggest wheezes one can think of. The amount of energy used to cultivate, plant, spray with chemicals, harvest with a combine, ship to a refinery, process into fuel and then transport back to distributors is so huge that it barely creates more fuel than it uses. Without subsidies, this business would never exist. That tells you all you need to know about ethanol. The problem is that it is a political time bomb in the Midwest of the USA, so shutting down this bogus industry will be very difficult.
Subsidies should end for chemical/agro-industrial companies as well. Their production process is highly polluting and most of their final products generally wreck havoc on the environment. No doubt these companies will use their huge profits, their paid lobbyists and their donations to conservative think tanks to try to discourage all progress toward regenerative agriculture, as this will reduce demand for their products. They did the same thing decades ago to block moves to end the use of the pesticide DDT, despite all the evidence produced by Rachel Carson in her seminal book Silent Spring in 1962. But, in the end, their obstruction is doomed to fail given the clear evidence regarding the negative impacts of their products.
On the positive side, tax incentives should be created by governments to encourage farmers to transition to more sustainable methods. The farming techniques discussed above can maintain or even enhance crop yields, but it does take time to wean the land off of chemicals and to rebuild fertility in denuded soil. Helping farmers over the transition period would be money well spent. The benefits in terms of improved food security, long term ecosystem health, farmers’ livelihood and carbon drawdown make it worth the fiscal cost.

The role of the private sector:

In the end, though, despite encouragement from government, the decision to move to regenerative techniques has to come from the farmer, based in part on principles, but also on their long-term self-interest. The ability to reduce costs substantially and so raise profits is an attractive incentive.
There is no silver bullet. Every farmer practicing regenerative agriculture will adapt it to his or her individual circumstance of soil, weather, market demand and so on.
But as more and more farms move in this direction and knowledge builds, we should see increasing innovation in soil modeling, crop rotation, pasture management, etc, thus further enhancing farm yields and profits and so incentivizing others to make the transition.

Progress is definitely being made

It is estimated that regenerative agriculture methods are currently being used on some 260 million cultivated acres around the world.
Approximately 1/3rd of US cropland is now farmed without tillage, while another 1/3rd uses low tillage.
There has been a 50% increase in the use of cover crops in the United States since 2012.
Loans to convert land to regenerative agriculture, silvopasture, etc are being funded by the World Bank and NGOs like the Nature Conservancy.
Regional support networks have been created to assist farmers in making the change.
As mentioned above, markets are developing to allow regenerative farmers to benefit from the additional carbon sinking that their techniques bring.
Is there further to go...absolutely. But a good start has been made and the market is increasingly demanding organic produce, free-range meat, eggs and so on, which in turn is driving farmers’ decisions. The market is a powerful motivator of change.
Have a look at these videos as examples of what can be achieved.

Hawley Wines:

In the early 2000s, John Hawley decided to take his vineyards in Northern California’s Dry Creek Valley in a different direction. After three years of following prescribed practices, Hawley Vineyards became certified as organic in 2006. Not only does John believe in the philosophy of sustainable agriculture, but he is also convinced that organic grapes make better wine. Without exotic chemical nutrients, organic growing reveals a more authentic expression of terroir. Skins and seeds are composted after the crush and returned to the vineyards. Cover crops like legumes and alfalfa are planted in between the vine rows where they absorb nitrogen and fix it in the soil. Biodiversity has soared, with lizards and praying mantis feasting on would-be pests, while hawks have moved in to deal with other potential grape eaters, including other birds. Yields, which fell initially after they stopped using chemical fertilizer and pesticides, returned to normal after a couple of years. The quality of the wine, meanwhile, just keeps rising–something seen in the many awards Hawley has received and to which I, as a club member, can attest. Have a look at John’s short video about his move to sustainability.

The Biggest Little Farm:

This entertaining and enlightening documentary is worth watching. It follows first-time farmers John and Molly Chester as they convert depleted, seemingly hopeless land outside Los Angeles into a thriving regenerative agriculture operation. You can find it on Netflix.

What can you do?

Buy more organic and sustainably farmed produce (preferably locally grown) at your grocery store and in restaurants. Yes, it is more expensive than normal produce but that is because it remains a relatively niche product. The more demand builds up, the more farmers will respond and increase supply, thus lowering prices in time.
Reduce consumption of meat. If the world adopted a vegetarian diet, it could reduce agricultural greenhouse emissions by 63%. This, of course, is unlikely to happen given cultural preferences. But we can reduce meat consumption. Practice meatless Mondays. Reduce beef in the diet, substituting free-range, soil replenishing lamb, turkey, chicken, etc and increase usage of plant-based meats in the home, restaurants and in cookbooks. All of these will encourage the transition to regenerative farming and significantly reduce agriculture’s impact on the planet.
Reduce consumption of beef particularly. Because cattle have slower growth and reproduction rates than other animals, they require more resources–twice as much land per gram of protein as chicken and pork and 20x as much land as the equivalent amount of protein from beans. In the USA, 80% of corn and 95% of oats are fed to animals to produce meat, the majority for beef. Half of all water used in agriculture goes to produce meat– it takes 5000 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat vs 25 gallons to produce one pound of grain. Cattle in particular are also a major source of greenhouse gases. They are ruminants, meaning that microbes in their multi-chambered stomachs help them digest by fermenting their food. This produces the powerful greenhouse gas methane which is released into the atmosphere when they burp. Since cattle farming is estimated to be responsible for c.62% of agricultural emissions, eating fewer of them is one of the most powerful steps an individual can take to battle climate change and promote more sustainable farming practices. A 2017 study found that if every American swapped out all the beef in their diet for beans, it would get the United States halfway to meeting the 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets laid out in the Paris climate accord. (Note that scientists have discovered that feeding seaweed to cows as part of their diet can significantly reduce the amount of methane they produce...regenerative farmers take note!)
Now, it is not realistic to expect people to give up beef in their diet entirely. However, reducing the amount of beef we eat is certainly doable. Increasing public awareness and education is a key part of this. But shouldn’t we use price signals as well? None of the deleterious impacts of cattle-raising on the natural capital of the planet result in monetary consequences for farmers or the factory farms and feedlots. If we are considering taxing power plants and automakers for their carbon emissions, shouldn’t we do the same with the meat industry?