Can American Soil Be Brought Back to Life?

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A new idea: If we revive the tiny creatures that make dirt healthy, we can bring back the great American topsoil. But farming culture — and government — aren’t making it easy.

Author: Jenny Hopkinson | Published: September 13, 2017

Four generations of Jonathan Cobb’s family tended the same farm in Rogers, Texas, growing row upon row of corn and cotton on 3,000 acres. But by 2011, Cobb wasn’t feeling nostalgic. Farming was becoming rote and joyless; the main change from one year to the next was intensively planting more and more acres of corn and soy, churning up the soil and using ever more chemical fertilizers and herbicides to try and turn a profit.

“I’d already had the difficult conversation with my dad that he would be the last generation on the farm,” Cobb said.

While looking for a new job, Cobb stopped into a local office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pick up some paperwork. That day, the staff was doing a training session on soil health. He stayed to watch and was struck by a demonstration showing a side-by-side comparison of healthy and unhealthy soils.

A clump of soil from a heavily tilled and cropped field was dropped into a wire mesh basket at the top of a glass cylinder filled with water. At the same time, a clump of soil from a pasture that grew a variety of plants and grasses and hadn’t been disturbed for years was dropped into another wire mesh basket in an identical glass cylinder. The tilled soil–similar to the dry, brown soil on Cobb’s farm—dissolved in water like dust. The soil from the pasture stayed together in a clump, keeping its structure and soaking up the water like a sponge. Cobb realized he wasn’t just seeing an agricultural scientist show off a chunk of soil: He was seeing a potential new philosophy of farming.

“By the end of that day I knew that I was supposed to stay on the farm and be part of that paradigm shift,” Cobb said. “It was that quick.”

The shift he’s talking about is a new trend in agriculture, one with implications from farm productivity to the environment to human health. For generations, soil has been treated almost as a backdrop — not much more than a medium for holding plants while fertilizer and herbicides help them grow. The result, over the years, has been poorer and drier topsoil that doesn’t hold on to nutrients or water. The impact of this degradation isn’t just on farmers, but extends to Americans’ health. Dust blowing off degraded fields leads to respiratory illness in rural areas; thousands of people are exposed to drinking water with levels of pesticides at levels that the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed to be of concern. The drinking water of more than 210 million Americans is polluted with nitrate, a key fertilizer chemical that has been linked to developmental problems in children and poses cancer risks in adults. And thanks to some modern farming techniques, soil degradation is releasing carbon—which becomes carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas—instead of holding on to it. In fact, the United Nations considers soil degradation one of the central threats to human health in the coming decades for those very reasons.

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Introducing the Regenerative Organic Certification

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Author: The Rodale Institute | Published: September 13, 2017 

[pdf-embedder url=”https://regenerationinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ROC-One-Pager-9.12.17.pdf”]
 
Read the “Recommended Framework for Regenerative Organic Certification” here. 

¿Es el cambio climático responsable de huracanes y terremotos?

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  Publicado: 9 de septiembre 2017

Los huracanes funcionan con aire cálido y húmedo, por lo que los océanos son los que provocan su formación, a través de sus aguas templadas. La confluencia de los vientos y la humedad del mar producen fuertes presiones que generan los vientos huracanados.

En este sentido, dependiendo del territorio en donde se forme la tormenta, esta puede tener una variación en su nombre por lo que, si este fenómeno natural se forma en el Océano Atlántico u Océano Pacífico, se le considera como “huracán”.

…

Sin embargo, algunos científicos afirman que la cantidad de ciclones no aumentarán, pero si podrían intensificar su intensidad, como consecuencia del cambio climático.

Según las investigaciones realizadas sobre el tema, el calentamiento global origina un cambio en el clima, por lo que se produce más calor en esta zona. Esto podría tener incidencia en los fenómenos descritos, pese a que los estudios realizadas no han ofrecido resultados concluyentes sobre esta hipótesis.

 

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New Study Shows Organic Farming Traps Carbon in Soil to Combat Climate Change

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Author: Lela Nargi | Published: September 11, 2017

When it comes to mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere is the prime target for improving the health of our planet. One of the best ways to do that is thought to be locking more of that carbon into the soil that grows our food.

The scientific community has been actively debating whether organic farming methods can provide a promising solution. A 2010 paper published in the journal Ambio found that research about increased carbon sequestration due to organic farming methods was inconclusive, while a 2012 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found increased carbon sequestration in organic farm soils—though a 2013 letter in the PNAS disputed those findings, arguing that there were no carbon sequestration benefits related to organic farming.

A new study from Northeastern University and nonprofit research organization The Organic Center (TOC), though, has reached a different conclusion: Soils from organic farms had 26 percent more potential for long-term carbon storage than soils from conventional farms, along with 13 percent more soil organic matter (SOM).

For the study, chemists Elham Ghabbour and Geoffrey Davies began by analyzing soil samples from over 700 conventional farms in 48 states. They made the alarming discovery that these samples contained little to no humic substances. Humic substances are one portion of soil organic matter, which is made up of decomposing plant and animal matter. Comprised of humin, humic acid, and fulvic acid, humic substances are a major component of healthy, fertile soil, giving it structure and water-holding ability, among other things. They’re built up slowly, over the course of many years, by living materials such as manure that are added to soil.

“They’re important because they’re one of the biggest places carbon can get stored,” said TOC’s Director of Science Programs, Jessica Shade, who is a co-author on the study. And storing carbon in soil provides what Shade calls a whole suite of benefits that are linked to soil health, including supporting beneficial organisms like worms; reducing erosion and compaction; and providing aeration, essential plant nutrients, and water retention.

After some consideration, Ghabbour and Davies hypothesized that the dearth of humic substances was due to the high-input practices inherent to conventional farming, such as tilling and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They worked with TOC to contact certified organic farmers and enlist them as “citizen scientists” in gathering soil samples from their own operations; in all, 659 organic soil samples were collected from 39 states.

“Because organic farms are regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and use certain practices” such as crop rotation, letting fields lie fallow, fertilizing with compost, and maintaining a buffer between organic and conventional crops, as well as adhering to a three-year waiting period before qualifying for certification, “this was a great control group for testing this hypothesis,” said Shade.

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Breakthrough Study Shows Organic Cuts Agriculture’s Contribution to Climate Change

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Published: September 11, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new groundbreaking study proves soils on organic farms store away appreciably larger amounts of carbons – and for longer periods — than typical agricultural soils.

The important study, directed by Northeastern University in collaboration with The Organic Center, provides a new significant proof point that organic agricultural practices build healthy soils and can be part of the solution in the fight on global warming.

The new data will be published in the Oct. 1 issue of the scientific journal Advances in Agronomy. One of the largest field studies of its kind ever conducted, the study pulls together over a thousand soil samples from across the nation. It uses cutting-edge methods to look at how organic farming affects the soil’s ability to lock away carbon and keep it out of our atmosphere.

One of its most compelling findings is that on average, organic farms have 44% higher levels of humic acid — the component of soil that sequesters carbon over the long term — than soils not managed organically.

Agriculture is one of the main causes of the depletion of carbon in the soil and the increased presence of carbon in our atmosphere, as evidenced by a recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences that estimated agriculture’s role in global soil carbon loss. Organic farming can play a key role in restoring soil carbon and in reducing the causes of climate change, and this study proves that.

Working with Dr. Elham Ghabbour and Dr. Geoffrey Davies, leaders of the National Soil Project at Northeastern University, The Organic Center contacted organic farmers who acted as “citizen scientists” to collect organic soil samples from throughout the country to compare with the conventional soil samples already in the National Soil Project’s data set.

Altogether, the study measured 659 organic soil samples from 39 states and 728 conventional soil samples from all 48 contiguous states. It found that ALL components of humic substances were higher in organic than in conventional soils.

“This study is truly groundbreaking,” said Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center. “We don’t just look at total soil organic carbon, but also the components of soil that have stable pools of carbon – humic substances, which gives us a much more accurate and precise view of the stable, long-term storage of carbon in the soils.”

“To our knowledge, this research is also the first to take a broad-view of organic and conventional systems, taking into account variation within management styles, across crops, and throughout the United States. It gives a large-scale view of the impact of organic as a whole, throughout the nation,” said Dr. Shade.

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Ecoganadería: el equilibrio justo entre ambiente y producción

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  Publicado: 5 de septiembre 2017

“Escuchemos al suelo”, le propuso Esteban a su padre Mario Martiarena –productor ganadero y propietario del Establecimiento “Don Pedro” en Ayacucho, Buenos Aires –, hace cuatro años, convencido de que, si este recurso se encontraba en buen estado, los resultados serían los esperados.

“Mi hijo tuvo una injerencia importante en el cambio de enfoque que potencia un compromiso social que yo ya traía”, aseguró Mario Martiarena quien detalló: “Decidimos cambiar el paradigma: sacarle peso a la competitividad para darle valor a lo social y lo ambiental”.

Según INTA Informa Martiarena con el objetivo claro, desde hace 4 años, en su campo de 840 hectáreas, de las cuales arrenda 110, Mario produce carne de manera agroecológica, libre de insumos y con mano de obra intensiva. Así, a partir de la recría de vaquillonas que compran al destete y venden preñadas, alcanzaron los 400 kilos de carne por hectárea –4 veces más que el promedio de la zona–.

Esteban fue más allá y explicitó: “Apostamos a la ganadería como parte del esquema de desarrollo para la zona y, para esto, producimos vaquillona preñada general, la cual es perfecta para repoblar la zona y recuperar establecimientos que fueron abatidos por la agricultura”.

 

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Top Soil: A Catalyst for Better Health and Nutrition

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Author: Tobias Roberts | Published: August 23, 2017

WHERE WE STAND WITHOUT SOIL

Everything begins and ends with the soil. Unfortunately, close to 70% of it has been lost since the dawn of the agricultural revolution. Since the onset of the Green Revolution only half a decade ago, we´re getting rid of it faster than ever. Besides the ecocide that the loss of topsoil entails, it also is a major threat to our health. Most foods grown by industrial agricultural methods on depleted soil are nothing more than empty food carcasses filled with chemically supplied nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.

Without healthy soil that includes dozens of other micronutrients as a result of the functioning soil food web, we´re simply not getting the nutrition we need, no matter how cosmetic our food supposedly looks.

THE LOSS OF OUR PLANET´S FERTILITY

It can be easy to be tricked into believing that we live in a world of abundance. Seeing the sheer magnitude of the corn harvest in Iowa, to name just one example, can make us feel like our food security is well provided for by combines, GPS-controlled tractors, and the thousands of other technologies of industrial agriculture. But below that seemingly abundant harvest, a serious problem is emerging. The Great Plains of the United States have been considered one of the most fertile areas of our earth. In some places, top soil reaches over 15 feet into the earth. But that apparently endless fertility has all but disappeared in recent years.

In 2014 alone, Iowa lost over 15 million tons of topsoil, mostly due to unsustainable industrial agricultural practices. That soil, along with the millions of pounds of chemical fertilizers and pesticides eventually make their way down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. The excess nitrates and pollution from this runoff has led to a hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico which is basically a dead area where no marine life can survive.

ECOLOGICAL DANGERS OF TOP SOIL LOSS

When the soil is gone, we as a species will be completely dependent on petroleum for creating chemical fertilizers give the plants we eat the nutrients they need to grow. The problem, of course, is that oil isn’t going to be around forever either. Peak oil is a moment in time when the maximum extraction of oil is reached, and some studies believe that we´re already reached that bleak milestone.

Our dependence on petroleum based agricultural inputs for fertility purposes, then, is simply unsustainable. Furthermore, without top soil to provide naturally occurring fertility, the use of chemical inputs is creating a host of ecological damages. Chemical fertilizers are almost all salt based leading to increased soil salinity. Though plants will grow with increased vigor initially, chemical fertilizers disrupt the natural soil cycle leading to eventual barrenness.

Top soil loss doesn’t only cause a serious challenge to our long term food security, but it also causes other serious ecological catastrophes. The run off of top soil increases pollution and sedimentation in our waterways causing serious population declines in certain species of fish. Also, lands without top soil are more prone to serious flooding and increased desertification. Already 10-20% of our planet´s drylands face desertification, and needless today, plants don´t grow well in deserts.

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Author Judith Schwartz Examines Water Management

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Author: Tracy Frisch | Published: July 19, 2017

When writer Judith Schwartz learned that soil carbon is a buffer for climate change, her focus as a journalist took a major turn. She was covering the Slow Money National Gathering in 2010 when Gardener’s Supply founder Will Raap stated that over time more CO2 has gone into the atmosphere from the soil than has been released from burning fossil fuels. She says her first reaction was “Why don’t I know this?” Then she thought, “If this is true, can carbon be brought back to the soil?” In the quest that followed, she made the acquaintance of luminaries like Allan Savory, Christine Jones and Gabe Brown and traveled to several continents to see the new soil carbon paradigm in action. Schwartz has the gift of making difficult concepts accessible and appealing to lay readers, and that’s exactly what she does in Cows Save the Planet And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth, which Elizabeth Kolbert called “a surprising, informative, and ultimately hopeful book.”

For her most recent project, Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World, Schwartz delves into the little-known role the water cycle plays in planetary health, which she illustrates with vivid, empowering stories from around the world. While we might not be able to change the rate of precipitation, as land managers we can directly affect the speed that water flows off our land and the amount of water that the soil is able to absorb. Trees and other vegetation are more than passive bystanders at the mercy of temperature extremes — they can also be powerful influences in regulating the climate.

The week after this interview was recorded, Schwartz travelled to Washington, D.C., to take part in a congressional briefing on soil health and climate change organized by Regeneration International. As a public speaker, educator, researcher and networker, she has become deeply engaged in the broad movement to build soil carbon and restore ecosystems.

ACRES U.S.A. Please explain the title of your book, Water in Plain Sight.

JUDITH D. SCHWARTZ. The title plays on the idea that there is water in plain sight if we know where to look. It calls attention to aspects of water that are right before us but we are not seeing. By this I mean how water behaves on a basic level, not anything esoteric.

ACRES U.S.A. How should we reframe the problems of water shortages, runoff and floods?

SCHWARTZ. Once we approach these problems in terms of how water moves across the landscape and through the atmosphere, our understanding shifts. For example, when we frame a lack of water as “drought,” our focus is on what water is or isn’t coming down from the sky. That leaves us helpless because there’s really not much we can do. But if we shift our frame from drought to aridification, then the challenge becomes keeping water in the landscape. That opens up opportunities.

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Los valores de las marcas definen la opción de compra de 70% de los consumidores

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 Por: Puri Lucena | Publicado: 16 de agosto 2017

Es algo que va más allá de un posicionamiento político, aunque la polarización que ha generado, no sólo en Estados Unidos, el presidente Donald Trump es uno de los factores por los que los consumidores están exigiendo mayor claridad a las marcas. Se vio, por ejemplo, cuando a principio de este año surgieron varias campañas en redes sociales que llamaban a no consumir productos de empresas del país vecino cuyos directivos se habían posicionado a favor del empresario y político, como la marca deportiva New Balance.

La situación sociopolítica del mundo, unido a la diversificación de opciones y acceso a mayor información gracias a la tecnología ha intensificado la tendencia, explica Adelina Vaca, directora de la unidad de estudios antropológicos de la firma de investigación de mercados De la Riva Group. “Las posturas ambiguas no sirven ya”, asegura.

Los hábitos de compra han cambiado en los últimos años, principalmente impulsados por las nuevas generaciones. “Cuando un consumidor decide qué marca comprar, tiene que ver con sus creencias y posturas, sobre todo los millennials, la generación Z y los consumidores con mayor poder de compra”, apunta Sanz. De hecho, 22% de los encuestados señaló estar dispuesto a pagar 25% más por un producto de una marca que se alinee con sus creencias.

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Is Climate Change Killing the Indian Farmer?

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We have an agrarian crisis today because we have failed to think through what kind of agriculture we need.

Author: Nandini Majumdar | Published: August 30, 2017

The starkest manifestation of India’s ‘agrarian crisis’ is suicides by farmers that have taken place in increasing numbers – 8,000 in 2015, a 42% increase from the year before, and according to data reported so far from only five states, around 7,000 in 2016. Commentators have focused on every issue from farm productivity to loan waivers to governmental promises in analysing the crisis.

Despite so much having been said – and perhaps partly because of it – something as extreme as taking one’s life has, at one level, come to seem like a familiar happening. For most of us who live in cities, the lives and deaths of farmers are, although tragic, events happening elsewhere to others.

At the risk of adding to the high level of exchange, but in the hope of making that exchange more meaningful, we need to still ask: how do different parts of the discussion fit together? Can we make the different analyses of the subject relate to each other more revealingly?

Two recent empirical studies give us ways of doing that.

The first study, conducted by a Doctoral candidate in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Berkeley, draws a positive correlation between rising temperatures and farmers’ suicides in India.

Comparing data on suicides, crop yields and cumulative exposure to temperature and rainfall across India, Tamma A. Carleton finds that for temperatures above 20º C, a 1º C increase on a single day causes 70 suicides on average during growing season. Temperatures during the non-growing season have no identifiable impact on suicide rates. Additionally, with rising temperatures, crop yields fall during growing seasons, but react minimally during non-growing seasons. This suggests that rising temperatures increase suicide rate through an agricultural channel of lowered crop yields. The study concludes that warming over the last 30 years has caused 59,300 suicides. This accounts for 6.8% of the total upward trend in India’s average suicide rate over the past three decades.

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