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This post offers some further notes on the issue of carbon farming and regenerative agriculture, arising out of the discussion in this recent post of mine, particularly via the comments of Don Stewart. Don set me some onerous homework – a lengthy presentationby Elizabeth and Paul Kaiser of Singing Frogs farm in California, another lengthy presentation by David Johnson of New Mexico State University, and an interview with Australian soil scientist Christine Jones. Diligent student that I am, not only have I now completed these tasks but I’ve also read various other scientific papers and online resources bearing on the issue and am duly turning in my assignment. I hope it’ll provide some interest and a few points for discussion.

I started out with considerable sympathy towards carbon farming and regenerative agriculture, but with a degree of scepticism about some of the loftier claims made on its behalf by regenerative agriculture proponents (henceforth RAPs). And in fact that’s pretty much where I’ve ended up too, but with a somewhat clearer sense of where my grounds for scepticism lie. I hope we’ll see a shift towards more regenerative agriculture in the future. But if that’s going to happen, the RAPs will have to persuade a lot of people more inclined to scepticism than me about the virtues of their proposals – and if they’re going to do that, I think they’ll need to tighten up their arguments considerably. Anyway, in what follows I define what I understand regen-ag to be and then critically examine some of the claims about it.

Defining regenerative agriculture and carbon farming

Doubtless there are numerous possible emphases, but the fundamental idea revolves around restoring or maintaining the biological life of the soil, in particular the fungal component. Working as symbionts to plants and other soil organisms, fungi are able to deliver nutrients to plants that are otherwise unavailable, and also to sequester carbon by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it into stable organic carbon compounds in the soil. In order to achieve this, it’s essential to avoid tillage, since this destroys the fungal hyphae in the soil, and to keep the soil covered with living plants at all times so that there’s a healthy rhizosphere (root zone) interacting with the soil food web. It can also be necessary to inoculate the soil with the right kinds of fungi – apparently, not just any fungi will do¹.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Agricultural Innovation with John-Paul Maxfield

March 22, 2018

Agricultural Innovation with John-Paul Maxfield

John-Paul founded Waste Farmers with $9,000 and a belief that idealism and capitalism can coexist. Waste Farmers has evolved into an innovator respected by leaders in the global community for developing simple solutions to the complex problems of modern agriculture and food security.
Mar 20, 2018

John-Paul Maxfield | Photo by Joshua Lawton

Woody Tasch: What made you go into the soil business?

John-Paul Maxfield: I started with the desire to push toward a more sustainable food system. Soil is the place to start. We saw an opportunity to innovate around products and technology that reconnect people to soil. Long term, we want to be an agricultural innovation company.

Soil seems like a funny place to start with innovation . . . as basic as it can be.

Soil is incredibly complex. Just as with the human microbiome project, there is so much we have yet to discover. If we want to fix climate change, the answer is literally right beneath our feet. Da Vinci had it right when he said we understand the movements of the heavens better than we understand what is happening underfoot. We understand the soil at an intuitive level but not at a practical level.

What do you mean by the “intuitive level”?

It’s the place where all life comes from and to which it returns. We all pretty much know this. It’s not an accident that kids gravitate toward playing in the dirt.

What do you mean by the “practical level”?

We need greater understanding of how to work with soil to achieve broader goals of feeding people without destroying humanity’s ability to continue living on the planet.

So, what was the first thing you did as an entrepreneur?

I was working in private equity, but I was a square peg in a round hole. I’d always admired my grandfather. We’d drive along I-25 to go visit my grandparents in Wyoming, looking at corn fields as we went. My great-grandfather was the largest sheep producer in the country, pre-WWI. He lost everything in the Great Depression. My grandfather had feedlots and corn farms and had one of the largest livestock-sale barns in the country. It was not a mom-and-pop operation. It was vertically integrated. He was a tough old cowboy. My father and brothers sold the operation to their employees back in the ’90s. Torrington Livestock is based in Torrington, Wyoming. But I hope that, if he were here now, he’d recognize the need to redesign the food system.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Council Estate Permaculture: creating a resilient productive garden on a compacted lawn

February 8, 2018

Council Estate Permaculture: creating a resilient productive garden on a compacted lawn

A view of the garden from the front

We live on a Council estate in Bolton, and decided around five years ago to do something with the front garden.

All of the front gardens in the street are all lawns with compacted soil, each front lawn measures roughly 14x14ft. Incoming sunlight is limited to around two hours in the morning and then two hours in the evening on the opposite side of the garden as the sun goes down.

Creating better soil structure and fertility

I knew the soil needed to be improved so I began aerating the soil with a garden fork, and simply made lots of holes all over the garden that were around 4 inches deep. Once the space was aerated the next job carried on from spring all the way through the summer and into the autumn – covering the space with many different layers of grass cuttings, most of which I collected from the park across the road from where we live. Before each layer of cuttings was added to the garden I gently patted down the previous layer with a spade.

Perennial planting

The next phase of the garden was digging in two micro ponds, both had previous lives as washing machine doors, the glass is sturdy enough to withstand any temperate climate winter. Once the micro ponds were in place it was time to start the planting! A sea buckthorn shrub was planted in the top of the garden, for both its crop of nutrient dense berries and its function as a biodynamic accumulator, pulling up minerals from deep in the soil. Then I planted an apple tree and a number of fruit bushes including blackcurrants, gooseberries, and jostaberry. When planting bushes and trees in a garden like ours, plant them in the path of the sunrays in order to get good crops of fruit.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No-Till Farming For Healthier Soil and Lifestyles

November 7, 2017

NO-TILL FARMING FOR HEALTHIER SOIL AND LIFESTYLES

Masanobu Fukuoka, the late Japanese farmer, developed a unique farming system he called “Natural Farming.” Trying to replicate what he saw in Nature, Fukuoka´s no till system allowed the soil to continually grow in fertility. Through the use of mulch and cover crops, this system effectively allows for continuous harvests of crop rotations, eliminates weeds and builds healthy top soil allowing for organic food production that is ecologically sustainable.

PROBLEMS WITH TILL AGRICULTURE

Farmers have been tilling the soil for 10,000 years. It is what exemplifies the occupation of those who make their living from the land. Tilling the soil allowed humanity to produce higher concentrations of food in one place giving rise to the denser populations of city centers and eventually the development of modern civilization as we know it. However, tilling the soil also brought with it a whole host of undesirable effects, including erosion and the loss of the microbial life of the soil. Some studies have linked the fall of major civilizations such as the Mayans of Mesoamerica to the over farming of the land which eventually led to a decreasing soil capacity.

By tilling the soil year after year, the microscopic life of billions of creatures in the top three inches of the soil is essentially killed off. What’s left over is a barren, lifeless medium incapable of offering the nutrients plants need to grow and offer us their fruit. Furthermore, the more we till the soil, the more we leave the precious humus that is the life-sustaining “skin” of our planet vulnerable to the elements of wind and rain. The erosion of top soil caused by tilling and the “baring” of the soil has led to soil compaction, loss of fertility, poor drainage, and problems with plant reproduction.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Climate Change & Its Link to Soil Organisms

October 26, 2017

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE & ITS LINK TO SOIL ORGANISMS

When people think of the consequences of global warming, most jump to the melting ice caps and death of beloved polar bears. We know that as our Earth undergoes climate change, it’s adversely affecting the ecological balance in complex ways. For the first time, however, a study done at the University of California Berkley, has linked climate change to the downfall of microbial species that are considered essential to ecological systems. Previous studies have identified the use of chemicals as harmful for soil organisms, insects, and birds, but never has climate change been pinpointed as a threat to these species.

The study states that “models predict that up to 30% of parasitic worms are committed to extinction, driven by a combination of direct and indirect pressures.” With this, species that are adapting to the climate change will allow them to “invade and replace” native organisms resulting in unpredictable, but most likely negative consequences.

Dr. Colin Carlson is the lead author of the study and estimates that we will see a huge extinction rate within the soil organisms as time and climate change continues. He blames this effect on the loss of habitat and the implications of trying to coexist. The end result of this could be detrimental to the human species, requiring lively soil to live.

Carlson explains that the effect of climate change on soil organisms has gone unnoticed for so long because our research focuses on the impact of the change on animals like vertebrates. Most people see microbial organisms as pests, rather than a crucial part of the ecological system. Since the modernization of agriculture, we have seen soil as a medium for holding plants, as Jenny Hopkins, author of “Can American Soil Be Brought Back To Life”, likes to put it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Importance of Guilds and Nitrogen Fixers

October 22, 2017

THE IMPORTANCE OF GUILDS AND NITROGEN FIXERS

How is it that the natural world provides excessive abundance while not relying on any external sources of nutrients? Nature produces her own fertility needs, firstly through accumulating organic matter on the soil surface which protects the soil, adds to the layer of humus, and stimulates the biological activity of the soil. The natural world, however, also takes advantage of the abundance of nitrogen in the air to supply plants with one of the most important nutrients they need. Our air is made up of almost 70% nitrogen, and almost all plants need major amounts of nitrogen for healthy growth. Nature, then, was left with the question of how to take the nitrogen from the air and deposit it in the soil where plants could use it.

Nitrogen fixing plants have the ability to absorb the nitrogen in the air through their leaves and “fix” the nitrogen in the soil through nodules that grow on their roots. Leguminous plants such as beans and peas do this as well as many other different types of trees, bushes, and shrubs. If you have ever pulled up a bean plant by accident when weeding your garden, you may have noticed many small white nodules sticking to the roots of that plant. Those nodules are pure nitrogen and are contributing to the growth of the plant and to the overall soil health. When that bean plant dies, the nitrogen in the nodules stays in the soil. With nitrogen-fixing trees and bushes, pruning the branches causes the tree to “shed” some of its root systems. The nitrogen nodules “fixed” onto those roots are then released into the surrounding soil for other plants to take advantage of.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Are Effective Microorganisms?

January 19, 2016

Nadia_lawton_EM01

WHAT ARE EFFECTIVE MICROORGANISMS?

Effective Microorganisms (EM) are mixed cultures of beneficial naturally-occurring organisms that can be applied as inoculants to increase the microbial diversity of soil ecosystem. They consist mainly of the photosynthesizing bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, yeasts, actinomycetes and fermenting fungi. These microorganisms are physiologically compatible with one another and can coexist in liquid culture. There is evidence that EM inoculation to the soil can improve the quality of soil, plant growth and yield (Kengo and Hui-lian, 2000).

BACKGROUND AND CONCEPT OF EFFECTIVE MICROORGANISMS

Photo courtesy of Nadia Lawton. Taken at PRI Zaytuna Farm.

Healthy soil ecology has the capability of protecting plants against soil associated diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms and parasites. The soil system offers this protection through a balanced relationship between pathogenic and billions of beneficial microorganisms working together in synergy. The presence of these beneficial microorganisms in any soil system is what precisely distinguishes a “living soil” from a “dead soil”. They decompose and ferment organic fraction of the soil system converting it into humus containing nutrients while releasing hormones that facilitate plant growth. They are responsible for providing hormones, nutrients and minerals in a useable form to the plants through the root system. In addition, they bring together soil particles in the soil structure enabling it to retain nutrients and moisture (Kengo and Hui-lian, 2000).

Soil ecosystem can therefore be regarded as a “living system” costing of diverse groups of microorganisms. For this reason, farmers had long before been using animal manures, composts and “compost tea” which is a liquid extract of compost that also contains plant growth compounds and beneficial microorganisms. These mixtures could then be applied to soil and crops to improve the soil quality and help protect crop plants against microbiological infections (Ghosh et al., 2004).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Salting the Economy to Death

November 27, 2015

Salting the Economy to Death

One popular delusion that won’t seem to go away is the notion that policy makers can stimulate robust economic growth by setting interest rates artificially low. The general theory is that cheap credit compels individuals and businesses to borrow more and consume more. Before you know it, the good times are here again.

Profits increase. Jobs are created. Wages rise. A new cycle of expansion takes root. These are the supposed benefits to an economy that central bankers can impart with just a little extra liquidity. Unfortunately, this policy antidote doesn’t always work out in practice.

Certainly cheap credit can have a stimulative influence on an economy with moderate debt levels. But once an economy has reached total debt saturation, where new debt fails to produce new growth, the cheap credit trick no longer works to stimulate the economy. In fact, the additional credit, and its counterpart debt, actually strangles future growth.

Present monetary policy has landed the economy at the unfavorable place where more and more digital monetary credits are needed each month just to stand still. After seven years of ZIRP, financial markets have been distorted to the point where a zero bound federal funds rate has become restrictive. At the same time, applications of additional debt only serve to further the economy’s ultimate demise.

The fundamental fact is that the current financial and economic paradigm, characterized by heavy handed Federal Reserve intervention into credit markets, is dying. Debt based stimulus is both sustaining and killing the economy at the same time.

No doubt, this is a strange situation that has developed. For further instruction, let’s look to California’s San Joaquin Valley…

The World’s Richest Agricultural Valley

Dropping down the backside of the grapevine from the Tejon Pass, along Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco, one is greeted by an endless sea of agricultural fields.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

To till or to spray, that is the question for dryland grain farmers

August 19, 2015

To till or to spray, that is the question for dryland grain farmers

I am traveling from Seattle to London by bicycle and boat. Read the intro to my travels on Grist.

On Montana’s northern plains, some organic growers’ neighbors reportedly began referring to them as “weed farmers” a few decades ago. These organic pioneers had started to seed small, green plants in hopes of strengthening their soil. These little leguminous plants were nitrogen-fixers, species whose roots host nodules of bacteria that bring nitrogen from the air into the ground, converting it to a form usable by plants and thus fertilizing the soil without industrial chemicals. To conventional grain farmers, though, it seemed peculiar, perhaps pathetic, to intentionally grow plants that looked like the ones they tried to eliminate from their fields. In an agricultural culture that glorifies pure, unblemished waves of erect-standing grain, raising puny legumes and purposefully intercropping multiple species in one field appears unmanly, an affront to the dominion over nature that God has granted humanity. Or at least that’s what I learned reading Liz Carlisle’s book Lentil Undergroundwhile taking a break from bike touring.

Neil Baunsgard and I are exploring this world of organic grain farmers as we cross Montana’s north by bicycle, part of a west-to-east transcontinental journey. At our first stop, Rick Winkowitsch’s farm just north of the town of Cut Bank, the immense scale of grain production took us by surprise. How our grains are grown affects a lot bigger land area than, say, the organic veggie farms we support at the local farmers market.

But whether organic methods could make dryland grain growing truly sustainable remained unsettled, in my mind. Chemical-free farming is clearly a lot of work, both in terms of human labor and fossil-fuel burning. Leaving more variables in nature’s hands meant a lot less guaranteed success, it seemed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Soil Science Spelled It Out A Whole Century Ago

May 22, 2015

Soil Science Spelled It Out A Whole Century Ago

An organic farm marketer brought me a strange book to read and I can’t get it out of my mind. It was written by Cyril Hopkins, an agronomist at the University of Illinois in 1911. Already a century ago, science had committed the wisdom of the ages about maintaining soil fertility (Hopkins quotes Cato, Varro and Virgil from ancient Rome) to the finely wrought analysis and statistics of science. Soil scientists knew very well how to practice sustainable farming a century ago but then as now many people, including some fellow scientists, paid little attention. The strangeness of the book comes from the author’s efforts to write “The Story of The Soil” in the form of a novel, embedding his treatise on soil science in a more or less fictional love story. He had already written a factual book on how to restore and maintain fertility in America’s declining soils but, surprise, surprise, hardly anyone read it. I suppose he figured that maybe people would pay attention if a little sexual intrigue were woven into his pages of dry facts and figures about manure, lime, rock phosphate and clover rotations and what happens when you don’t do it correctly. I doubt his ploy worked except with those of us who think sustainable farming is a pretty sexy subject all by itself.

At the beginning of the twentieth century there was plenty of evidence that yields of farm crops were in decline, despite all the blazing glory shouted from the rooftops about the limitless fertility of our soils. All that was staving off a clear realization of that fact was that for two centuries and more, we always had new land to move to and repeat the process of mining the virgin nutrients out of it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change

May 2, 2015

Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change

As many of you already know, 2015 has been named the International Year of Soils by the UN, so never has there been a better time to get soil into the conversation. The question of ‘how do we make soil sexy?’ is something that has been troubling soil scientists, farmers and NGOs for a number of years, and quite rightly so – we should be worried about the state of our soil.

Issues surrounding soil are yet to enter the mainstream of public concern. But if current rates of land degradation continue, quite soon they will have to. There are many challenges involved in driving the change towards agricultural practices that preserve and build soil fertility, but the gathering at the Global Soil Week (GSW) conference in Berlin last week certainly made me more hopeful. The event brought together young and old, experts and newcomers, all with the overarching aim to raise awareness about the vital need to look after our soils better and to get the issue onto the political agenda.

No one can deny the fundamental importance of soil and its fertility – in fact, you could say that, along with water, it is one of the most important natural resources on earth. It stores approximately 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon globally – three times as much as the atmosphere. And one tenth of the carbon in the atmosphere has come from soil degradation. Our first and most urgent goal must be to stop any more soil carbon being released, helping to warm the planet.

In addition to being the source of 95% of our food, soil is also a key part of global nutrient cycles, and an important sink for atmospheric methane. It’s also essential for maintaining biodiversity above ground, while providing an underground home for 25% of all life on the planet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Abundance Thinking | The carbon pilgrim

December 1, 2014

Abundance Thinking | The carbon pilgrim.

On a fine August day, I flew to New England in search of abundance.

I was on the road to visit Dorn Cox, a young farmer who lives and works on his family’s 250-acre organic farm, called Tuckaway, near Lee, New Hampshire. Dorn calls himself a “carbon farmer,” meaning he thinks about carbon in everything he does. Confronting agriculture’s addiction to hydrocarbons, for example, Tuckaway produces a significant amount of its energy needs on-farm. Dorn does it with biodiesel – canola specifically – which he and his family grow on only 10 percent of the farm’s land. This was big news, so I thought a visit would be worthwhile.

I met Dorn in a hayfield behind a home belonging to a University of New Hampshire professor, spreading wood ash carefully among a grid of study plots. He gave me a wave as I parked the car, putting the ash can on the ground. Farmer-thin, wearing muddy jeans, a yellow shirt, and a floppy straw hat that shaded intense blue eyes, Dorn extended a hand and gave me an energetic grin.

“What’s going on here?” I asked nodding at the gridded plots, though I knew it was part of his Ph.D research. “Just trying to figure out the best way to turn a hayfield into a farm without tilling it,” he replied. “And create a food and energy system that puts more carbon into the soil than comes out.” Was the professor okay with this? I asked. He’s fine with it, Dorn reassured me. “There are a lot of these little fields behind people’s houses. With some work they could be growing a great deal of produce,” he said. “We just need to figure out a way to do it without using a plow.”

As we walked across his study plots, Dorn explained his thinking.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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