Industrial Food Production Is Failing Us, Regenerative Farming Is the Solution
Our food and farming system is facing a reckoning — a global pandemic that upended supply chains and unearthed the horrific consequences of a consolidated meatpacking industry, climate change threatening food production across the country, fertilizer shortages, rising prices at the grocery store and a sector that accounts for 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Our current agricultural system is failing us. It’s high time we build toward a stronger, healthier, more equitable and more resilient one.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report “Regenerative Agriculture: Farm Policy for the 21st Century” details an alternative vision of what agriculture can be — one that can respond better to external shocks (such as a pandemic), combat climate change by embracing Indigenous growing principles, protect biodiversity by managing farms and ranches as ecosystems, and support competition while putting decision-making power back into the hands of independent farmers and ranchers.