the key to
ecosystem health

When people talk about ecosystems, food chains and biodiversity, plants are often the foundational stage of all processes. But plants cannot grow and thrive without their constant interaction with soils.

Soil is formed by a combination of the area’s climate and weather patterns, time, the parent material beneath the topsoil, the topography of land and the organisms that interact with it. Waterlogged, sand-based soils in low-lying, hot areas possess unique properties that suit the plants and fauna of that region. Drier, clay-based soils in cold climates become the perfect base for ecosystems native to cooler conditions. It is both a reactive and a formative substance — one that supports the needs of animals and plants within an ecosystem, whilst adapting its own chemical and microbial structure to its surroundings.

Soil provides life-giving sources of food and materials but it also stores elements that can be harmful when released — like carbon. Sequestering carbon in soil is a natural way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with fewer impacts on land and water, less need for energy, and lower costs.

The earth’s soils contain about 2,500 gigatons of carbon — more than three times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and four times the amount stored in all living plants and animals. Soils remove a colossal 25 percent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions each year, making them one of the planet’s most effective carbon sinks.

But as half the land that can support plant life on Earth has been converted to croplands, soils have lost 50 to 70 percent of the carbon they once held. Agricultural practices, such as tilling, turn over the soil and expose the soil’s carbon to oxygen, allowing it to burn off into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Due to these common destructive practices, almost a quarter of the total manmade global emissions are caused by agricultural practices.

the agriculture problem

Due to our reliance on soil health to guarantee the mass production of food and textile products, conventional agriculture is the leading cause of global soil health degeneration. The methods used to grow food are influenced by the profit-motive driving global economic systems — destroying the long term health of soil in order to maximise the yield from their plots of land and garner ever-increasing profits from their crops.

Amongst conventional agriculture’s destructive practices, there are three which cause the most extensive damage.

Pesticides, monocrops and synthetic fertilisers have been subject to public scrutiny and bad press for decades — but, whilst awareness of their negative impacts is high, meaningful change lags behind. Movements pushing for organic, sustainable or regenerative practices clash against farmers union alliances with petrochemical companies and ‘Big Agriculture’. This alliance lobbies governments to be able to continue using damaging pesticides in order to maintain short term profits and preserve their monopolies. To combat this deadly alliance, communities of regenerative farmers have created a knowledge sharing alliance to enhance their own land and reform attitudes to soil health.

what is regenerative agriculture?

The history of regenerative agriculture starts and ends with the indigenous farming communities who cultivated the regenerative farming techniques that have shaped the modern regenerative agriculture movement. Aspects of these traditional techniques are sometimes taken and adapted with contemporary scientific knowledge, but many of them are the same as they were thousands of years ago. The main guiding principles are:

The sprouts of change

The regenerative agriculture movement has been growing like a well nourished crop in recent years, challenging the alliances between Big Ag and pesticide companies - bringing a wave of exciting, bottom-up reform.

Sustainable agriculture is an incredible tool to reduce inequality as it uses simple practices to empower local communities of farmers all over the world with the skills and tools they need to live in harmony with the land. Plant with Purpose helps spread sustainable farming techniques, like how to create erosion barriers and build water cisterns. This knowledge helps prevent damage being done to the environment as poverty forces destruction out of desperation. Their projects in South America, Africa and Asia have already transformed the lives of countless communities who didn’t previously have the techniques to replace the pesticides and fertilisers they couldn’t afford.

In richer cities which consume lots of produce, vertical farming - the practice of growing crops in stacked vertical layers in a controlled environment using soil-free growing techniques, artificial lighting and climate control - has been growing rapidly, aiming to reduce the burden on farmers and soil. Square Mile farms are just one of the vertical farms that sprung up to cut out food delivery emissions and integrate nature and food production into urban life.

The rise of regenerative agriculture has led to calls to learn the lessons of the organic movement and provide certifications for regenerative agriculture to adhere to. The Carbon Underground, a nonprofit dedicated to soil health, has introduced its own regenerative agriculture standard known as the Soil Carbon Initiative which aims to “build an outcome-based, verifiable standard designed to improve soil health and build soil carbon by encouraging the shift to regenerative agricultural practices.” The Regenerative Organic Certification, developed by the Rodale Institute and Patagonia fills a similar role, with requirements for soil health, animal health and farm worker fairness included in its certification. The Rodale Institute works across 21 farms on a number of projects and has started an exciting new initiative to farm palm oil in the US to reduce deforestation abroad.

Investment in the regenerative farming sector is increasing too. Farmland LP, founded in 2009, invests in converting conventional farmland to regenerative and organic practices. Elsewhere the Delta Institute partnered with Grower’s Edge Financial in 2019 to fund farmers converting to regenerative agriculture. The UK’s new environmental land management scheme shows that some governments are now understanding the importance of investment for the future of soil health.

The number of farms using regenerative practices is growing rapidly, as farmers reconnect with their land and learn to enhance the natural processes that govern it. As these methods come into full effect, animals return to old habitats, soil becomes healthy enough to absorb carbon again and healthy, chemical-free produce grows at prodigious rates. It is a fundamental function of natural cycles that what is dead can be revived with the right knowledge and application. Now we have the tools and the understanding to transform soil back into the vibrant, thriving source of life that it has always been!