The Regeneration of Regeneration
Organic Lifestyle Comments Off on The Regeneration of Regeneration
In 1982, Bob Rodale, son of Rodale Press founder J.I. Rodale (the man who brought the concept of organic gardening and farming to America), was then owner and chairman of that publishing company. In a memo to the staff, he laid out the idea that regeneration was the key not only to organics, but to many of life’s endeavors, including running a big company.
He organized retreats for top editorial people and business staff to explore the idea. He pushed regeneration—the ability of a system to reorganize and improve itself, especially after a setback—as a template for an overhaul of the way we do things. Unfortunately, Bob died in a traffic accident in Moscow in 1990, where he was starting an organic farming magazine for the Russian people.
Now, 33 years later, Ronnie Cummings of the Organic Consumers Association has found regeneration and wrote the following essay—all without mentioning Bob Rodale. I suspect this is not a snub. It’s just that Bob was so far ahead of his time that his trail has grown cold. Cummings says pretty much what Bob was talking about all those years ago. Here’s what he has to say:
“Regenerate—to give fresh life or vigor to; to reorganize; to recreate the moral nature; to cause to be born again.” (New Webster’s Dictionary, 1997)
A growing number of climate, food, environment, health and justice advocates are embracing and promoting a world-changing concept: regeneration.
What is regeneration? And why are so many public figures calling for regeneration or revolution, rather than sustainability or mitigation?
The inconvenient truth, of course, is that our degenerate “profit-at-any-cost” global economy is killing us. The living Earth—our soils, forests and oceans—and the “rhythms of nature” are unraveling. Greed and selfishness have displaced sharing and cooperation. Land grabs, Empire-building, resource wars, and out-of-control consumerism have become the norm.
Catastrophic times demand radical solutions. It’s time for change, big change.
Our heat-trapping, climate-disrupting, fossil fuel-intensive, industrial agriculture, and deforestation-induced CO2 monster in the sky, now approaching 400 parts per million (ppm), is the most serious threat humans have ever faced. Either we take down King Coal and Big Oil and switch to renewable energy, and simultaneously move, literally suck down, several hundred billion tons of excess carbon from the atmosphere and naturally sequester this CO2 in the soil and forests—through regenerative farming, grazing and land use practices—or we are doomed.
According to activist and author Vandana Shiva, “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the health crisis, the climate crisis and the crisis of democracy.”
But just what do we mean by Regenerative Agriculture?
The international community has set itself three important goals: to stop the loss of biodiversity, keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and ensure everyone has the right to adequate food. Without fertile soil, none of these objectives will be achieved.
The loss of the world’s fertile soil and biodiversity, along with the loss of indigenous seeds and knowledge, pose a mortal threat to our future survival. According to soil scientists, at current rates of soil destruction, (i.e. decarbonization, erosion, desertification, chemical pollution), within 50 years we will not only suffer serious damage to public health due to a qualitatively degraded food supply characterized by diminished nutrition and loss of important trace minerals, but we will literally no longer have enough arable topsoil to feed ourselves. Without protecting and regenerating the soil on our four billion acres of cultivated farmland, 14 billion acres of pasture and rangeland, and 10 billion acres of forest land, it will be impossible to feed the world, keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, or halt the loss of biodiversity.
Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy forests, healthy oceans, rivers and lakes, healthy people, a healthy climate . . . our physical and economic health, our very survival as a species, depends upon whether or not, and how quickly, we can carry out a global campaign of Regeneration.
According to a recent policy proposal by the French government, we need to increase plant photosynthesis and carbon sequestration in global soils by at least 0.4 percent each year if we are to head off runaway global warming.
Tom Newmark of the Carbon Underground explains the basic concept of Regeneration:
There is a technology that exists today that will suck excess CO2 out of the atmosphere. That technology is called photosynthesis. When I look outside my office window I see plants. Through photosynthesis, plants convert sunlight, CO2 and water to carbohydrates and oxygen. Plants are sucking tens of billions of tons of CO2 and creating plant sugars/carbohydrates. Some plant sugars we eat and some pass through the plant and get converted into humus, soil organic matter. This isn’t rocket science. This is a biological fact.
The soil itself is the largest available sink for CO2. There is more carbon currently sequestered in the living soils of the planet (2,700 billion tons), than there is in the entire atmosphere and biotic community combined (plants, and trees).The bad news is that by ripping up the soil through industrial agriculture abuse, we’ve put excess CO2 into the atmosphere.
The good news is that if we farm and ranch in harmony with carbon cycles, we can put carbon back in the soil—quickly. Scientists say that we can get back to 350 ppm in 10 years. All we have to do is increase soil organic matter in all grasslands on the planet by one percent. That is all we need to do to bring it back to 350 ppm. Nature can fix this problem that humans have created.
Along with educating ourselves and our community, we must utilize marketplace pressure to change our degenerate food and farming systems. We must boycott the fossil fuel-emitting, soil-destroying, climate-destructive products of industrial agriculture and the junk food industry. We must support those farmers and businesses whose products regenerate our health, our soils and our forests. Marketplace pressure, public education, and public policy change must go hand-in-hand.
A recent article in the Guardian summarizes Regenerative Agriculture this way:
Regenerative agriculture comprises an array of techniques that rebuild soil and, in the process, sequester carbon. Typically, it uses cover crops and perennials so that bare soil is never exposed, and grazes animals in ways that mimic animals in nature. It also offers ecological benefits far beyond carbon storage: it stops soil erosion, remineralises soil, protects the purity of groundwater and reduces damaging pesticide and fertiliser runoff.
The benefits of raising and grazing beef cattle, sheep, goats, dairy cows, poultry and pigs “in ways that mimic nature” are many. These practices are more humane, they rebuild soil fertility and they sequester carbon in the soil.
But there’s another important benefit to these techniques, one that is driving consumers away from factory farm foods. These practices produce animal products that are qualitatively healthier than CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) products, because they are higher in Omega 3 and “good” fats, and lower in animal drug residues and harmful fats that clog arteries, destroy gut health and cause cancer.
Our agricultural soils have lost 25-75 percent of the soil carbon they once held in storage before the onslaught of industrial agricultural and destructive land use practices. The most important task of our generation is Regeneration: to put this dislodged, heat-trapping atmospheric carbon back into the soil and forests, where it belongs.
Unfortunately, the current climate change movement up until now has focused almost exclusively on reducing fossil fuel emissions. There has been little or no mention of the critical role soil and forests play as carbon sinks or repositories for excess CO2 in the atmosphere.
Reducing fossil fuel emissions to zero over the next few decades, as called for by climate activist leaders such as Naomi Klein and 350.org, will solve half the problem, but only half. By the time we reach zero emissions under this “50-percent solution” scenario, even the most optimistic projections are that we’ll get down to 450 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, a level that will detonate runaway global warming, and catastrophic climate change.
So widespread is this fixation on fossil fuel emissions that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the upcoming Paris Climate Summit have yet to recognize soil and soil regeneration practices as important carbon sinks. Yet there is a growing body of scientific evidence to support the idea that Regenerative Organic Agriculture, grazing, reforestation and land use practices, scaled up globally, could not only mitigate, but actually, over several decades, reverse global warming.
We need to embrace the regenerative “100-percent solution” if we want to get back down to the safe level of 350 ppm or lower, as soon as possible. And we need to pressure the IPCC and national governments to acknowledge the importance of carbon sequestration through regenerative land use practices.
A number of critics have told me and others that we should not talk about natural sequestration of CO2 in the soil, nor the enormous regenerative potential of organic food, farming and forestry, because this “positive talk” will distract people from the main task at hand, drastically reducing fossil fuel emissions and taking down King Coal and Big Oil. Of course we need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels, extractivism and over-consumption into conservation, sustainable living and renewable energy. We must all become climate activists and radical conservationists.
But we must also become advocates of Regenerative Organic Agriculture and forest/land use.
The large and growing anti-GMO, organic food and natural health movement must begin to think of itself as a movement that can fix not only the world’s health and hunger crisis, but the climate as well. Given that the degenerate GMO, factory farm and industrial food and farming system as a whole (production, chemical crop inputs, processing, transportation, waste, emissions, deforestation, biofuel/ethanol production) is the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions, surpassing even the transportation, utilities, housing and industry sectors, climate activists need to start thinking of themselves as food, farming and natural health activists as well.
There will be no organic food, nor food whatsoever, on a burnt planet. Nor will there ever be a 90-percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution without a transformation of our food and farming and land use practices, both in North America and globally.
We must begin to connect the dots between fossil fuels, global warming and related issues, including world hunger, poverty, unemployment, toxic food and farming, extractivism, land grabbing, biodiversity, ocean destruction, deforestation, resource wars, and deteriorating public health. As we regenerate the soil and forests, and make organic and grass-fed food and fiber the norm, rather than just the alternative, we will simultaneously develop our collective capacity to address all of the globe’s interrelated problems.
The extraordinary thing about de-industrializing food and farming, restoring grasslands and reversing deforestation—moving several hundred billion tons of carbon back from the atmosphere into our soils, plants and forests—is that this regeneration process will not only reverse global warming and re-stabilize the climate, but will also stimulate the creation of hundreds of millions of rural (and urban) jobs, while qualitatively increasing soil fertility, water retention, farm yields and food quality.
Regeneration holds the potential not only to restore forests and grasslands, recharge aquifers, restore and normalize rainfall, but also to address and eliminate rural malnutrition, poverty, unemployment and hunger.
So who will carry out this global Regeneration Revolution?
Of course we must continue, and in fact vastly increase, our pressure on governments and corporations to change public policies and marketplace practices. But in order to overturn “business-as-usual,” we must inspire and mobilize a vastly larger climate change coalition than the one we have now. Food, climate, and economic justice advocates must unite our forces so we can educate and mobilize a massive grassroots army of Earth Regenerators: three billion small farmers and rural villagers, ranchers, pastoralists, forest dwellers, urban agriculturalists, and indigenous communities—aided and abetted by several billion conscious consumers and urban activists.
The time is late. Circumstances are dire. But we still have time to regenerate the Earth and the body politic.
***
AG-GAG LAW HELD UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Andrew Amelinckx, writing in Modern Farmer magazine, reports that Idaho’s so-called “ag-gag” law was one that opponents said criminalized investigative journalism and meant whistleblowers exposing unsafe or inhumane farming practices could end up in jail. No photos of animal cruelty allowed, in other words, or we’ll put you in the slammer.
The ldaho legislators who penned the law said it was about protecting privacy rights for an important industry in the state. This week, the federal court weighed in on the side of the law’s detractors in no uncertain terms. The court said the law is unconstitutitional, which of course it is, as it criminalizes the basic right of free speech.
“[The statute] seeks to limit and punish those who speak out on topics relating to the agricultural industry, striking at the heart of important First Amendment values,” wrote Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho in his landmark decision.
The judge, in his 29-page decision, said the “effect of the law was to suppress speech by undercover investigators and whistleblowers concerning topics of great public importance: the safety of the public food supply, the safety of agricultural workers, the treatment and health of farm animals, and the impact of business activities on the environment.”
The Idaho statute—similar to seven others in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, North Carolina and Utah—created a new crime, “interference with agricultural production,” that outlawed surreptitiously filming in agricultural facilities as well as misrepresenting your intentions when applying for a job at an agricultural operation, among other activities. These crimes were punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Those convicted could also be forced to pay up to twice the amount of damages that the facility incurred as a result of the defendant’s actions.
“We think that’s inconsistent with the history of muckraking and journalism in the U.S. We think it’s inconsistent with the First Amendment,” the judge wrote.
***
POPE FRANCIS ON SAVING THE NATURAL WORLD
“Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention…. It is not enough to balance, in the medium term, the protection of nature with financial gain, or the preservation of the environment with progress. Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster.”
— Pope Francis, Papal Encyclical “Laudato Si,” June 18, 2015
***
FAMILY OF MURDERED WOMAN ORDERED TO PAY GUN DEALERS
From Daily Kos:
The parents of Jessica Ghawi, a 24-year-old woman gunned down by James Holmes in the 2012 Aurora theater massacre, tried to sue the online ammunition retailer who sold James Holmes the ammunition used in the attack.
The case was dismissed before a trial could take place thanks to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, a federal law passed by Congress and signed by George W. Bush in 2005.
The PLCAA provides very broad, blanket immunity from civil lawsuits for both gun manufacturers and gun dealers. Adding insult to extreme injury, a federal judge has issued an order that will likely bankrupt Jessica Ghawi’s parents.
The parents are faced with more than $200,000 in legal costs after a federal judge ordered them to pay attorney’s fees for four ammunition dealers the family attempted to sue. In the ruling, the judge wrote “those who ignore a fire should be responsible for cost of suppressing it before it becomes a conflagration.”
***
GETTING RICH OFF THE WAR AGAINST ISIS
As long as we’re being political, let’s check in with Kate Brannen of The Daily Beast, who wrote the following:
For the Middle East, the growth of the self-proclaimed Islamic State has been a catastrophe. For one American firm, it’s been a gold mine.
The war against ISIS isn’t going so great, with the self-appointed terror group standing up to a year of U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
But that hasn’t kept defense contractors from doing rather well amidst the fighting. Lockheed Martin has received orders for thousands of more Hellfire missiles. AM General is busy supplying Iraq with 160 American-built Humvee vehicles, while General Dynamics is selling the country millions of dollars’ worth of tank ammunition.
SOS International, a family-owned business whose corporate headquarters are in New York City, is one of the biggest players on the ground in Iraq, employing the most Americans in the country after the U.S. Embassy. On the company’s board of advisors: former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz—considered to be one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq—and Paul Butler, a former special assistant to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld.
The company, which goes by “SOSi,” says on its website that the contracts it’s been awarded for work in Iraq in 2015 have a total value of more than $400 million. They include a $40 million contract to provide everything from meals to perimeter security to emergency fire and medical services at Iraq’s Besmaya Compound, one of the sites where U.S. troops are training Iraqi soldiers. The Army awarded SOSi a separate $100 million contract in late June for similar services at Camp Taji. The Pentagon expects that contract to last through June 2018.
***
AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS
Here are the latest dispatches from The Organic Center in Washington, D.C.
A recent study published in Sustainable Agriculture Research has found that organic farming methods can be used to reduce water pollution in U.S waterways. Researchers found that nitrate loss via water in the conventional cropping systems was twice as high as nitrate loss from the organic cropping system, and that the organic pasture system lost the least amount of nitrates.
A new study published in Organic Agriculture shows that some organic honey has natural antimicrobial activity that can combat the growth of Clostridium perfringens, a food pathogen bacterium known to cause food spoilage and illness in humans and animals. Overall, this study showed that organic honey has the potential to be used clinically to fight this foodborne bacterium.
A new paper published in the journal Sustainable Agriculture Research examines results from six of the oldest grain crop-based experiments comparing organic and conventional farming methods with the goal of communicating both the benefit of long-term comparison trials and environmental and economic findings for organic agriculture. All of the studies showed an increase in soil health, productivity, water quality, and economic benefits for farmers when they used organic systems.
***
SPOKANE SUES MONSANTO FOR SAYING TOXIC CHEMICALS ARE SAFE
The city of Spokane, Washington, has filed a lawsuit against the international agrichemical giant Monsanto, alleging that the company sold chemicals for decades that it knew were a danger to human and environmental health. Marlene Feist, the city’s utilities spokeswoman, called the suit “long-term litigation,” and noted that the city will have to spend $300 million to keep PCBs and other pollutants from entering the Spokane River in coming years.
***
LIKE TEA? CHECK OUT BUDDHA TEAS
Buddha Teas, a company based in Carlsbad, California, sells organic sencha green tea, a favorite in Japan, and organic white tea, the least processed of all teas. The ingredients are simple. Sencha green tea contains sencha green tea. Period. White tea contains white tea. Period. That’s the way we like it, and the teas are delicate and delicious.
###
