The Mother of All Stewardships
Regenerative Agriculture
Note: This is Part 2 of 3 on a journey to six principles for economic resilience. See Part 1 here.
[C]onservation of land and conservation of people frequently go hand in hand. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
The Magic of Healthy Soil
My favorite stewardship example is regenerative agriculture. In Part 3, I will get back to economics. But really I won’t have left, which you may realize as you read this post.
Carbon Sequestration
Regenerative agriculture stewards soil, which is the underlying resource that “offers multiple interacting longer-term shared benefits.” Healthy soil sequesters carbon for one thing. MIT says we’ve now got about 900 billion tons more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we had before the industrial revolution. Most of it is from burning fossil fuels, but a surprisingly large portion of it came from centuries of topsoil depletion. According to a top-down estimate published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), regen ag (“best management practices”) could re-sequester the carbon from 322 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Call it one-third of the excess 900 billion. Easier written than done, but worst case, regen ag reduces greenhouse gas emissions — it helps slow the “bleeding.”
Water Efficiency
In the process, regen ag produces other powerful, more down-to-Earth benefits. Better water infiltration guards against flooding; better water retention guards against drought. These are not incremental improvements to water efficiency. George Whitten and Julie Sullivan, regenerative Organic beef cattle ranchers in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, have stayed in business while some of their neighboring ranchers who use conventional practices have been unable to continue. They acquired some of this land and sold half the water rights that came with it — not because they didn’t plan to work the land to its fullest, but because they only need half the water even as they make more profit per acre. Not at all coincidently, the meat from George and Julie’s ranch, according to everybody I know who’s tried it, is noticeably better tasting.
Disease Resistance and Better Nutrition
Their story touches on a number of other regen ag resilience benefits. The ecosystem in healthy soil leads to disease resistance. Diseases that threaten the plant crop first of all, but also zoonotic diseases that transmit from livestock to humans. As for the food itself, the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) National Library of Medicine published a study showing that healthy soil results in the harvested crop having higher nutrient density (meaning it’s better for us, especially in the long term…which means it can be part of an individual’s physical and mental health stewardship).
Mental Health
On the subject of mental health, The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) interviewed regenerative farmers and reported that interviewees used words like “liberated,” “dignity,” and “proud” to describe feelings about their work. This is in stark contrast with the fact that U.S. farmers (the vast majority of whom do not operate regeneratively) have a suicide rate 3.5 times higher than our general population. Researchers at Iowa State University found that sustainable farmers reported “improved physical health, reduced job stress, more challenging and satisfying work activities, and more satisfying family and community relations. Sustainable farmers also were more likely to have one or more of their children continue in the farming operation than were the conventional farmers.”
Brain Chemistry
In a fascinating example of science catching up with traditional beliefs, a 2022 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science demonstrated that Mycobacterium vaccae, a bacterium found naturally in healthy soil, increased serotonin levels in the brain, reducing anxiety among the experimental group, both as self-reported and as measured with EEGs. The study had participants mixing soil for five minutes that either contained M. vaccae or not. Bottom line: subjects who got their hands dirty with healthy soil reported feeling better and had higher levels of serotonin than the people who got their hands dirty with sterilized dirt.
Profit
What about regen ag’s literal bottom line — profit? As with any business, there are many factors. But over years of observation and study, the pattern I see is yes, regen ag tends to be more profitable than conventional…in the medium- to long-term. In the short-term, it’s a maybe. Profit obviously improves with lower costs, which regen ag offers in the form of reduced inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and water…after the soil has been brought back to life, which may take a few seasons. Meanwhile, yield — thus, revenue — may take a dip. If so, the overall effect is then a temporary reduction in profit followed by higher profit in three to five years. At the same time, there is an additional financial advantage to healthy soil:
Resilience and Finance
Healthy soil leads to lower production risk and therefore lower financial risk. Whether or not average profits increase over time, we can expect that they will be less volatile — less sensitive to unforeseen disturbances. Bankers and financiers make a living out of converting lower (expected) future volatility into cash now.
To sum up the finance angle, soil stewardship in food production offers financial value in two ways — higher profits on average and lower risk.
I want to acknowledge here that the transition to regen ag can be challenging for land stewards because of the potential for a dip in profit before the full suite of benefits materializes. This calls for some adjustments in the world of agriculture finance, which is catching up.
Stewardship Principles
Gabe Brown’s family’s 5000-acre ranch in North Dakota has become an iconic example of soil stewardship. Gabe’s book, Dirt to Soil, has earned an impressive 4.5 rating on Goodreads with over 2000 ratings. His October 2024 TED Talk already has over 112,000 views. He talks about his beat-down as a conventional farmer and his success as a regenerative farmer and rancher. And he delivers six principles of soil stewardship. As with the mental health stewardship principles in Part 1, soil stewardship principles tame complexity and contextual variation, articulating clear guidelines anyone can follow. They are relevant even to backyard gardening, so here you go:
Minimize mechanical and chemical disturbances. Healthy soil is made up of dirt plus an entire ecosystem containing bacteria (more of these in a teaspoon of healthy soil than the number of humans on Earth), fungal mycelium (8 miles in a cubic inch of healthy soil), algae, protozoa, insects, worms, and rodents. Reasonable estimates, according to the USDA, indicate that the weight of life in a healthy pasture’s soil is higher than the weight of the livestock on top of it. That’s a lot of life working for us if we let it.
Keep the soil covered. Cover crops, stubble, and/or mulch. Not only does this help reduce erosion and retain moisture, it moderates the soil’s surface temperature. The difference can be 15 - 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in the top inch or two of soil — enough to make a profound difference to the growth rate of the crop.
Encourage species diversity. Soil and the life it supports are interconnected ecosystems. Ecosystems are diverse by nature. Don’t fight Mother Nature!
Keep living roots in the soil as much as possible. Roots are part of the ecosystem, exuding sugars and amino acids that feed beneficial microbes. In turn, the microbes make minerals available for uptake by the crop. Minerals include nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the NPK of fertilizer labels. Ultimately, it’s the uptake of these minerals that matters. With better uptake, we can save money and take better care of the environment by applying less industrial fertilizer (or if you’re a purist, none). Also, beneficial microbes compete with the relatively few bad ones. And finally, roots provide channels for water infiltration. To keep living roots in the soil, use cover crops, plant perennials, and/or rotate crops immediately after harvest.
Integrate animals and beneficial insects. Again, it’s an ecosystem. Natural ecosystems are never absent of animals.
Consider context. Do all this in a way that suits the unique location, climate, soil, and personal preferences of the growers and their community.
Humanity and Soil
Why do I think soil stewardship is the mother of all others? Because we grow food in soil, and food provides the energy and nutrition people use to add whatever value we are each going to add in our communities and to the economy at large. All human activity sits atop our soil, and healthy soil contributes to healthy human activity.