Biodiversity
Regenerative agriculture will build healthy living soil that will produce healthy plants and animals that make for healthy people.
Enjoy,
David Proctor
Healthy Soil, Healthy Plants, Healthy People
by David Proctor
November 21, 2024
Urban Farm Lifestyle Magazine Published Weekly
We need to stop and think about the soil and the health of the soil in our gardens and the acreage used for growing food.
As I drive through the countryside I see conventional farming which is unconventional to nature.
The fields are planted with one crop at a time, fertilizer is spread on the fields, herbicides are applied, pesticides are applied and fungicides are applied.
The crops grow, they are harvested and the unharvested part of the plant is mowed so the dirt can be plowed, and disked, so it can be left bare ground until the next crop is put in again, maybe the following spring.
No animals are put out onto the fields to graze or impact the land.
When it rains, the dirt can not absorb much water so all the fields have ditches for drainage.
If we don’t get rain and no irrigation is in place, then the crops will suffer and a poor yield if any will occur.
That is not a problem though because all the farmers have crop insurance for poor yields and also have price supports.
The dirt that is used to plant the crops into, is not much more than Styrofoam or a close equivalent.
The dirt does not need to be anything but a way for plant support since all the inputs take care of the plants’ needs!
This is common around the country as to how conventional agriculture operates.
You may have noticed I used the word dirt instead of Soil.
Soil is different.
Soil is living.
Nature produces soil by having a very diverse environment, above and below ground.
To be able to have healthy soil, plants, animals, and people, we need to focus on the practices that build biodiversity that builds a healthy soil.
Regenerative Agriculture is a good start in this direction.
A definition of Regenerative Agriculture that Gabe Brown uses, is “Farming and ranching in synchrony with nature to repair, rebuild, restore, and revitalize ecosystem function starting with all life in the soil and expanding to all life above the soil”.
To be able to do this we must follow the six principles of soil health that Gabe Brown has provided:
- Know your context.
- Minimize disturbance.
- Cover and build surface armor.
- Increase diversity.
- Keep living roots in the soil.
- Integrate animals.
I would like to invite you to watch this brief TEDX talk that Gabe Brown did.
You will find this in the Check It Out! section.
Check It Out!
The Hope in Healthy Soil | Gabe Brown | TEDxFargo 13:04
Quick Tip
Bibliography:
Brown, Gabe. “The Hope in Healthy Soil | Gabe Brown | TEDxFargo.” YouTube, YouTube, 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY7j4ZZjIs8.
Image Targeted Cover Crop Benefits: Freeze, Patrick. “Take Cover.” Acres USA, Oct. 2024, pp. 14–17.
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