#regenerative agriculture
Text
Legit though, we should start turning ecosystem restoration and work to make our world more tolerant to the effects of climate change into annual holidays and festivals
Like how just about every culture used to have festivals to celebrate the beginning of the harvest or its end, or the beginning of planting, or how whole communities used to host barn raisings and quilting bees - everyone coming together at once to turn the work of months or years into the work of a few days
Humble suggestions for festival types:
Goat festival
Besides controlled burns (which you can't do if there's too much dead brush), the fastest, most effective, and most cost-efficient way to clear brush before fire season - esp really heavy dead brush - is to just. Put a bunch of goats on your land for a few days!
Remember that Shark Tank competitor who wanted to start a goat rental company, and everyone was like wtf? There was even a whole John Oliver bit making fun of the idea? Well THAT JUST PROVES THEY'RE FROM NICE WET PLACES, because goat rental companies are totally a thing, and they're great.
So like. Why don't we have a weekend where everyone with goats just takes those goats to the nearest land that needs a ton of clearing? Public officials could put up maps of where on public lands grazing is needed, and where it definitely shouldn't happen. Farmers and people/groups with a lot of acres that need clearing can post Goat Requests.
Little kids can make goat-themed crafts and give the goats lots of pets or treats at the end of the day for doing such a good job. Volunteers can help wrangle things so goats don't get where they're not supposed to (and everyone fences off land nowadays anyway, mostly). And the goats, of course, would be in fucking banquet paradise.
Planting Festival and Harvest Festival
Why mess with success??? Bring these back where they've disappeared!!! Time to swarm the community gardens and help everyone near you with a farm make sure that all of their seeds are sown and none of the food goes to waste in the fields, decaying and unpicked.
And then set up distribution parts of the festival so all the extra food gets where it needs to be! Boxes of free lemons in front of your house because you have 80 goddamned lemons are great, but you know what else would be great? An organized effort to take that shit to food pantries (which SUPER rarely get fresh produce, because they can't hold anything perishable for long at all) and community/farmer's markets
Rain Capture Festival
The "water year" - how we track annual rainfall and precipitation - is offset from the regular calendar year because, like, that's just when water cycles through the ecosystems (e.g. meltwater). At least in the US, the water year is October 1st through September 30th of the next year, because October 1st is around when all the snowmelt from last year is gone, and a new cycle is starting as rain begins to fall again in earnest.
So why don't we all have a big barn raising equivalent every September to build rain capture infrastructure?
Team up with some neighbors to turn one of those little grass strips on the sidewalk into a rain-garden with fall-planting plants. Go down to your local church and help them install some gutters and rain barrels. Help deculvert rivers so they run through the dirt again, and make sure all the storm drains in your neighborhood are nice and clear.
Even better, all of this - ESPECIALLY the rain gardens - will also help a ton with flood control!
I'm so serious about how cool this could be, yall.
And people who can't or don't want to do physical stuff for any of these festivals could volunteer to watch children or cook food for the festival or whatever else might need to be done!
Parties afterward to celebrate all the good work done! Community building and direct local improvements to help protect ourselves from climate change!
The possibilities are literally endless, so not to sound like an influencer or some shit, but please DO comment or reply or put it in the notes if you have thoughts, esp on other things we could hold festivals like this for.
Canning festivals. "Dig your elderly neighbors out of the snow" festivals. Endangered species nesting count festival. Plant fruit trees on public land and parks festival. All of the things that I don't know anywhere near enough to think of. Especially in more niche or extreme ecosystems, there are so many possibilities that could do a lot of good
#climate change#climate action#climate crisis#climate hope#solarpunk#hopepunk#hope posting#community building#ecosystem#ecosystem restoration#forest fire#fire prevention#flood#flood prevention#harvest#harvest festival#regenerative agriculture#modern farming#water conservation#meteorology#festival#not news#hope#climate optimism
3K notes
·
View notes
Text
Making Desert Land Fertile with Water Bunds
#permaculture#regenerative ag#regenerative agriculture#agriculture#farming#gardening#how to make soil more fertile#how to turn a desert into fertile land#soil#soil fertility#organic farming#organic gardening#water harvesting
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
So. Modern industrialized agriculture uses a LOT of chemicals. Pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers. And we've known for a long time that the excess chemicals end up washing into the nearby waterways, and eventually to the oceans, sickening organisms and damaging ecosystems all along the way. But this actually shows where pesticides in particular are entering into the ocean, and in what quantities.
One really important point made in the article is that it really doesn't take much of a pesticide to do serious harm to living beings; the dose is the poison, after all. And while the oceans are large, they are not infinite; three million metric tons every single year can only be diluted so much. This is to say nothing of the residual pesticides left in the soil, and whose long-term ecological impact we are also still studying.
A lot of our current industrialized agriculture stems from the mid-20th century when it was just assumed there was a chemical to fix everything and bring farming into "modern times." This is why I get excited about regenerative agriculture and other practices that reduce the amount of chemicals needed while maintaining or even boosting harvests. Not only do they mean less pollution, but they also represent less product that a farmer has to pay for, which increases profit. Here's hoping that we can continue finding better, 21st century solutions to agriculture's challenges.
#agriculture#farming#pesticides#pollution#environment#environmentalism#conservation#science#ecology#scicomm#nature#regenerative agriculture
87 notes
·
View notes
Link
Regenerative agriculture is threatening to marginalise another promising sustainable farming movement: agroecology.
Agroecology combines agronomy (agricultural science) and ecology, and also seeks to address injustice and inequity in food systems.
The movement is associated with the world’s largest smallholder farmer organisation, La Via Campesina, and has been endorsed by the United Nations.
Agroecology advocates for Indigenous knowledge and land rights, and support for small-scale farmers. It seeks to challenge neoliberalism, corporate dominance, and globalisation of food systems.
Some researchers question if agroecology alone can produce enough food for a growing global population. But 80% of the world’s food, in value terms, is produced by small family farms. And globally, we already grow enough food to feed ten billion people. The problem is how that food is distributed and wasted, and how much is made into ultra-processed foods and other products such as bio-fuels.
Agroecology brings many benefits to farmers and communities. An agroecology project in Chololo village in Tanzania, for example, saw the number of households eating three meals per day rise from 29% to 62%. Average household income increased by 18%. The average period of food shortage shortened by 62% and agricultural yields increased by up to 70%.
But the origins of the agroecology movement in the Global South, and its resistance to corporatisation, mean it is often marginalised. At events such as the UN Food Systems Summit, for example, corporate stakeholders guide policy decisions while vulnerable farmers can feel sidelined.
Despite regenerative agriculture’s popularity and its focus on sustainable food production, it fails to tackle systemic social and political issues.
182 notes
·
View notes
Text
This article perfectly captures my frustrations with looking into native plants. there are just so few of them that aren't imported and they're not sold locally usually which is ridiculous
lets start planting native plants again yall
105 notes
·
View notes
Note
weird question, but do you know if regenerative agriculture is growing, and by what rate? it's important to me but looking for articles on my own can trigger a panic attack :[ no worries if not !
Hey! Thank you so much for asking. Honestly, agriculture and sustainable agriculture specifically are very close to my heart as well, so I was glad for the excuse to do some research :)
Also, thank you for your patience, I know you sent this Ask a bit ago. It’s good that you’re listening to yourself and not going around searching for things that might cause you harm, so thanks again for reaching out!
So, what is regenerative agriculture?
Regenerative agriculture is a way of farming that focuses on soil health. When soil is healthy, it produces more food and nutrition, stores more carbon and increases biodiversity – the variety of species. Healthy soil supports other water, land and air environments and ecosystems through natural processes including water drainage and pollination – the fertilization of plants.
Regenerative agriculture is a defining term for sustainability in our food system - while there is no one true definition of regenerative agriculture, the concept has been around for centuries, taking root in Indigenous growing practices. Regenerative approaches can bolster soil health and watershed health. They can also add to climate mitigation and potentially tie into regulatory or commercial incentives for a more sustainable diet.
Regenerative farming methods include minimizing the ploughing of land. This keeps CO2 in the soil, improves its water absorbency and leaves vital fungal communities in the earth undisturbed.
Rotating crops to vary the types of crop planted improves biodiversity, while using animal manure and compost helps to return nutrients to the soil.
Continuously grazing animals on the same piece of land can also degrade soil, explains the Regenerative agriculture in Europe report from the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council. So regenerative agriculture methods include moving grazing animals to different pastures.
How can it help?
Regenerative farming can improve crop yields – the volume of crops produced – by improving the health of soil and its ability to retain water, as well as reducing soil erosion. If regenerative farming was implemented in Africa, crop yields could rise 13% by 2040 and up to 40% in the future, according to a Regenerative Farming in Africa report by conservation organization the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the UN.
Regenerative farming can also reduce emissions from agriculture and turn the croplands and pastures, which cover up to 40% of Earth’s ice-free land area, into carbon sinks. These are environments that naturally absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, according to climate solutions organization Project Drawdown.
5 ways to scale regenerative agriculture:
1. Agree on common metrics for environmental outcomes. Today, there are many disparate efforts to define and measure environmental outcomes. We must move to a set of metrics adopted by the whole food industry, making it easier for farmers to adjust their practices and for positive changes to be rewarded.
2. Build farmers’ income from environmental outcomes such as carbon reduction and removal. We need a well-functioning market with a credible system of payments for environmental outcomes, trusted by buyers and sellers, that creates a new, durable, income stream for farmers.
3. Create mechanisms to share the cost of transition with farmers. Today, all the risk and cost sits with the farmers.
4. Ensure government policy enables and rewards farmers for transition. Too many government policies are in fact supporting the status quo of farming. The food sector must come together and work jointly with regulators to address this.
5. Develop new sourcing models to spread the cost of transition. We must move from sourcing models that take crops from anywhere to models that involve collaboration between off-takers from different sectors to take crops from areas converting to regenerative farming.
The rise of regenerative agriculture
In 2019, General Mills, the manufacturer of Cheerios, Yoplait and Annie’s Mac and Cheese (among other products), announced it would begin sourcing a portion of its corn, wheat, dairy and sugar from farmers who were engaged in regenerative agriculture practices and committed to advancing the practice of regenerative agriculture on one million acres of land by 2030. In early 2020, Whole Foods announced regenerative agriculture would be the No. 1 food trend and, in spite of the pandemic and the rapid growth of online shopping overshadowing the trend, business interest in the field still spiked by 138%.
More recently, PepsiCo announced it was adopting regenerative agriculture practices among 7 million acres of its farmland. Cargill declared it intends to do the same on 10 million acres by 2030, and Walmart has committed to advancing the practice on 50 million acres. Other companies pursuing regenerative agriculture include Danone, Unilever, Hormel, Target and Land O’ Lakes.
According to Nielsen, 75% of millennials are altering their buying habits with the environment in mind. This sentiment, of course, does not always materialize into tangible actions on behalf of every consumer. However, it is clear from the actions of PepsiCo, General Mills, Walmart, Unilever and others that they believe consumers’ expectations of what is environmentally friendly are shifting and that they will soon be looking to purchase regeneratively-produced foods because of the many benefits they produce.
The next step in the transition to regenerative agriculture is certification. The goal is to create labeling that will allow the consumer to connect to the full suite of their values. Some companies are partnering with nonprofit conveners and certifiers. The Savory Institute is one such partner, convening producers and brands around regenerative agriculture and more holistic land management practices.
In 2020, the Savory Institute granted its first “Ecological OutCome Verification (EOV) seal to Epic’s latest high protein bars by certifying that its featured beef was raised with regenerative agriculture practices.
The program was developed to let the land speak for itself by showing improvement through both leading and lagging functions such as plant diversity and water holding capacity. There are now thousands of products that have been Land to Market verified, with over 80 brand partnerships with companies such as Epic Provisions, Eileen Fisher and Applegate. Daily Harvest is giving growers in that space three-year contracts as well as markets and price premiums for the transitional crop. It's focusing on that transitional organic process as a stepping stone toward a regenerative organic food system.
Daily Harvest’s Almond Project creates an alliance with the Savory Institute and a group of stakeholders - including Simple Mills and Cappello’s - to bring regenerative practices to almonds in the Central Valley of California.
These companies are working with Treehouse California Almonds, their shared almond supplier, to lead soil health research on 160 acres of farmland. Over five years, the Project will focus on measuring outcomes around the ecosystem and soil health of regenerative practices – comparing those side by side with neighboring conventional baselines.
“We need industry partnership; we need pre-competitive collaboration,” says Rebecca Gildiner, Director of Sustainability at Daily Harvest, of the Almond Project. “Sustainability cannot be competitive. We are all sharing suppliers, we are all sharing supply – rising tides truly lift all boats. The industry has to understand our responsibility in investing, where historically investments have disproportionately focused on yields with a sole focus of feeding the world. We know this has been critical in the past but it has overlooked other forms of capital, other than financial. We need to look towards experimenting in holistic systems that have other outcomes than yield and profit - instead of saying organic can’t feed the world, we have to invest in figuring out how organic can feed the world because it’s critical.”
////
In short!!!
Many articles are stating regenerative agriculture as a defining, and rising “buzz word” in the industry. It seems that consumers are becoming more and more aware and are demanding more sustainable approaches to agriculture.
We, of course, have a way to go, but it seems from the data that I’ve gathered, that regenerative agriculture is, in fact, on the rise. Demand is rising, and many are working on ways to globalize those methods.
Source Source Source Source
#climate change#climate#hope#good news#climate news#climate crisis#more to come#climate emergency#news#climate justice#agriculture#ecosystem#farming#conservation#biodiversity#regenerative agriculture
81 notes
·
View notes
Link
“Many young farmers share Kent’s commitment to sustainability, according to a new report from the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). In a survey of over 10,000 farmers across the country, 86% of respondents under 40 said they used regenerative farming practices, which the survey defined as “an approach to farming and ranching that builds healthy soils and ecosystems, supports climate-resilient farms and communities, and addresses inequity in agriculture.”
Of course, as the survey notes, regenerative farming practices aren’t new. Indigenous communities — many of whom were pushed off the land they stewarded for millennia — innovated and practiced these farming techniques for generations.
‘Young farmers today find motivation to farm in environmental conservation, anti-racism, and creating healthy, food secure, and climate-resilient communities,’ says Vanessa Garcia Polanco, NYFC’s policy campaign director.
Overhauling the United States’ agriculture system will be crucial to meeting its climate goals. Farms cover about 40% of all U.S. land, according to the most recent census, and agriculture accounts for about 11% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
#agriculture#farming#sustainability#regenerative agriculture#climate resilience#environmenta#conservation#anti-racism#food security#climate
148 notes
·
View notes
Text
Intro to U.S. Agriculture Book Recommendations
Requested by @languagesandpain
Healing Grounds by Liz Carlisle
If you're interested in agroecology this is a great place to start. It highlights a handful of Black, Latino, and Asian American farmers and their lives, history, and research. It's a great all-around book too because it touches on animal agriculture, produce, and mushrooms (which I don't see get talked about much), and also different methods like agroforestry and pasture systems.
Grain by Grain by Bob Quinn and Liz Carlisle
This book is basically the story of Bob Quinn and his farm, there's a lot of good info in it. This is the first book that really struck home to me that I need to listen to people in conventional agriculture even if I personally don't like it, because there's important experiences that need to be heard. It touches on topics like converting farms to more sustainable methods, heirloom crops, and how we deal with food/diet related science in the US. I don't have any health issues of note, but after reading this book I found an organic bread with Kamut wheat in it to see how it was, and it totally takes away any white on my tongue when I'm eating it daily. Pretty fascinating.
Perilous Bounty by Tom Philpott
This book widely covers major problems in US conventional agriculture, mostly covering major agriculture corporations and environmental impacts but also some labor issues, and small/mid size farm struggles. I'm not going to lie, this one is depressing. I generally do well with tough topics but near the end I had to put it down a few times because it was making me feel a bit hopeless. Which I fault the author with a bit for not dealing with better, because we need more hope to be able to believe these problems are fixable. He also doesn't cover the eastern US which irks me a bit because the south is a major agricultural region. But overall, a lot of great info and some interesting ideas for solutions near the end.
With These Hands by Daniel Rothenberg
I haven't actually read this one yet, but I've read sections. It looks like another tough read, but covers the experiences of migrant farmworkers across the US. Definitely trigger warnings for modern day slavery, racism, abuse, and more.
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
I found this one to be a bit pessimistic honestly, but I read it a while ago so I dont remember what exactly bothered me. But it's a good overview of agricultural collapse through history, soil science, and issues in soil today.
Lentil Underground by Liz Carlisle
(Can you tell I've read all of Carlisle's books yet). So this book didn't really make much of an impression on me. But I'm recommending it because if anything it kind of illustrates the tediousness of policy change, changing people's minds, running an unconventional farm. It's a bit boring compared to the other recommendations but if you're in the industry there's things to think about in it.
Non-book recommendations
For a while was listening to Real Organic Podcast. After about 10 episodes (not in order) you notice they start to really repeat a lot of ideas. But they have a lot of episodes that highlight problems with chemical use, water use, how movements like organic get co-opted by big corporations, and more.
I also recommend the news website Civil Eats. They post a lot of book recommendations, as well as cover a whole variety of agricultural issues across the world.
If anyone has any additional recommendations feel free to add on! I'm always looking for more books >:)
#not langblr#agriculture#agroecology#sustainable agriculture#regenerative agriculture#environmentalism#environmental justice#book recommendations
40 notes
·
View notes
Text
One egg is from a regenerative farm with hens foraging on pasture and one is just from a run-of-the-mill local farm. Pretty obvious which one is which, huh?
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
16 notes
·
View notes
Note
hey, how do you cope with people saying we only have a small amount of time left to stop the worst effects of climate change? no matter how hopeful and ok i am, that always sends me back into a spiral :(
A few different ways
1. The biggest one is that I do math. Because renewable energy is growing exponentially
Up until basically 2021 to now, all of the climate change models were based on the idea that our ability to handle climate change will grow linearly. But that's wrong: it's growing exponentially, most of all in the green energy sector. And we're finally starting to see proof of this - and that it's going to keep going.
And many types of climate change mitigation serve as multipliers for other types. Like building a big combo in a video game.
Change has been rapidly accelerating and I genuinely believe that it's going to happen much faster than anyone is currently predicting
2. A lot of the most exciting and groundbreaking things happening around climate change are happening in developing nations, so they're not on most people's radars.
But they will expand, as developing nations are widely undergoing a massive boom in infrastructure, development, and quality of life - and as they collaborate and communicate with each other in doing so
3. Every country, state, city, province, town, nonprofit, community, and movement is basically its own test case
We're going to figure out the best ways to handle things in a remarkably quick amount of time, because everyone is trying out solutions at once. Instead of doing 100 different studies on solutions in order, we get try out 100 (more like 10,000) different versions of different solutions simultaneously, and then figure out which ones worked best and why. The spread of solutions becomes infinitely faster, especially as more and more of the world gets access to the internet and other key infrastructure
4. There's a very real chance that many of the impacts of climate change will be reversible
Yeah, you read that right.
Will it take a while? Yes. But we're mostly talking a few decades to a few centuries, which is NOTHING in geological history terms.
We have more proof than ever of just how resilient nature is. Major rivers are being restored from dried up or dead to thriving ecosystems in under a decade. Life bounces back so fast when we let it.
I know there's a lot of skepticism about carbon capture and carbon removal. That's reasonable, some of those projects are definitely bs (mostly the ones run by gas companies, involving carbon credits, and/or trying to pump CO2 thousands of feet underground)
But there's very real potential for carbon removal through restoring ecosystems and regenerative agriculture
The research into carbon removal has also just exploded in the past three years, so there are almost certainly more and better technologies to come
There's also some promising developments in industrial carbon removal, especially this process of harvesting atmospheric CO2 and other air pollution to make baking soda and other industrially useful chemicals
As we take carbon out of the air in larger amounts, less heat will be trapped in the atmosphere
If less heat is trapped in the atmosphere, then the planet will start to cool down
If the planet starts to cool down, a lot of things will stabilize again. And they'll probably start to stabilize pretty quickly
#Anonymous#ask#me#carbon removal#carbon sequestration#carbon emissions#air pollution#forests#afforestation#wetlands#regenerative farming#regenerative agriculture#agriculture#renewable energy#renewable electricity#solar power#wind power#climate change#climate anxiety#climate resilience#good news#hope#hope posting
5K notes
·
View notes
Text
The idea is that by following the basic principles of regen ag – not disturbing the soil, keeping it covered, maintaining living roots, growing a diverse range of crops and the use of grazing animals – they can regenerate tired and depleted soil and produce nutritious food. The work, they argue, is urgent. Up to 40% of the world’s land is now degraded by industrial and harmful farming methods, according to the UN, while a recent study suggested improving soil could keep the world within the 1.5C heating target. ...
The movement has also faced opposition, including from the environmentalist George Monbiot, who last month dismissed the claim that livestock grazing could help mitigate the impact of climate breakdown as “climate science denial”. ...
Barnes Edwards, co-director of the Garlic Farm, which also farms regeneratively, argues that regen ag farmers recognise the “hideously negative impact” of badly managed livestock farming.
But they also argue “it’s the how, not the cow”, and say that cows pooing and trampling in diversely planted fields boosts soil health, micronutrients and attracts insects, birds and butterflies.
“Even if we don’t eat them, cows can have a really helpful role in producing vegetables,” he says.
25 notes
·
View notes
Text
Repopulating an area is not only about increasing census. It's also:
-regenerating degradated soil
-giving space to local flora and growing plants adequate to the enviroment
-valuing and preserving popular architecture
-contributing to community, cooperation and communication
-dwelling without invading; it's all about respect
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
If we want to reduce the heat we need to plant way more trees.
They provide shade, food, and effectively cool down the environment because they don’t hold heat like asphalt, pavement, bricks, traditional roofs, etc.
Trees provide habitat for birds which eat immense amounts of insects including caterpillars, mosquitos and flies, while also fertilizing the soil with their manure.
Some trees fix nitrogen into the ground making the soil more fertile in a natural and effortless and free way, just by standing there.
More trees also means more wood.
Trees can be used to create food forests, which in turn reduce the chances of forest fires because with well-managed living crops growing in the soil under the trees they hold more moisture and don’t catch on fire so easily.
You can prune them at will to give the lower crops the perfect amount of light and shade. With the pruning we can create mulch, (fire)wood, and wood chips mixed with mycelium for making walkingpaths that grow mushrooms.
Add a small amount of chickens per large area and you have extra fertilization and excellent pest control as they eat the insects that also like to eat vegetables. Include ducks and they will get rid of the slugs too.
Tree roots also hold the soil together, preventing soil erosion while providing excellent drainage so that when it rains, the water can penetrate the soil faster and deeper, effectively absorbing floods as well.
#permaculture#sustainable farming#garden#gardening#organic gardening#food forest#foodforest#biodiversity#regenerative farming#regenerative agriculture#regenerative ag#regenerative gardening#organic agriculture#bio#organic#how to prevent forest fires#how to make more food#how to create more food#foodshortages#plant more trees#trees#planting trees
203 notes
·
View notes
Text
# Solarpunk (& -adjacent) YouTube Channels
Ariel watches a lot of #YouTube... for #research purposes, of course. In this post, she shares a few of her favourite #solarpunk and solarpunk-adjacent channels. What do you like to watch? Any #recommendations for us? Let us know!
View On WordPress
#alternative living#climate action#climate activism#earthShip#environmentalism#philosophy#regenerative agriculture#social media#solarpunk#solarpunk-adjacent#sustainability#vanLife#YouTube
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
shoutout to regenerative agriculture and family farms, all my homies love regenerative agriculture and family farms
#regenerative agriculture#family farm#agriculture#i love small farms#i love family farms#support small farms
3 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
notplanningshit
Untitled
teleostuber
Something Creature
star3003
Star3003
buzzcutbulldyke
man-bashing echo chamber
marcsmaps
Marc's Maps