<
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/what-is-regenerative-agriculture-a5213759581/>
"Grant Breitkreutz drops a weighty block of soil into my hands. It’s my second
day of Soil Health School at Stoney Creek, his Minnesota farm that’s often
considered a model for a more sustainable way of growing crops and raising
animals.
Much of America’s soil—and the world’s—is ailing, depleted of nutrients by
conventional farming practices and less and less able to host healthy crops.
But this particular football-sized chunk of rich-smelling dark earth in my
hands, filled with holes that mark the passage of earthworms, roots spreading
throughout, with variations in color and texture and a tiny whitish pocket of
fungal activity? This is what healthy soil looks like.
Grant has just dug it out of a pasture that used to be home to conventional row
crops but has been revitalized using what are known as regenerative farming
practices. Proponents of regenerative farming describe it as a holistic
approach designed to support biodiversity, improve soil, preserve water, reduce
pollution, store planet-warming carbon in the earth, use fewer chemicals,
produce a more diverse mix of crops, improve the lives of farmers and their
communities, and even perhaps boost the nutritional value of our food.
But when a company says food is grown in a regenerative way, it does not always
mean it is meeting all or even most of those goals. That’s one reason farmers
like Grant and his wife, Dawn, say they’re wary of the term “regenerative
agriculture.” And most foods that consumers find in a supermarket are still
products of a system that has moved far, far away from what you might imagine
when you picture an idyllic farm."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
