Entries by Karen Perry Stillerman

Farmers Are Excited about Soil Health. That’s Good News for All of Us

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Surveys suggest that many US farmers are already taking steps to build soil health and store carbon in their soils. Science has shown that practices such as no-till farming (in which soil isn’t disturbed by plowing), cover crops, extended crop rotations, perennial crops, and integrating crops and livestock deliver myriad benefits. These can include preventing erosion, suppressing weeds, reducing the need for pesticides and added fertilizers, increasing wildlife habitat and beneficial insects, and creating “spongier” soils that drain and hold water better, increasing resilience to both floods and droughts.

Making the Most of the ‘UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration’: Bioregional Regenerative Development as a Deep Adaptation Pathway

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The UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration, similarly, cannot be left to the UN or empty government rhetoric if we want the decade to have the potentially transformative impact that it urgently needs to have!

We are all called to join together and to overcome the silos between disciplines, sectors and ideologies in an unprecedented collaborative effort to restore ecosystems everywhere and to heal the Earth. In that very process we will fall in love again with each other — as a human family — and rediscover a felt sense and embodyment of our interbing with the wider community of life.

Ecological Agriculture Needs to Be Made a Priority

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The number of farmers moving to ecological agriculture in its various forms — agroecology, organic, biological, biodynamic, regenerative — continues to grow as farmers and consumers become more aware of the harm pesticides and synthetic fertilisers cause to health and the environment.

Alan Broughton takes a look at this phenomenon and asks why the majority of farmers are still holding on to chemical methods and what can be done to increase the ecological uptake.

Regenerative Grazing: A Way Forward for Land and Reef

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Dozens of fence line images were presented at the Reef Catchments Sustainable Grazing forum in Mackay on March 28, showing, on one side, strong dense pastures consistently out-performing neighbouring properties using traditional approaches. Some of the most compelling images came from properties in drought regions, where the vastly improved water-holding capacity created by lively soils and strong, deep root structures of regenerative grazing pastures meant there was still coverage on those paddocks.

Restoring Natural Forests is the Best Way to Remove Atmospheric Carbon

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Keeping global warming below 1.5 °C to avoid dangerous climate change1 requires the removal of vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as drastic cuts in emissions.Forests must play a part. Locking up carbon in ecosystems is proven, safe and often affordable3. Increasing tree cover has other benefits, from protecting biodiversity to managing water and creating jobs.

Are We Entering a New Era of Regeneration?

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Regeneration is a relatively recent idea that has been gaining traction amongst climate action circles worldwide. In contrast to sustainability, which aims to maintain a state that avoids continued depletion of natural resources in order to keep ecological balance; regeneration refers to restoration, renewal, and growth.

The Next Wave of Sustainable Fashion Is All about Regenerative Farming

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The promise that regenerative farming practices could literally reverse climate change is staggering, but there’s data to back it — and pioneering companies like Patagonia, Kering and Prana are investing in it as a result. In fact, they’re so convinced of its potential for world-changing impact that it’s not hard to imagine regenerative farming becoming as buzzy in the future as the circular economy is now.

Can Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change?

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With global carbon emissions hitting an all-time high in 2018, the world is on a trajectory that climate experts believe will lead to catastrophic warming by 2100 or before. Some of those experts say that to combat the threat, it is now imperative for society to use carbon farming techniques that extract carbon dioxide from the air and store it in soils. Because so much exposed soil across the planet is used for farming, the critical question is whether scientists can find ways to store more carbon while also increasing agricultural yields.

There’s a Better Way to Help the Climate than Abstaining from Beef

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The campaign to fight climate change by avoiding eating meat is well-intentioned but not well-informed. In 2017, agriculture contributed 8.4 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and meat production was responsible for some part of that. But peer-reviewed studies show that even eliminating all of our cattle would have a relatively minor effect on climate change. In contrast, incorporating cattle into a regenerative agriculture system could sequester enough carbon to turn agriculture into a carbon sink, while also eliminating much other environmental damage caused by industrial agriculture.

All Africa Synthetic Pesticide Congress and the Eastern Africa Conference on Scaling up Agroecology and Ecological Organic Trade Mutually Merge

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The “1st All Africa Synthetic Pesticide Congress” organized by the World Food Preservation Center®LLC merges with the Eastern Africa conference on “Scaling up Agroecology and Ecological Organic Trade” organized by Biovision Africa Trust, IFOAM Organics International and their Partners to become the “1st International Conference on Agroecology Transforming Agriculture & Food Systems in Africa”.