Author: Stephen Daniells | Published: March 27, 2018
“I wish we had as much energy around a regenerative, climate-smart Farm Bill as we did around the marketing of regenerative, because now is the time to craft a Farm Bill that could actually improve climate and the quality of our farming,” says Clif Bar’s director of agriculture.
Author: Simon Pitman | Published: April 11, 2018
Regenerative agriculture is not exactly a buzz word quite yet, but it is certainly one to watch, and Dr. Bronner’s, known for its natural soaps, is now playing a big part in raising the profile of this vital movement.
While farmers already know just how much we are connected (and vulnerable) to the variability inherent in working with nature, farming connects to Climate Change in profound ways. On the one hand, industrial farming is one of the main contributors to Climate Change. On the other, agroecological farming can actually mitigate and reduce the risks, vulnerability and impacts of a changing climate.
With this contradiction in mind, it is clear that to confront Climate Change rather than just react to it, we need to nurture strong farmer networks, adapt the way we farm to reduce impacts on the environment, and make our farms and farmers more climate resilient.
MESA is proud to offer an online course to help you build the tools to do just that.
In this interatctive online course, you will learn and share knowledge with climate resilient agriculture experts, experienced farmers, and MESA’s network of agroecology educators. You will build relationships to a peer group to share expertise and strengthen community-based farmer-to-farmer networks. You’ll learn to create and apply strategies to improve environmental conditions on your farm while helping build resilience and productivity within your management practices, all oriented to confronting Climate Change in your context. After May 30-July 30, you’ll have a break followed by an in-person farmer-farmer field day to wrap up the course.
Author: Michael Wunder | Published: April 9, 2018
RAYMOND – Ben Gotschall and his family aim to ensure their dairy farm operates in a way that’s cohesive with the natural order of things.
They don’t manage the land at Davey Road Ranch, he said, they manage the landscape.
That means their farm near Raymond may look a little more rustic or a bit more wild than larger-scale operations. A few more species of grasses popping up in the pastures, conservation corridors that maintain biodiversity and grazing practices that mimic the state of nature rather than the industrial efficiency of larger farms.
Like many other farmers aiming for sustainability, Gotschall wants to make sure his operation has as little impact as possible. At Lincoln’s RegeNErate conference last month, he told attendees that process starts by shifting your mindset.
“The instinct is to say, okay what can I just change about the things I’m doing so I can keep doing the exact same thing I’m doing now, only I just use a different tool or I use a different product,” he said. “Or I use a different silver bullet, so to speak.”
Author: Dan Charles | Published: April 9, 2018
In American farm country, a grass-roots movement is spreading, a movement to keep more roots in the soil. (Not just grass roots, of course; roots of all kinds.) Its goal: Promoting healthy soil that’s full of life.
I met three different farmers recently who are part of this movement in one way or another. Each of them took me to a field, dug up some dirt, and showed it off like a kind of hidden treasure.
“You can see how beautiful that soil [is],” said Deb Gangwish, in Shelton, Neb. “I’m not a soil scientist, but I love soil!”
“You can pick it up and it smells like dirt,” Bryce Irlbeck told me, as we stood in a field near Manning, Iowa. “You can go on a lot of arms in Iowa and the dirt doesn’t smell like dirt anymore.”
And in Pleasant Dale, Neb., Del Ficke was practically ecstatic. “Look at this! And the smell! It smells beautiful! It’s alive!”
Author: Georgina Gustin | Published: February 20, 2018
Pulverizing volcanic rock and spreading the dust like fertilizer on farm soils could suck billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere and boost crop yields on a warming planet with a growing population.
In a paper published this week in the scientific journal Nature Plants, an international team of researchers lays out the prospects for “enhanced rock weathering”—a process that uses pulverized silicate rocks, like basalt, to speed the ability of minerals to store carbon in soil.
The team, led by the University of Sheffield in the UK and including U.S. climate scientist James Hansen, says the technique of enhanced weathering on swaths of the world’s cropland could potentially offset a meaningful chunk of global carbon emissions.
Author: Ed Maixner | Published: March 21, 2018
A range of advocates for what’s called regenerative agriculture convened in a U.S. House of Representatives hearing room Monday to talk about ways the upcoming farm bill might change farm programs and how they might join together to change the way Congress supports farmers.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and the Citizens Regeneration Lobby (CRL) hosted the briefing for congressional staff largely to update them on a bevy of super-organic concepts in farming that have been emerging, tagged broadly as regenerative agriculture (RA), and how Congress might support such farming methods.
Speakers at the event, in general, called for upending the USDA funding cart of crop subsidies. They want a shift to support for what they see as better ways of farming and improving land and the environment, rather than bankrolling farmers’ yields and income for major commodities.
Blumenauer urges many of the same changes in farm programs as do the RA advocates and is promoting his own alternative farm bill, the Food and Farm Act. He says only one in four applications for USDA grants to help farmers with improving natural resources is approved, “and of the grants approved, many don’t actually enhance the environment but are used to pay for things farmers need to do anyway, such as hog (manure) lagoons or fencing.”
Author: Simi Summer, Ph.D. | Published: April 2, 2018
In response to the decision of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to certify hydroponic crops and sanction “taking the soil out of organics” (Many individuals consider this to be the demise of the organic standard) scientists, consumers, farmers and those concerned about protecting the future of organics, are taking a visionary approach. They see the future of organics in regenerative agriculture.
In September 2017, the Rodale Institute presented a draft for organic standards called a new third party Regenerative Organic (RO) Certification. Once finalized, the RO certification will reflect a standard far beyond USDA organic. This will be achieved by establishing higher standards for soil health, land management, animal welfare and fair labor/fair trade practices for farmers and workers. The RO label will appear on certified regenerative products, next to the USDA Organic label, signifying a standard which exceeds those set currently by the NOSB and the USDA.
A growing number of consumers have come to understand that non-organic, genetically engineered, industrially produced and chemically-laden food products and production methods are health hazardous. Unfortunately, degenerative agriculture produces effects which are the opposite of carbon sequestering practices. Such degenerative practices damage the environment, contaminate the air, pollute the world’s water supply and destabilize climate. And increasing levels of greenhouse gas pollution comes from degenerative food, farming and land use practices.
Midwest research says AMP grazing produces lower greenhouse gas emissions than feedlot finishing.
Author: Alan Newport | Published: February 28, 2018
A new study from Michigan has boosted the case for adaptive multi-paddock grazing with data showing less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from grass-finishing cattle than from feedlot finishing.
When the researchers included soil organic carbon (SOC) in the GHG footprint estimates, finishing emissions from the adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) system were net negative 6.65 kg CO2-enteric per kg of carcass weight, compared with feedlot (FL) emissions of 6.12 kg CO2-enteric kg, which was aggravated by soil erosion, the authors reported.
Perhaps just important, I believe, is the fact their data shows increased soil organic matter from AMP grazing. Researchers showed a four-year carbon (C) sequestration average of 3.59 Mg C ha/yr in AMP-grazed pastures. The feedlot system showed a potentially small net loss of soil carbon, as you might expect.
Nebraska and surrounding states have some of the richest soil in the world. Yet throughout the state, Nebraskans have little access to locally produced food.
RegeNErate Nebraska wants to change that. How? By reclaiming local control of the food system, and removing it from the grip of corporate agribusiness.
“Many people have been left behind as industrial agriculture has replaced cooperation with competition, separating us from our connection to the soil and to each other,” said RegeNErate Nebraska founder and local farmer Graham Christensen. “RegeNErate Nebraska is a community of Nebraskans who are bucking the system, in favor of the solution which lies in the soil. Regeneration is about going back to the way farming was.”
“The solution lies in the soil,” said Christensen. “Everything comes from the soil—all that feeds us, nourishes us, provides us with strength and community. It’s who we are. Nebraskans know that soil is soul.”
RegeNErate Nebraska held a series of workshops March 24 – March 27 focused on building regenerative alternatives to the state’s dominant industrial ag system. The workshops took place over a four-day period across four cities: Lincoln, Fremont and North Omaha, Nebraska; and Sloan, Iowa.
The events brought together local and national leaders and members of the community to discuss the benefits of transitioning from a conventional, degenerative agriculture system to a regenerative organic model that increases access to locally produced, nutrient-dense food, restores soil health, promotes biodiversity, treats animals humanely, revitalizes local economies and prioritizes farmworker fairness.
Nebraska’s soil is on life support
If there were a category for soil on the endangered species list, it would be number one—”our soil is on life support,” said regenerative rancher Del Ficke.
Ficke, aka the “Graze Master” of Ficke Cattle Company, based in Pleasant Dale, Nebraska, has practiced no-till farming since the late 1980s, when he transitioned from conventional agriculture to regenerative. That process included downgrading the amount of land he managed from 7,000 acres to less than 600 acres. He told attendees those 600 acres are 70 percent more profitable under regenerative practices than they were under conventional farming methods.
GrazeMaster Del Ficke of Ficke Cattle Co. in #Nebraska transitioned from a conventional farmer to #regenerative farmer, downgrading from 7,000 acres to 600 acres. Ficke says he’s 70% MORE PROFITABLE on 600 acres than his 7,000. #RegenerativeAg @GCResolve https://t.co/fn7J79RPXW pic.twitter.com/qo2OXkmqAN
— Regeneration Int’l (@regeneration_in) March 24, 2018
Ficke was one of several presenters who spoke about the human health and environmental benefits of regenerative food, farming and land use at a workshop
‘People have no idea’
RegeNErate Nebraska’s workshop series kicked off in Lincoln, Nebraska, with John Fagan, PhD, of Health Research Institute Labs, based in Fairfield, Iowa. HRI Labs conducts scientific research and laboratory testing to identify and quantify environmental contaminants in food, water, soil and the human body.
Fagan’s presentation served as a wakeup call to the fact that most Americans have trace amounts of glyphosate, the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, in their bodies. “People have no idea,” said Fagan, that the primary route of exposure is through industrialized food.
HRI Labs offers human urine test kits for people concerned about glyphosate. The weedkiller has been found in human breast milk, urine, drinking water and countless foods. A recent study found that glyphosate levels in humans increased 500 percent from 1993 to 2016.
Fagan also talked about how to get chemical contamination out of humans and the environment. The good news, he said, is that our food and farming system is currently undergoing a massive transformation, one that’s driven by two things: concern about soil degradation and the demand for pure, safe healthy food.
The growing demand for clean, healthy and chemical-free food grown from nutrient-rich soil was an underlying theme at the workshops, which attracted a diverse audience that included local, regenerative farmers and ranchers, agroforestry and urban gardening experts, food co-op leaders, refugee farmers, conservationists, prairie restorationists, tribal representatives and even conventional farmers in search of guidance on how to farm with nature, instead of against it.
Transforming vacant lots into food forests
Local afro-soul music group Wakanda One set the mood for the RegeNErate North Omaha workshop at the Metropolitan Community College, Institute of the Culinary Arts.
Urban Forester Graham Herbst of Omaha Permaculture kicked off the event by talking about urban food forests, a sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems that incorporate fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vine and perennial vegetables.
Omaha Permaculture specializes in transforming vacant city lots into beautiful, functional food gardens of edible plants, trees, art and flowers. The gardens serve as a food pipeline, providing lower-income residents access to affordable and locally grown health food.
What is a #food forest? Forest gardening is a sustainable plant-based food production & agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit & nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial veggies, says Urban Forester Graham Herbst of @OmaPermaculture. @GCResolve pic.twitter.com/rEweDCwBmo
— Regeneration Int’l (@regeneration_in) March 25, 2018
Craig Howell of Alliance For A Better Omaha delivered a similar message. Howell stressed the importance of including local and nutritious fruits and vegetables in the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
“When we grow food locally, we will end hunger,” said Howell. “We can’t solve hunger without expanding community, and we can’t expand community without sustainable land stewardship.”
Through his organization’s SNAP outreach, Howell has helped put nearly 2 million meals on the tables of food insecure households across metropolitan Omaha.
We can’t solve #hunger without expanding community, and we can’t expand community without #sustainable land stewardship, said Craig Howell of Alliance For A Better #Omaha during his speech at #RegeNErate Nebraska’s #NorthOmaha workshop. #SNAP #foodstamps #welfare pic.twitter.com/lAUPJwtDHM
— Regeneration Int’l (@regeneration_in) March 25, 2018
‘We’re not making any money’
At the RegeNErate Fremont event I sat next to a couple who operate a conventional farm outside of Fremont, Nebraska. “We’re not making any money,” they said. They told me they want to move away from toxic crop chemicals and toward a regenerative agriculture system that builds soil health—but they also need their farm to be profitable, in addition to sustainable. They’ve already starting planting cover-crops, a step Christensen describes as the perfect segue into restoring soil health through regenerative agriculture.
One key revelation that emerged from RegeNErate Nebraska’s workshop series is the importance of thinking outside the box, while at the same time building strong community networks that support regenerative food, farming and land use.
Regenerative agriculture is a native concept
The final workshop took place at the WinneVegas Casino Resort, owned by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. RegeNErate Native, which emphasized native food sovereignty and the need to create opportunities among tribes and on native land, featured presentations from experts on a range of topics including the Native Farm Bill, regenerative poultry and bison, sacred seed saving and pollinator protection.
The RegeNErate Native workshop focused on connections with native communities and how to facilitate the development of local food pipelines that ultimately establish food-sovereign communities. The event kicked off with Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation leader, Ernest Weston, Jr., who is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Weston, a local food activist, spoke about the importance of natives achieving food sovereignty. Up to 98 percent of the farmland in native communities is used to grow feed for livestock, the majority of which does not return to the reservation. Weston said that of the 2.7 million acres of farmland on the reservation, 95 percent is farmed by non-natives.
Weston told attendees that regenerative agriculture is good for communities, it essentially equates to being a good neighbor. View his presentation here.
#RegenerativeAg equals being a good neighbor, says Ernest Weston Jr., Pine Ridge native and @tvalleycdc leader. Today, he’s talking about taking back ownership in the #soil with #regenerative poultry at RegeNErate Nebraska’s RegeNErate Native workshop in Sloan, IA.
— Regeneration Int’l (@regeneration_in) March 27, 2018
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Watch videos of RegeNErate Nebraska workshop speakers
Julie Wilson is communications associate for the Organic Consumers Association. She attended the RegeNErate Nebraska workshops. To keep up with news on regenerative agriculture subscribe to the Regeneration International newsletter.