Can Regenerative Agriculture Regenerate the US Food System?

Can regenerative ag regenerate the US food system? Kara Brewer Boyd thinks so. The farmer and rancher of about 1,500 acres in Southside, Virginia is also a member of the Lumbee Tribe and founder and president of the Association of American Indian Farmers.

“Being an Indigenous person here in North America, I highly value food security and resilience — as we’ve always grown and produced food to feed our families, tribal communities and others,” she says.

Indigenous people were utilizing regenerative farming practices — from no-till and companion planting to crop rotations and pollinating buffer strips — well before many other segments of agriculture. And they have done so by making decisions with forethought of the next seven generations: “Take some, leave some; and there will always be some for future generations.”

As we reported a year ago, the agricultural community is taking a new look at these old practices in hopes that we can use nature’s proven, time-tested principles to help mitigate climate change and feed a growing population more sustainably.

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