The world’s soils have lost a total of 133bn tonnes of carbon since humans first started farming the land around 12,000 years ago, new research suggests. And the rate of carbon loss has increased dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution.
The model suggested that agricultural changes are responsible for the loss of a total of 133 petagrams, or 133 billion metric tons, of carbon from the top six-foot-deep layer of soil all over the world.
Natural Intelligence Farming is the term Ian and Dianne Haggerty use to describe the harnessing of the dynamic, natural relationships that exists between all the organisms in the ecosystem and the environment itself, particularly the soil.
Building the forage and soil with great grazing before drought strikes will change the outcome.
A prosperous organic cotton sector benefits everyone—from farmer to consumer. To realize the sector’s potential, we need to bring about the conditions that will allow the crop that safeguards the environment and enhances farmer livelihoods to flourish.
TomKat Ranch, a proponent of regenerative ranching, is betting that the rise of precision agriculture and big data technologies could help prove the financial viability of regenerative ranching, as well as the environmental benefits.
One way to restore degraded soil is to plant trees—lots of them. Jurriaan Ruys’s invention, which can be buried underground, contains a sapling, water, and beneficial fungi.
Silvopasture is an ancient practice that combines forestry with pasture. It seeks to grow trees in areas where animals are pastured as a way to get double the amount of production out of one area of land while also contributing to the ecological health of that area.
While “ethical” clothing is a good start, there’s so much further that we could potentially go. A regenerative, regional textile system could revitalize local economies and rural livelihoods, reconnect farmers, weavers, designers, and wearers in a mutually supportive web of relationships, take toxins out of our waterways and off our skins, and provide us with beautiful, durable garments far more meaningful than the $5 t-shirt that gets tossed after a few months.
Ruchi Shroff, of Navdanya International, speaks about false solutions to climate change and why the “techno-fixes” proposed by industry, such as biofuels, trade emission market, carbon trading, sustainable intensification, climate smart agriculture, among others, are by no means effective solutions to climate change.