The mistakes we have been making in agriculture EXACTLY mirror the mistakes we've been making in society.
This may sound trite, but it's a VERY simple and blunt truth: the more diversity, the better. Whether we're talking about plants in the ground or people in your community. Without diversity, we will die.
The harder we try to exert control, the worse the consequences come back around to bite us in the ass. Whether this is about forcing crops to grow in straight lines and killing everything that isn't the desired product, or forcing people to behave in a certain manner-- it works the same way.
Hubris leads to unforseen consequences-- and keeps us repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again long past the time we should've learned better. The arrogance of insisting we know better than nature, the obsession with manipulation, keeps us from admitting conventional wisdom is flawed. Even when it is killing us.
We can do better.
The results sound too good to be true, and yet... The measurements are right there. Better than most of us would have ever imagined. Even with the proof RIGHT THERE on the farm next door, neighbors will still insist on sticking to the doomed methods we've been taught are the "best" way (indeed, entrenched obsolete agricultural policies will actually penalize doing anything differently).
This farmer got a kick start, when 4 years of total disasters kept him from harvesting anything from his ranch-- inadvertently resting and replenishing the depleted soil. He took a big risk, switching to no-till; he actually sold his tilling equipment in order to afford the no-till drill seeder.
His land is now 5x as fertile as that of his neighbors, and sits pretty while they flood in the rain.
No pesticides. No herbicides. No synthetic fertilizer. No ploughing.
Throughout this video, he keeps emphasizing how crucial it is to incorporate carbon into the soil-- for production, for profit. He's not even talking about atmospheric CO2-- it just so happens that sequestering carbon in living ecosystems is the best way to produce food.
Even though he's still probably a pretty conservative guy, still treating animals like walking coin purses, even he has been learning how to work WITH the land.
Why isn't this sort of thing all over the news? Why isn't it taught in every ag school? This video and others like it have been increasingly making the rounds, but...
When it DOES show up in the news, what do we see?
...Frightened, struggling, impoverished farmers protesting in horror because the government is restricting their fertilizer use.
Remember that poem about washing the dishes? And how if you drop one on the floor, maybe they won't tell you to wash the dishes anymore...?
When environmental policies are enacted, it works in much the same way as many policies for social justice-- if it's implemented in the worst ways, guaranteed to piss people off, it compromises the results. Then people can claim "See?? We tried! And it doesn't work!"
Command farmers to use less fertilizer without explaining WHY, without massive educational campaigns showing how regenerating the soil actually works, leading with punishment instead of excitement-- and the environmental effort is shot in the foot. Stirring up resentment against the whole idea. Protecting the companies that profit off the doomed status quo.
Same thing when drugs are decriminalized in some half-assed way WITHOUT implementing sufficient treatment programs. Same thing with some Affirmative Action over here but not touching the mass incarceration or poverty or other systemic drivers over there.
We can't halfass things anymore. We can't settle for the performative and poisoned false "reforms" that won't actually get the job done.
Real solutions take big changes. It takes thinking profoundly differently. Tear apart every unexamined assumption.
#Agriculture
#RegenerativeAg
#Soil
#Topsoil
#Farming
#Grazing
#Pasture
#ClimateChange
#SolutionsExist