Unit 3
Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is the science, art, or occupation concerned with providing ample, nutritious food; improving local economies fairly; promoting racial and gender equity; building soil fertility, restoring biodiversity, water cycling and water quality; and using natural processes to achieve climate stability by restoring carbon and other nutrients to the soil.
Overview of Regenerative Agriculture
What is “Regenerative Agriculture?” Getting to the meat of the matter.
Videos:
Kiss the Ground
“A Regenerative Secret” is a powerful mini-documentary that breaks the thinking that cows are the problem. Contrasting the catastrophe of the current cattle industry with the hopeful and inspiring paradigm of Regenerative Ranching.
TED x
Regeneration of Our Lands: A Producer’s Perspective | Gabe Brown
festival21
Inspired by Charles Massy's best-selling book "Call of the Reed Warbler", filmmaker Amy Browne set out across the dry farming country of South East NSW to meet Massy and the other trailblazing farmers bringing new life to their land.
Savory Institute
What if the world’s soil runs out? Regenerating our soil.
ABC News In-depth
Regenerative farming: A 'natural way' to help counteract drought | Charlie Massy
“For five generations, Charles Massy's family rode on the sheep’s back and nearly destroyed their land in the process.”
Regenerative Renegades
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt. Finding a solution to combat climate change must include a change in our conventional agricultural system from one that depletes our soil to one that regenerates it.
SARE Outreach
Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life - David Montgomery
“One of the key lessons of history is as simple as it is stark: where the soil became degraded, communities and even whole countries failed and disappeared.”
TED x
In this talk Joel Salatin outlines the role that this often unsung hero of the plant world plays in sustainable farming, and the effects that its efficient utilization can have on the world around us.
Savory Institute
The Story of Dairy | Regenerative Agriculture Documentary'
“Four-part documentary series explores the powerful change in agriculture championed by forward-thinking producers.”
Soil Solutions
Soil Solutions to Climate Problems
Articles:
The Indigenous Origins of Regenerative Agriculture
“Long before the arrival of Europeans, Indigenous populations protected local ecosystems and preserved biodiversity through land management and farming practices.”
Source: National Farmers Union
Regenerative Ranching Profiles
Profiles in Land and Management feature the work of innovative ranchers and land managers who are achieving economic and ecological benefits on working lands.
Source: Regenerative Ranching
Principles and Practices
Going beyond the small talk.
Videos:
TED
How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory
Carbon Cowboys
“Husband and wife ranchers Emry Birdwell and Deborah Clark have been going against the grain of North Texas ranching for decades – hiding their ability to raise many, many more cattle per acre than any of their neighbors.”
Soil Carbon Cowboys
“Gabe Brown, Allen Williams and Neil Dennis were all going out of business with their conventional grazing – then nature forced their hand to try grazing without chemicals because they couldn’t afford them anymore. They are now the pioneers in regenerative grazing.”
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture
Chris Newman - Busting the single-family farm myth, indigenous collectives the way to go in regen ag.
Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture
“Grazier Manager Mike Peterson shares how Stone Barns Center is stewarding the land around the farm, and in the neighboring Rockefeller State Park, with a multi-species grazing program including cattle and sheep.”
Holistic Management International
A moving message from the cows: How to save the planet in only 1,020,031,035,012,000 steps.
NRDC
Cover Crops: The Secret Weapon to Healthier Soil.
USDA
The benefits of going under ‘cover’. Chapter 5 of a seven-part video series that explores how an increasing number of farmers throughout the country regenerating our nation’s living and life-giving soil and creating hope.
Articles:
No-Till Farming
Tillage is the practice of digging up, turning over, or otherwise agitating the soil with mechanical tools—typically a plow or disc. But tillage leaves soil vulnerable to erosion and destroys important fungal networks underground.
Source: Rodale Institute
Pest Management
“Conventional farmers spray toxic pesticides to eliminate pests. Organic farmers use alternative strategies to reduce and control pests without the use of synthetic inputs.”
Source: Rodale Institute
Compost
“Compost is created from the aerobic decomposition of many materials usually considered waste, including food scraps, animal manures, leaves, straw, and more.”
Source: Rodale Institute
Cover Crops
“Crop rotation is the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure.”
Source: Rodale Institute
Crop Rotation
“Cover crops’ primary job is to improve the soil. They get planted in fields that would otherwise be bare—in between growing seasons, for example—to protect the soil from erosion and nutrient loss.”
Source: Rodale Institute
Basics of Soil Health
Videos:
Dr. Elaine Ingham
Discover how the soil food web works in harmony with plants to produce a number of benefits.
CrashCourse
The Global Carbon Cycle: Crash Course Chemistry #46
Soil Health Institute
Living Soil: A Documentary
Our soils support 95 percent of all food production, and by 2060, our soils will be asked to give us as much food as we have consumed in the last 500 years.
Articles:
Soil Health
Healthy soil is that which allows plants to grow to their maximum productivity without disease or pests and without a need for off-farm supplements.
Source: Rodale Institute
Living Soil Film Accompanying Lesson Plans
Living Soil, a 60-minute documentary, captures the history – and significance – of the soil health movement.
Source: Living Soil Film
Correcting Misconceptions
Books:
The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat, 2nd Edition
By Nicolette Hahn Niman
In Sacred Cow, registered dietitian Diana Rodgers and former research biochemist and New York Times bestselling author Robb Wolf explore the quandaries we face in raising and eating animals—focusing on the largest (and most maligned) of farmed animals, the cow.
