"Regenerative agriculture"
On a prompt from James Lyons-Weiler
Regenerative agriculture is a weak point of mine. I don’t really know a lot about it other than that doing anything to the soil (ploughing, digging, churning) is considered ungodly (in which case I’m going to have to repent after this mornings efforts). As I understand it, it has a lot of support from the World Economic Forum (WEF). I even went searching for James on my WEF list after his comment on it (no he doesn’t seem to be there).
I expect that Frank and Rick know something about it so I’m, taking my cue from Ray Horvath, going to pass this one over to subscribers for their views on it in the comments. I’ll add some of those in to this post if agreed. Think of it as a community written post as I lack the time to investigate it more.
And what prompted this segue.
I agree with many of the comments here. As a someone who has been around farming/ranching my entire life in one way or the other and comes from generations of farmers and ranchers, there isn't a "one size fits all" when it comes to soil health anymore than there's a one size fits all for human beings. Soil is, in essence, a living organism. There's soooo many variables that go into determining the right approach for maintaining soil health. There's a huge difference between the soil in a tropical climate and the soil in an arid climate. The microbes one would find in one area are not the same as you would find in another. The organic matter available is also wildly different from one location to the next. (For instance, one may be able to throw some wood chips on the ground in Tennessee and those wood chips will rot away in short order, where if you throw wood chips on the ground where I live, those wood chips will take decades to break down). In my area, if I don't "dig in" some organic matter, it will take *years* to break down. I have to dig it in. And my soil is healthy, productive, full of nice worms and grubs and things that should be there (and a few things that shouldn't). My point, of course, is that once again "the powers that should not be" are going to tell everyone on the entire planet exactly what they should do... instead of letting people in their own area determine what is best. I'm really growing tired of the monsters attempting to turn every aspect of our lives into McDonalds franchises. (The Big Mac you get in Maine will taste the same as the Big Mac you get in Arizona). It's insanity. And it *won't* "save the planet. (But it just may starve the hell out of a lot of people... which may be exactly what they want.)
Their main focus is soil fertility, focussing on top soil regeneration. There are a number of different ways to achieve this. Rotational grazing with sometimes moving the area being grazed up to four times a day, or leaving an area vacant for a while to regenerate. They use multiple crop rotation, ground cover and perennials to protect the soil and water retention. No tiling or digging as this breaks the structure of the soil and releases built up carbon. They gradually eliminate the use of synthetic fertilisers. It is growing in popularity in Australia because there is not much top soil left. There is a lot of interest in New Zealand also. I hear about it a fair bit, as my nephew farms this way near Clinton, South Otago. V. Dominique is right in stating that ruminant livestock farming is at the forefront. However, it could be applied to all types of farming, even home gardening.