In his opening address to the Savory Institute global conference in London on August 1, Alan Savory said that while agriculture is the foundation of civilization and of any stable economy, it is also, when poorly practiced, the most destructive industry—even more so than coal mining.
The World Wildlife Fund estimates that since 1960, a third of the world's arable land has been lost through erosion and other degradation. Much of the destruction is caused by increased demand for GMO corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beet and alfalfa crops, used to feed factory farm animals, to produce highly-subsidized yet inefficient biofuels and to make processed foods.
The perpetual cycle of planting mono-crops, saturating the crops and fields with toxic chemicals, tilling them under and replanting them destroys the soil and degrades the land by depleting soil nutrients and causing erosion. Overgrazing pastures instead of managing livestock herds holistically, using a system of planned rotational grazing, is equally destructive.
Destruction of land and soil by poor farming isn't inevitable, said John Liu, who also spoke at the conference. Liu told the audience "restoring ecological function is the only way we will survive."
How do we do it? In large part through "regenerative agriculture," in combination with reducing fossil fuel emissions and reversing global deforestation.
Can we do it? By all accounts, yes. But as Savory cautioned, regenerative agriculture represents a small minority, probably 3 - 5 percent, of today's global agriculture. Sadly, 90 percent of farmers, policy-makers and the public still believe in an agricultural model based on chemistry, technology and faulty policy.
One of the key ways to do it, Savory said, is to convince consumers, who far outnumber producers, that agriculture has to change. Our failure to do so will not only lead to hunger and poverty, but it will represent a huge missed opportunity to reverse global warming.
"Sustainable" is not a sexy word. It suggests a relationship that is merely maintained—plodding along on an existing plane. It's time to move beyond the notion of "sustainable" agriculture to a model of agriculture that restores and rejuvenates soils, farms, economies and communities.
So what is "Regenerative agriculture"? Dr. Christine Jones, who founded Amazing Carbon, describes regenerative agriculture as a diverse set of farming practices that replenish and reactivate the soil. "When agriculture is regenerative, soils, water, vegetation and productivity continually improve rather than staying the same or slowly getting worse."
The key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only "does no harm" to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment. Regenerative agriculture is dynamic and holistic, incorporating permaculture and organic farming practices, including conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, mobile animal shelters and pasture cropping, to increase food production, farmers' income and especially, topsoil.
Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies.
What makes up healthy soil?
There are six essential ingredients for soil formation, Jones says:
1. Minerals
2. Air
3. Water
4. Living things in the soil (plants and animals) and their by-products
5. Living things on the soil (plants and animals) and their by-products
6. Intermittent and patchy disturbance regimes (such as planned grazing or slashing)
Unlike mono-crop agriculture which relies heavily on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, erodes the soil through excessive tilling, and doesn't protect the with cover crops, regenerative agriculture produces healthy soil, while at the same time producing food (both plant and animal-based). Because regenerative agriculture doesn't strip the soil of nutrients and leave it depleted, food grown in that soil tastes better, and has a higher nutrient content.
Healthy soils not only produce healthy food, healthy economies and healthy communities, but as it turns out, healthy soil just may be the best tool we have to reverse global warming.
According to a recent study by the Rodale Institute, if regenerative agriculture were practiced globally, 100 percent of current, annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would be sequestered.
The Rodale Institute has been conducting its Farming Systems Trial (FST) since1981. It's the longest-running test comparing organic and conventional cropping systems. Data from the test shows that organic, regenerative agriculture reduces CO2 by taking advantage of natural ecological systems to extract carbon from the atmosphere and sink it into the soil. According to the data, soil managed organically can accumulate about 1,000 pounds of carbon-per-acre foot of soil each year—equal to about 3,500 pounds of carbon dioxide-per-acre taken from the air and sequestered into soil organic matter.
While commercial agricultural practices are some of the largest contributors to global warming, regenerative agriculture practices are carbon neutral and actually reverse climate change. Carbon-rich soil doesn't need synthetic fertilizers. This leads to further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as both the production and use of fertilizers generate CO2.
Regenerative agriculture practices rely on knowledge and care, rather than expensive farming equipment, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. While in the short term, they may produce slightly lower yields than conventional, chemical-intensive crops, over time they produce higher yields which lead to greater financial security for farmers, especially in communities that are economically dependent on agriculture.
More and more small-scale farmers are using regenerative practices to cultivate land and grow food. The movement has a strong collaborative voice in places like Australia and the UK, where innovative farmers are sharing their knowledge both informally, and in structured courses and workshops.
Regenerative farming is also practiced widely across the U.S. by many local, small-scale farms, though they may not be using the term "regenerative agriculture."
But if we're going to restore the world's vast tracts of degraded lands, and avert a climate disaster, we're going to need to transition on a global scale from today's dominant chemical-intensive, mono-crop system to a regenerative model of agriculture. And that will require the support of political systems that currently favor and promote the destructive models of farming over the regenerative model.
Consumers can, and must, play a role in pushing governments to make this transition. We have the power to reverse the trend toward chemically grown, biotech crops by creating demand for healthy foods produced using regenerative practices.
taken from here
As the article points out quite clearly the transition to a different mode of agriculture is necessary for the health of the planet and, without doubt, it is within our capabilities to achieve it. What stands in the way is the usual culprit, the capitalist system, with its continual thirst for growth and profits at all costs. 'Consumers can, and must, play a role in pushing governments to make this transition' we can adapt slightly and urge 'consumers' - i.e. the public at large - to work together to remove governments in favour of the real democracy of socialism.
Below compare and contrast some of the effects of chemically-based animal production as opposed to the natural husbandry promoted above.
One little piglet was born with only one large eye. A second piglet was missing an ear. A third piglet had a large hole in its skull. A fourth piglet had a monstrously huge "elephant tongue." A female piglet was born with testes. Still others had malformed limbs, spines, skulls and gastrointestinal tracts.
The pigs in question belonged to a Danish pig farmer. For three years he had fed his pigs ordinary, non-genetically modified soy. When he ran out, he bought the cheaper genetically modified (GM) soy pig feed. His herdsman, unaware of the feed switch, immediately noticed that the pigs lost their appetite and that the piglets developed diarrhea. Even worse was the sudden and shocking increase in birth defects. The farmer, eager to understand the cause, had 38 of the deformed pigs euthanized and tested for glyphosate, the herbicide used on the GM soy. The results were published in the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Environmental and Analytic Toxicology. The samples of lung, liver, kidney, brain, gut wall, heart and muscle all tested positive.
Glyphosate is the world's most frequently used herbicide. First marketed by Monsanto in the 1970s under the trade-name "Roundup," it is used extensively wherever GM crops are grown. Monsanto has touted Roundup's safety, claiming that, since it attacks an enzyme system not present in animals, it is harmless to people and to pets. We are beginning to find out that this is simply not true. As scientists start to investigate the effects of glyphosate residues in humans and animals, a horrifying story is beginning to emerge. It begins with what we have learned about glyphosate's propensity to cause birth defects.
Glyphosate is a known teratogen, meaning "monster-maker." Studies conducted on rats and rabbits since the 1980s have shown an astonishing spectrum of birth defects associated with glyphosate, including absent kidneys, missing lobes of the lungs, enlarged hearts, ventricular septal defects (holes in the heart), extra ribs, and deformed and absent bones of the skull, spine, ribs, sternum and limbs.
But if birth defects in rats and rabbits have not been enough to get our attention, we are now seeing high rates of spontaneous abortion and birth defects in human infants born in areas where glyphosate is being sprayed. This is particularly true in Argentina, Paraguay and other parts of Latin America where GM acreage has increased significantly. A group of researchers in Argentina noted alarmingly high rates of miscarriages and birth defects in families living within meters of glyphosate spraying.
A group of researchers from the University of Leipzig published a study in 2014 investigating the prevalence of glyphosate residues in humans and animals. They sampled urine and tissue from cows, hares and rabbits, and tested urine from humans. An interesting finding, very much in line with the association of glyphosate with a myriad of illnesses, was that chronically ill humans have significantly higher glyphosate residues in their urine when compared to healthy people.
Despite these ominous warnings, glyphosate use continues to increase. Since 1996, when GM crops were first commercially introduced, the amount of land devoted to these crops has multiplied a hundred-fold. As more and more acreage is planted with GM crops, glyphosate use increases. Ninety percent of GM crops worldwide are engineered to be glyphosate resistant. These crops are designed to be grown with repeated and heavy spraying of glyphosate.
In addition, the ever-increasing problem of glyphosate resistant weeds has encouraged farmers to intensify glyphosate use. As a result, glyphosate now appears in groundwater, rain and air. It has been found in the urine and organs of dairy cows and rabbits. It has been found in the urine of farmers and their family members. It is in animal and human food derived from GM soy, corn and alfalfa. It is in the meat of the animals that consume these foods as well. Glyphosate residues are not removed by washing. Cooking does not break down the glyphosate. The herbicide residue can remain in food for more than a year, even if the food is processed, dried or frozen.
When Ib Borup Pedersen, the Danish pig farmer, found out that his deformed and sick pigs were most likely suffering from glyphosate toxicity, he immediately called for the herbicide to be banned. He had seen up close the grotesque abnormalities that the herbicide had likely caused. The scientists who examined Pedersen's piglets warned:
The presence of glyphosate residues in both humans and animals could haul the entire population towards numerous health hazards. Studying the impact of glyphosate residues on health is warranted and the global regulations for the use of glyphosate may have to be re-evaluated.Taken from much longer article here - for detailed information and photos see the original.
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