Meet the ‘Regenerators’

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Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association and Dr. Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, discuss how the newly formed Regeneration International Communication Network will help to promote the benefits of regenerative organic agriculture and counter the growing global push for industrial agriculture based on GMOs and the increased use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

Ronnie Cummins:

The governments and large businesses of world are failing to solve the climate crisis, failing to solve the crisis of poverty, the crisis of environmental degradation, the crisis of values and ethics. If governments and corporations can’t solve the problem, we the people are going to have to solve the problem.

Vandana Shiva:

What we are talking about, is regenerating a new democracy, regenerating new economies, regenerating agriculture which is at the heart of the problem, but can be heart of solution. Everyone eats, most people in world are farmers, so this is an invitation to everyone to join. Everyone loves freedom, rather than being controlled by fraudulent and criminal corporations.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FslSyYMXvE[/embedyt]

World Food Day October 16: Campaign for Climate, Food and Farm Justice

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Call to Action – BECOME AN ENDORSING ORGANIZATION TODAY

The industrial food system is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial agriculture practices, like Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), large-scale monocultures, overuse and abuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, fossil fuel intensive transportation and storage, all generate significant amounts of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), not to mention underpin an inequitable and unhealthy food system.

Conversely, small-scale regenerative organic farming not only emits less greenhouse gases than industrial agriculture, including significantly less nitrous oxide and methane as compared to industrial agriculture, but has the potential to counter climate change by successfully sequestering carbon dioxide. Importantly, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, small farmers hold the key to doubling food production while mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty. In fact, recent studies by the GRAIN demonstrate small farmers already feed the majority of the world with less than a quarter of all farmland. The Rodale Institute’s White Paper, “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change,” states that small farmers and pastoralists could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available, safe and inexpensive agroecological practices.

However, small-scale farmers and producers unfairly bear the brunt of climate impacts, threatening their communities and livelihoods. The Global South, although emitting only a fraction of all GHGs, disproportionately suffers the impacts of climate change, leading to environmental refugees, widespread hunger and economic injustice. For too long, only those who have been responsible for creating climate change have had a seat at the policy-making table; it is time to ensure those most affected and those most able to create solutions are heard.

While it is critical to continue to support efforts to develop a sensible and far-reaching strategy for renewable energy in both the government and marketplace, it is equally important to address one of the largest emitters of GHG and unjust sectors in the global economy, the industrial agriculture system. Addressing climate change on the farm and food system can not only tackle the challenging task of agriculture generated greenhouse gases, but produce more food with fewer fossil fuels, while building a just and sovereign food system.  Our communities, our economy, and our families demand immediate action.

BECOME AN ENDORSING ORGANIZATION TODAY

Soil Carbon Cowboys

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Real ranchers show all of the business and ecosystem benefits of regenerative grazing.

Meet Allen Williams, Gabe Brown and Neil Dennis – heroes and innovators! These ranchers now know how to regenerate their soils while making their animals healthier and their operations more profitable. They are turning ON their soils, enabling rainwater to sink into the earth rather than run off. And these turned ON soils retain that water, so the ranches are much more resilient in drought. It’s an amazing story that has just begun.

Watch More Videos by Peter Byck

Popped Secret: The Mysterious Origin of Corn

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Where did corn come from? Genetic and archeological data point to what may seem like an unlikely ancestor. Discover the secret of corn in this HHMI BioInteractive educational video.

Watch More Videos on HHMI BioInteractive’s Youtube Channel

Grazing Cover Crops and Benefits for Livestock Operations – Gabe Brown

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A presentation by North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown at the National Conference on Cover Crops and Soil Health.

Watch More Videos on SARE Outreach’s Youtube Channel

Dr. Mercola Interviews Gabe Brown on Regenerative Land Management

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Natural health expert and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Gabe Brown, a pioneer in teaching about regenerative land management, which helps restore soil health.

Watch More Videos on Mercola Health’s Youtube Channel

Better Save Soil

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Fertile soil forms the foundation of our modern societies. Although we should be doing everything we can to sustain it, when we look around us, we see a very different story.

Both political initiatives and local actions are necessary to secure the access to food and livelihoods for everyone. Measures for sustainable agriculture are already at hand, but they are often not applied – both on a small and large scale. And even if most of us live in cities, we all can do our part in saving soils all over the world.

“Better Save Soil” is the second collaboration between the IASS and the animation studio of Uli Streckenbach to raise awareness on soil issues.

Watch More Videos on the IASS Vimeo Channel

Soil Carbon: Putting Carbon back where it belongs: In the earth

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Tony Lovell will explain the reasoning behind how more green growing plants means more captured carbon dioxide — more water — more production — more biodiversity — more profit. Did you know that a 1% change in soil organic matter across just one-quarter of the world’s land area could sequester 300 billion tonnes of physical CO2. TEDxDubbo focused attention on what we call FACETS — Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability. These FACETS are actually potent ideas shared by everyday people with an interest in these disciplines. In many of these topics there is an awareness campaign; the aim of bringing our community together united against catastrophic failures in our food-chain, environment and health. It is worth mentioning that we are also indebted to our natural systems for our economic wealth. Failures in Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability are not just a local issue — they are a global concern.

Reversing Desertification Shows Living Soil is Key Factor in Environmental Health

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Author: Pamela

This beautiful TED Talk by Allan Savory, biologist and ecologist, highlights the importance of rebuilding native soil, particularly in areas where desertification already has begun. The irony of the story is that holistic land management and animal husbandry provide the strategic cornerstone to rejuvenating the grasslands of the world.

The lesson for those in G3 is: Protect and nurture your O.W.L. (Oxygen, Water, and Life), because Living Soil is the KEY FACTOR in environmental health in general and specifically for the health of your landscape and the health of your waterways.

Recently our Managing Member, Pamela Berstler, spoke in a meeting of Water Conservation Managers noting the paramount importance of educating about soil health in water conservation and pollution prevention.  Pamela argued that building a healthy, biologically active Soil Sponge was the MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY in healthy landscape building and that this truth applied to all manner of land use from agriculture to urban/suburban residential and commercial, parklands, and even “natural” watershed areas that we would consider wildlands. Pamela also reasoned that all soil is degraded (especially biologically speaking) and that intervention, remediation, and ACTION was required to rebuild our soils, particularly as it applies to garden-building, even when using plants that are considered native or have become perfectly adapted to the climate and place over thousands of years.

Map of Global Soil Degradation

There was push-back from the audience.  One attendee proposed that plant selection and placement was the most important factor for education and that selecting and planting native plants in native soil was THE simple and compelling solution for restoring watersheds and producing healthy, low resource gardens (including water conserving, of course). The reasoning was that native plants don’t need soils with organic matter in them, and so long as the microclimate conditions supported the plant selection, no soil amendment was necessary.

Keep Reading on Green Gardens Group

Let’s Talk About Soil

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[English | Español | Français | Deutsch | Português | Italiano | عربي | 中国 | Türk]

This animated film tells the reality of soil resources around the world, covering the issues of degradation, urbanization, land grabbing and overexploitation; the film offers options to make the way we manage our soils more sustainable.

View more videos on the The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies Vimeo Page