ORGANIC TRANSITIONS Yes, We Can “A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt Agriculture is the foundation of civilization and of any stable economy. It’s also, when poorly practiced, the most destructive industry on earth. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that since 1960, a third of the world’s arable land has been lost through erosion and other degradation. Much of the destruction is caused by increased demand for GMO corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beet and alfalfa crops, used to feed factory farm animals, to produce highly-subsidized yet inefficient biofuels and to make processed foods. The perpetual cycle of planting mono-crops, saturating the crops and fields with toxic chemicals, tilling them under and replanting them destroys the soil and degrades the land by depleting soil nutrients and causing erosion. Overgrazing pastures instead of managing livestock herds holistically, using a system of planned rotational grazing, is equally destructive. Destruction of land and soil by poor farming isn’t inevitable. We just have to connect economic growth to ecological restoration—and restoring ecological function is the only way we will survive.” How do we do it? In large part through “regenerative agriculture,” in combination with reducing fossil fuel emissions and reversing global deforestation. Can we do it? Yes. But as Alan Savory (speaking at the Savory Institute international conference in London on August 1) cautioned, regenerative agriculture represents a small minority, probably 3 - 5 percent, of today’s global agriculture. Sadly, 90 percent of farmers, policy-makers and the public still believe in an agricultural model based on chemistry, technology and faulty policy. “We’re not even at the table,” Savory said. But we could be. One of the key ways to do that, Savory said, is to convince consumers, who far outnumber producers, that agriculture has to change. Our failure to do so will not only lead to hunger and poverty, but it will represent a huge missed opportunity to help reverse global warming.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 02:07:22 +0000
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