September 2017 - Regeneration International

The Agriculture of Hope: Climate Farmers of North America

09/28/2017/by Regeneration International

Authors: Seth Itzkan, Karl Thidemann, and Steven Keleti | Published: September 18, 2017

A new and growing movement is inspiring farmers to produce food in a manner that can mitigate and even help reverse global warming. We call this “climate farming, the agriculture of hope.”

At the core of this movement is the understanding that soil health and climate stability are closely linked. The condition of one impacts the other. In the atmosphere, carbon exists as carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas warming the planet. But in plants, carbon forms a sugary liquid (like maple sap) that is exuded through the roots and gobbled up by microscopic critters at the foundation of what soil scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham calls the “Soil Food Web.” This infusion of carbon and the microbial activity it supports gives structure to soil, improves the nutrient density of food, and, perhaps most importantly, increases soil’s capacity to hold water.

Working to put more carbon into the soil, the climate farmer is thereby enhancing the productivity of soil while contributing to the long- term welfare of the planet. Regenerative farmer Jesse McDougall, of Studio Hill Farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, shares, “Carbon is the world’s best fertilizer. Our goal in farming is to pass on to the next generation land that is outrageously fertile.”

Photosynthesis is nature’s invention for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and giving it to plants and soils. Respiration and decay then return the carbon to the air. In a natural state, this exchange is in balance. However, as soil is degraded through industrial farming practices, including plowing and the use of fossil fuel- intensive fertilizers, more carbon is released to the air than is absorbed in the soil. Fortunately, this process can be reversed. Soil can be a carbon sink. There are many methods to achieve soil carbon sequestration.

Courageous climate farmers are at the forefront of experimentation. Cover crops and no-till farming are recognized as core methodologies for improving soil health, and thus, improving carbon content. Organic farmer Kate Duesterberg states, “We have a pretty hard- and-fast rule to never allow bare soil after harvest. To the extent possible, we always have a cover crop. We are also experimenting with no-till farming.”

For grazing operations, mixed species, bunched herding, and well-timed animal movement are helpful approaches to aid in carbon sequestration. According to McDougall, “We chose to raise animals here for their amazing natural ability to revitalize the soil under their feet. The chickens, turkeys, and sheep that move through our rolling pastures every day are the central component of our regenerative farming practices. The animals, when allowed to act naturally in nature, restart the downward swing of the carbon cycle.” Improving the soil enables the grass to sequester more carbon, explains McDougall, who concludes, “It’s a food-producing,
carbon-sequestering, positive- feedback loop.”

KEEP READING ON PERMACULTURE MAGAZINE

Why Supporting Regenerative Agriculture Is the Most Powerful Thing You Can Do for Your Health

09/27/2017/by Regeneration International

Healthy soil equals healthy people.

Author: Adrian White | Published: September 18, 2017

When we talk about sustainable farming practices, we tend to focus on its importance for the environment, for our food security, and our desire to put food on the table that’s not contaminated with pesticides. But there’s an important topic doesn’t get talked about often enough: how food sustainability is inextricably tied to our health.

Over the past decade, physicians have increasingly recognized the importance of good nutrition to human health . An article published last week in The Journal of the American College Of Nutrition noted that the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is linked to long-term poor nutrition. Good nutrition, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful (and least expensive) forms of preventative healthcare you have at your disposal. A good diet can help prevent heart disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune and digestive disorders, and several types of cancers.

(Brag your love of gardening with the Organic Life 2018 Calendar, featuring gorgeous photographs, cooking tips and recipes, plus how to eat more—and waste less!—of what’s in season.)

And it turns out that the best food for you–the most nutritious food–is food that comes from a sustainable food system.

The foundation of a healthy diet is whole fruits and vegetables, which contain vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, and phytochemicals—and compounds only found in plants, like lycopene, that are essential to our health.

Many of the compounds essential to human health are destroyed when whole fruits, vegetables, and grains are processed into shelf-stable foods. To make for their lack of nutrition (especially vitamins), synthetic nutrients are added to processed foods. However, studies show that certain synthetic nutrients pale in comparison to natural ones—even those found in synthetic supplements (particularly vitamin E and vitamin D).

KEEP READING ON RODALE’S ORGANIC LIFE

Farmer Wants a Revolution: ‘How Is This Not Genocide?’

09/27/2017/by Regeneration International

Health comes from the ground up, Charles Massy says – yet chemicals used in agriculture are ‘causing millions of deaths’. Susan Chenery meets the writer intent on changing everything about the way we grow, eat and think about food

Published: September 22, 2017

The kurrajong tree has scars in its wrinkled trunk, the healed wounds run long and vertical under its ancient bark. Standing in front of the homestead, it nestles in a dip on high tableland from which there is a clear view across miles and miles of rolling plains to the coastal range of south-east Australia.

Charles Massy grew up here, on the sweeping Monaro plateau that runs off the eastern flank of Mount Kosciuszko, an only child enveloped by the natural world, running barefoot, accompanied by dogs and orphaned lambs. Fifth generation, he has spent his adult life farming this tough, lean, tussock country; he is of this place and it of him. But when his friend and Aboriginal Ngarigo elder Rod Mason came to visit he discovered that a lifetime of intimately knowing the birds, trees and animals of this land wasn’t significant at all.

The tree is probably a lot older than 400 years. Rod told him that when the old women walked their favourite songline tracks they carried seeds of their favourite food and resource plants, and sowed them at spirituality significant camping places. His front garden was one such ceremony place – there would have been a grove planted, and the women had stripped the bark from the tree to make bags and material. This old tree represented a connection to country “deeper than we can imagine, and linking us indivisibly with the natural world”, he writes in his book Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth.

Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, the book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it. More than that, it underlines a direct link between soil health and human health, and that the chemicals used in industrial agriculture are among the causes of modern illness.

“Most of our cereal crops, the soybeans, the corn, are all predicated now on the world’s most widely used chemical which is glyphosate [Roundup],” Massy says. “There is mounting evidence that it is one of the most destructive chemicals ever to get into the system. Its main effect is on the human gut and our entire immune system.

“When you look at the As – autism, ADHD, all the other auto-immune diseases – their take off is a 95% correlation to these chemicals being introduced. The evidence is that it affects the gut and the immune system, though it is not the sole factor, and it is a complex thing. But it is that gut that drives our whole immune system, it is our second brain.”

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN

Regeneration International Second General Assembly Addresses State of the Regeneration Movement

09/27/2017/by Katherine Paul

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 22, 2017

English: Katherine Paul, 207.653 3090, Katherine@regenerationinternational.org

Spanish: Ercilia Sahores, +52 (55) 6257 7901, ercilia@regenerationinternational.org

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico – About 105 experts in soil, water and land management, agriculture, media and campaign strategy assembled today in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a three-day international conference on how to scale up organic and regenerative agriculture, land management and livestock grazing to address global warming, global food insecurity and public health.

Representatives from 21 countries are attending the three-day strategy meeting organized by Regeneration International (RI), a project of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).

The conference is being held at OCA’s Vía Orgánica teaching farm and conference center. It is RI’s first global strategy meeting since the organization’s initial launch in June 2015, in Costa Rica.

“We are in the terminal phase of a degenerative food and farming system which forms the underlying basis for war, poverty, poor health and food insecurity,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director and a member of the RI steering committee. “The hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and herders around the world have the power to turn things around. They need our support to scale up regenerative farming and land-management practices that will draw down and sequester carbon, produce abundant, nutrient-dense food and regenerate local economies.”

“This is a gathering about the future of the world, pure and simple, said Larry Kopald, co-founder of The Carbon Underground, a founding partner of RI. “If we don’t quickly draw down carbon and restore our soil, we will lose the chance to keep feeding the planet and to deal with climate change.”

Andre Leu, president of IFOAM International and an RI steering committee member said: “This is the beginning of one of the fastest-growing movements in the world. The word ‘regeneration’ is resonating. We have the science now to scale up regenerative farming. We have the responsibility to scale it up. If we don’t, we face a real threat of extinction by the end of this century.”

Participants of the General Assembly will attend sessions on how to fund and scale up the Regeneration Movement, how to support the France’s 4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate, and how to build a grassroots movement around regenerative food, farming and climate.

Regeneration International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis.

Small Farmers in Brazil’s Amazon Region Seek Sustainability

09/22/2017/by Regeneration International

Author: Mario Osava | Published: September 19, 2017

The deforestation caused by the expansion of livestock farming and soy monoculture appears unstoppable in the Amazon rainforest in the west-central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. But small-scale farmers are trying to reverse that trend.

Alison Oliveira is a product of the invasion by a wave of farmers from the south, lured by vast, cheap land in the Amazon region when the 1964-1985 military dictatorship aggressively promoted the occupation of the rainforest.

“I was born here in 1984, but my grandfather came from Paraná (a southern state) and bought about 16 hectares here, which are currently divided between three families: my father’s, my brother’s and mine,” Oliveira told IPS while milking his cows in a barn that is small but mechanised.

“Milk is our main source of income; today we have 14 cows, 10 of which are giving milk,” he explained. “I also make cheese the way my grandfather taught me, and I sell it to hotels and restaurants, for twice the price of the milk.”

But what distinguishes his farm, 17 km from Alta Floresta, a city of about 50,000 people in northern Mato Grosso, is its mode of production, which involves an agroforestry system that combines crops and trees, irrigated pastureland, an organic garden and free-range egg-laying chickens.

Because of its sustainable agriculture system, the farm is used as a model in an Inter-American Development Bank(IDB) programme, and is visited by students and other interested people.

“We want more: a biodigester, solar power and rural tourism, when we have the money to make the investments,” said Oliveira’s wife, 34-year-old Marcely Federicci da Silva.

The couple discovered their vocation for sustainable farming after living for 10 years in Sinop, which with its 135,000 people is the most populated city in northern Mato Grosso, and which owes its prosperity to soy crops for export.

“Raising two small children in the city is harder,” she said, also attributing their return to the countryside to Olhos de Agua, a project promoted by the municipal government of Alta Floresta to reforest and restore the headwaters of rivers on small rural properties.

KEEP READING ON INTER PRESS SERVICE

In Mexico, Weavers Embrace Natural Alternatives to Toxic Dyes

09/21/2017/by Regeneration International

Concerned about the health impacts of textile chemicals, traditional artisans are producing vivid colors from crushed insects and forest plants.

Author: Erica Goode | Published: September 18, 2017

TEOTITLÁN DEL VALLE, Mexico — As a child, Porfirio Gutiérrez hiked into the mountains above the village with his family each fall, collecting the plants they would use to make colorful dyes for blankets and other woven goods.

They gathered pericón, a type of marigold that turned the woolen skeins a buttercream color; jarilla leaves that yielded a fresh green; and tree lichen known as old man’s beard that dyed wool a yellow as pale as straw.

“We’d talk about the stories of the plants,” Mr. Gutiérrez, 39, recalled. “Where they grew, the colors that they provide, what’s the perfect timing to collect them.”

In this small village near Oaxaca, known for its hand-woven rugs, he and his family are among a small group of textile artisans working to preserve the use of plant and insect dyes, techniques that stretch back more than 1,000 years in the indigenous Zapotec tradition.

Textile artists in many countries are increasingly turning to natural dyes, both as an attempt to revive ancient traditions and out of concerns about the environmental and health risks of synthetic dyes.

Natural dyes, though more expensive and harder to use than the chemical dyes that have largely supplanted them, produce more vivid colors and are safer and more environmentally friendly than their synthetic counterparts.

To be sure, natural pigments are not always benign. The plants they are extracted from can be poisonous, and heavy metal salts are often used to fix the colors to the fabric. The dyes fade more quickly from sun exposure than chemically produced colors, arguably rendering the textiles less sustainable.

But environmentalists have long worried about the damaging effects of the wide array of toxic chemicals — from sulfur and formaldehyde, to arsenic, copper, lead and mercury — routinely used in textile production.

Runoff from textile factories pollutes waterways and disrupts ecosystems worldwide. And long-term exposure to synthetic dyes — first discovered in 1856 by an English chemist, William Henry Perkin — has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

“They are very toxic,” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “The more awareness you raise, the more artists are going to use natural dyes and stay away from heavily chemically dyed yarn.”

KEEP READING ON THE NEW YORK TIMES

A New Food Label Is Coming Soon and It Goes ‘Beyond Organic’

09/21/2017/by Regeneration International

Author: Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association | Published: September 14, 2017

Conscious consumers won’t have to wait much longer for clear guidance on how to buy food and other products that are not only certified organic, but also certified regenerative.

On Wednesday, the Rodale Institute unveiled draft standards for a new Regenerative Organic Certification, developed by Rodale and a coalition of farmers, ranchers, nonprofits, scientists and brands.

When finalized, the certification will go “beyond organic” by establishing higher standards for soil health and land management, animal welfare and farmer and worker fairness.

Organic Consumers Association and our Regeneration International project, fully embrace this new venture to make organic more climate friendly, humane, just and environmentally positive. As we’ve said before, when it comes to food and farming—and as we veer toward climate catastrophe—”sustainable” doesn’t cut it anymore. And certified USDA organic, though far better than GMO, chemical and energy-intensive agriculture, doesn’t go quite far enough.

The standard will be administered by NSF International, an Ann Arbor, Michigan based product testing, inspection and certification organization, and will be open to multiple certification partners, according to Rodale.

KEEP READING ON ECOWATCH

A Better Farm Future Starts With the Soil

09/20/2017/by Regeneration International

Author: Alyssa Charney | Published: September 19, 2107

Within the next year Congress will reauthorize the massive amalgamation of legislation we commonly refer to as “the farm bill.” The farm bill, which is reauthorized every five years, has major implications for every part of our food and farm system and covers issues including but certainly not limited to: conservation, nutrition, local food, credit and finance, research and commodity subsidies.

Although healthy soil is one of the essential building blocks of agriculture, historically the issue has not been a major focus of the farm bill – as some farmers would say, soil has been treated like dirt. With extreme weather events on the rise and farmers and foresters feeling the effects of a changing climate, however, soil health is now at the forefront of our national conversation.Soil health is critical for agriculture and natural resource management because only healthy soil can effectively cycle nutrients and capture and store water, which sustains plant and crop life and helps to build resilient, productive agricultural systems. As our most significant package of food and farm legislation approaches expiration on September 30, 2018, many are asking: How can the farm bill support resilient farms, address natural resource concerns and increase productivity? A key part of the answer: promote soil health.

At the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, we’ve been working with our membership for 30 years to create and expand programs and policies that support soil health – an effort we’ll continue in the 2018 farm bill.

Conservation

Healthy soil depends on conservation management practices that invigorate its ability to cycle nutrients, capture and store water, and sequester carbon from the air. The farm bill authorizes several technical and financial assistance programs that support farmers and ranchers in these activities, including the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Together, these two programs serve as the heart of the USDA’s working lands conservation portfolio.

Through EQIP, participants can take the first step in soil health management by integrating practices such as cover crops, conservation cover, prescribed grazing, range planting and nutrient management. When farmers are ready to step up to even more advanced conservation systems, they can access CSP, which can be used to target soil health improvements, including diversified crop rotations and high-level rotational grazing, on a farmer’s entire operation.

The next farm bill should enhance the long-term funding base for both working lands programs and ensure an ongoing and growing focus on improving soil health. In addition, the farm bill should make sure that USDA has the authority and funding it needs to measure and report on program outcomes. This provides accountability for taxpayers and ensures USDA has the information it needs to modify and improve conservation programs to ensure that they are creating solutions to priority resource concerns, including soil health.

KEEP READING ON THE HILL

Organic Better Than Chemical-Intensive Agriculture at Fighting Climate Change

09/20/2017/by Regeneration International

Published: September 19, 2017

(Beyond Pesticides, September 19, 2017) Soils on organic farms sequester more carbon for a longer period of time when compared to the soil on conventional chemical-intensive farms, according to a study conducted by researchers from Northeastern University and The Organic Center. The continuing effects of climate change necessitate a robust approach to both limiting and reducing carbon in the earth’s atmosphere. As the study shows, a wholesale transition from conventional to organic farming could play an important part in mitigating the effects of a warming planet.

In order to assess the impact of the differing production practices, researchers compared the soil on over 1000 organic and conventional farms throughout the U.S. Focus was placed on how the different approaches impact soil organic carbon, which is simply the amount of carbon contained in soil, and consists of two sources. The first is carbon that cycles through air, soil, and microorganisms. The second is more stable in the soil, and is contained in soil humus. Humus is not cycled in and out of soil. It is a complex of decayed organic matter that stores essential elements including carbon and nutrients in a highly stable state. The primary substances that make up humus are fluvic and humic acid, and the percentage of each was also measured by researchers at each farm observed in the study.

Results show that soils on organic farms contain 13% more total soil organic carbon than conventional farms. Levels of fluvic and humic acid were also 150% and 44% higher respectively in soils on organic farms when compared to conventional counterparts. Further, the study indicates that ability of organic soils to be a long-term source for carbon sequestration through the process of turning organic matter into humus (humification) was 26% higher in organic soils than conventional ones. Researchers indicate, “With the exception of water retention, comparisons of soil organic matter, fluvic acid, humic acid, and humification suggest that organic farming practices support healthy soils and build and/or or maintain soil organic matter more effectively than conventional farming practices.”

These data are in line with previous research that has revealed the benefits and role that organic farming practices can play in carbon reduction through sequestration. According to calculations from the Rodale Institute in 2014, soil sequestration has the potential to store the greenhouse gas emissions of up to 52 gigatonnes of CO2.

KEEP READING ON BEYOND PESTICIDES

Las semillas son el presente, el pasado y el futuro de nuestra independencia alimentaria

09/18/2017/by Regeneration International

Por:Por Karla Arroyo Rizo y Miguel Hernández | Publicado: 31 de agosto 2017

Las Cañadas es un Centro de Agroecología y Permacultura, en donde se encuentra una de las últimas islas de bosque de niebla de la zona central de Veracruz.

La Bióloga Karla Arroyo es fundadora y directora del Huerto de producción y Banco de semillas: Huerto de Semillas. El proyecto empezó en el año 2004, de manera independiente y a partir del 2014 se unió a la cooperativa Las cañadas, año desde el cual ha tomado más fuerza. Por aquel entonces, iniciaron el proyecto con 6 camas siguiendo el método Biointensivo de cultivo (60 m2) y actualmente manejan 1000 m2 y más de 100 variedades de semillas de polinización abierta.

“Empecé aprendiendo de la producción de hortalizas en el huerto de Las Cañadas; esto me despertó el interés y vi la necesidad de producir nuestras semillas”, nos cuenta Karla. Ese interés la llevó a comenzar el Huerto de Semillas y comenzó a sumergirse en literatura sobre el tema como: Seed to Seed de Suzanne Ashworth, The Seeds of Kokopelli de Dominique Guillet y Breed Your Own Vegetables Varieties de Carol Deep. “Y me puse a aprender con la práctica, sembrando cosechando y almacenando”, comenta. En el año 2006, estuvo de aprendiz con Jodi Roebuck, fundador de una compañía de semillas biointensivas de polinización abierta en Nueva Zelanda, donde aprendió mucho. Después regresó a México con mucha inspiración para seguir con el proyecto.