The wonders of good soil and why climate “leaders” are not talking about it.
Regenerative farming improves the soil, produces tastier, healthier food and prevents flooding and drought. But a corrupt establishment won’t talk about it. Here’s why.
Regenerative agriculture could be a decisive step towards carbon drawdown, clean water, wildlife habitat and tasty, nutritious food.
Industrial agriculture continues to be devastating, in terms of carbon emissions, water pollution, soil degradation, soil erosion and poor nutrition.
And yet, our climate “leaders” are not talking about it—not very much, not with any consistency, and not with any commitment to real change.
Why?
More on that below.
Let's talk about the important differences between industrial and regenerative agriculture, and the opportunities that lie before us.
Let’s define regenerative agriculture as that which restores the soil and minimizes the use of tillage, chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides.
Let’s define industrial agriculture as vast fields of a single crop, with heavy use of chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides.
Much of this article is about how good soil works and why we should want to restore our soils everywhere.
Industrial agriculture is today’s norm
On most farmland today, we damage the soil by plowing too much. This causes erosion and water pollution. We use chemical fertilizers that require huge amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture. These chemical fertilizers kill the soil. And most of them get washed into our waterways, making water toxic for humans and wildlife.
Also, herbicides such as glyphosate--a known carcinogen--end up in the drinking water and the lungs of farm workers and those living nearby.
This is not necessary, but we do it because it’s profitable for a few agribusiness corporations that have the power to shape farm policy. More on this below.
Regenerative agriculture is what could be
If we switch to regenerative agriculture:
We will enjoy better-tasting food and healthier food.
We will clean up our waterways, freeing it from chemical fertilizers, chemical herbicides (like glyphosate) and the mud of eroded soils.
We will greatly reduce the loss of topsoil and start building topsoil—rapidly.
We will draw down monumental amounts of carbon.
We will create habitat for bees, butterflies and birds, fish, frogs and countless wild species.
Regenerative agriculture builds good soil
Let’s define regenerative agriculture as that which builds good soil. Good soil delivers nutrients to our food. Good soil is capable of soaking up rainfall and delivering that water to the plant. Good soil continually absorbs carbon.
Good soil stores carbon
Plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere converting it from the relatively simple carbon dioxide molecule into sugars.
Then, the plant exudes some of these sugars (about 40%) out of its roots so that bacteria and fungi can feed, thus jump-starting the soil ecosystem.
Is carbon storage temporary or permanent?
People get the mistaken impression that when plants take carbon out of the atmosphere, it’s temporary and will be reversed when the plant dies and decomposes. But that decomposing plant is food for soil organisms. As long as the ecosystem is growing in size and complexity the carbon storage is all but permanent.
Thus, a growing ecosystem serves to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The more growing ecosystems we can create, the more carbon we will absorb from the atmosphere.
What is the soil food web?
The underground ecosystem, when it is functioning, includes plant roots and a range of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes (tiny worms) and microarthropods (tiny insects and arachnids). Non-microscopic critters can include earthworms, slugs, snails, insects and insect larvae. Birds, mammals and other vertebrates contribute to the soil food web.
But plowing and chemical fertilizers destroy this whole system.
Visualizing the soil food web
Here is a graphic illustration from one of my favorite soil experts, Matt Powers.
It’s complicated … but in a good way. We want this complex web of life to be working underground, with all the benefits that it brings. Plant roots exude sugars that attract bacteria and fungi that feed off one another and set the stage for a dynamic, riotous web of life that builds soil into a storehouse for water, carbon and valuable nutrients, like iron, potassium, nitrogen, calcium, manganese, zinc and lesser known elements like boron and molybdenum.
The soil food web is a complex delivery system that delivers water and nutrients to the point of need. And it does not exist in bad soil.
I recommend Matt Powers’ excellent book Regenerative Soil: The Science & Solutions.
Our greatest export: Eroded topsoil
The US exports a lot of food. But we export a lot more topsoil, as it erodes and flows into our streams and rivers.
How can we expect to continue producing food if we continue losing our soil?
Worldwide between 24 and 36 billion tons of topsoil per year wash off the land due to erosion. Divide that by 8 billion people on the planet and you get 3 tons or 6,000 pounds for every person every year!
You’d think that if we were interested in “feeding the world,” we would do a better job of keeping our topsoil.
Erosion equals carbon emissions
Think of what erosion really is. Erosion is carbon escaping into the air. By the time soil makes its way into the rivers, it has lost its carbon to the atmosphere.
Soil consists of minerals, water, air and soil organisms and soil organic matter. By the time it’s floating down the river, it’s nothing but dead minerals. The soil organisms are dead and the soil organic matter is mainly decomposing. Those complex organic molecules have degraded into carbon dioxide.
We need to reverse this process. We need to help carbon move into the complex organic molecules that constitute living soil and soil organic matter.
Healthy soil stores carbon and filters water
When we start with good soil and we treat it right, the carbon content grows year by year.
When the soil organic matter grows, it becomes a marketplace of nutrients and living organisms that do the business of the soil, making plants healthy and resilient, filtering water and releasing it gradually into the streams and waterways.
Healthy soil reduces flooding
Healthy soil is porous, like a sponge. And like a sponge, it soaks up rain. This reduces runoff. This reduces flooding.
It’s that simple.
Rain does not cause flooding. Excess runoff causes flooding. We can reduce runoff by improving our soil.
Flooding is not because of “climate change”
Blaming flooding on “climate change” is glib, and it’s a cop out. Yes, rainfall is becoming more erratic as the climate changes. But let’s not ignore solutions that are right in front of us.
Let’s do what Gabe Brown did.
A foot of rain!
In 2009, North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown got 13.5 inches of rain within 22 hours. That’s over a foot of rain in less than a day!
You would think that a foot of rain would cause a massive flood. But according to Gabe, it all soaked into the ground.
In Dirt to Soil, Gabe writes:
“The water infiltration rate on our farm had increased significantly. In 1991, the rate was one-half inch per hour. In 2015, it was one inch of water in nine seconds. A second inch will infiltrate in sixteen seconds. That’s two inches in twenty-five seconds! That’s the power of mycorrhizal fungi and soil biology. They combine to build soil aggregates, which allows water to infiltrate, and then the organic matter stores that water.”
We can reduce flooding by improving our soil, so that more rain soaks in and less of it runs off.
In like manner, we can avoid drought. Flooding and drought are NOT opposites. They are flip sides of the same coin: bad soil.
Healthy soil reduces drought
When Gabe’s farm soaked in over a foot of rain, what do you think happened to that water? It stayed in the ground and nurtured plant growth. Soil that is porous enough to soak up the rain is porous enough to hold onto the water for a period of time. For this reason, good soil “waters” the plants for a long time in between rain events.
Gabe writes: ““It’s not a question of how much total rain falls on your land, it’s how much can infiltrate into your soils and then be stored there that counts. That storage ability is called effective rainfall. If we have low amounts of effective rainfall, we create our own drought.”
Of course, when the soil stores water, this reduces irrigation costs, because the soil provides the water. This saves the farmer money and reduces fossil fuel emissions, because irrigation is powered by diesel fuel.
Soil benefits from less irrigation
Irrigation is actually bad for the soil. It tends to drown soil organisms by depriving them of oxygen. Loss of soil life causes soil to lose its structure and its porosity. The soil becomes compacted. It’s no longer like a sponge, but more like a powder or a brick that sloughs off water.
Irrigation causes salty soil
Irrigation causes salinization. All water has some salt. When irrigation water evaporates, the salt remains. Over time, the soil becomes too salty for plants to grow well. This is an unavoidable problem with irrigation, especially in regions with less rainfall. It’s just a matter of time before the soil becomes unusable.
Healthy soil reduces irrigation costs
Healthy soil needs less irrigation, not only because the soil holds more water, but because the plants utilize water more efficiently, partly because of how they utilize nitrogen.
In healthy soils protozoa eat bacteria. Bacteria are rich with nitrogen. The protozoa excrete the nitrogen they don’t need, and this is how the plant obtains much of its nitrogen.
Nitrogen so obtained requires 75% less water in the synthesis of proteins, as compared with nitrogen obtained from chemical fertilizers. This according to Ohio farmer and consultant John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture.
How good soil makes plants free of pests and diseases
John Kempf is one of the brightest minds in agriculture, today, and he has developed a learning tool, the plant health pyramid, that illustrates four stages of plant growth. According to John, if plants advance through these four stages, they will be relatively free of pests and diseases.
This has multiple benefits to the climate and the environment, including a dramatic reduction in toxic pesticides. This matters because pesticides degrade ecosystems. And it is ecosystems—not just plants—that absorb carbon. Ecosystems also absorb water, regulate temperatures, avoid weather extremes and nurture water cycles, making rain gentler and more consistent, while preventing floods and drought.
Understanding plant health and disease resistance will go a long way to nurturing our ecosystems.
The four levels of the Plant Health Pyramid
According to John Kempf, healthy plants advance through four levels of the plant health pyramid, as follows:
Level 1: Plants turn simple sugars into complex carbohydrates. This wards off some pests, like aphids, who can only eat simple sugars, not complex carbohydrates.
Level 2: Plants make proteins, making themselves inedible to some pests.
Level 3: Plants make lipids, which make a protective coating on leaves.
Level 4: Plants make “secondary metabolites” which are complex molecules that serve to protect the plant and give it a unique flavor or aroma.
Here is the graphic of the Plant Health Pyramid.
https://www.advancingecoag.com/plant-health-pyramid
And here is John on video explaining the Plant Health Pyramid.
Plant Health Pyramid could be the future of farming, because it can help reduce farm costs, increase output and help us avoid the pesticides that are decimating our insect populations.
We need regenerative farming to reverse the decline of insects
Studies show that insects are declining at about 2% per year and may have declined by about 70% or more since the 1970s.
Since insects are foundational to our food chains, we need to address this problem urgently.
Industrial farming is a prime culprit because it makes heavy use of insecticides and tends to eliminate insect food and habitat (e.g., wildflowers, trees and waterways).
By contrast, regenerative farming relies on ecosystems to control pests. A pest that is part of a robust, diverse ecosystem is likely to be eaten by predators.
For example, the braconid wasp is a predator that eats the tomato hornworm, a caterpillar that eats tomato leaves. But the wasp also eats other caterpillars. If you have a diversity of caterpillars, then you will have enough braconid wasps to eat most of your tomato hornworms. This according to Dr. Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware, a leading ecologist and entomologist.
Why can’t we change?
With all the benefits of regenerative agriculture, why don’t we change? A big part of the reason is public policy, which creates regulations and subsidies that make change difficult.
Follow the money. When you’re making a lot of money because of public policy, you have every reason to fund political campaigns and lobbyists. In fact, you have an obligation to your shareholders to do just that.
Agribusiness corporations get rich selling patented seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insurance and heavy equipment, such as tractors with price tags exceeding $250,000.
According to Josh Tickell, author of “Kiss The Ground”:
“The seven largest pesticide and genetic seed companies are raking in about $93 billion annually. The fertilizer industry is harvesting around $175 billion a year. And all told, the “crop protection” industry of fertilizer, GMO, and chemical pesticide companies is growing nicely with about $350 billion in annual sales … ”
When you have $350 billion in annual sales, along with a legal obligation to your shareholders to maximize profits, plus the opportunity to legally bribe Congress, then this adds up to corruption. It’s bad for people dnc the planet, but it is a sad reality.
That’s why we need our environmental leaders to stand up for what’s right and not be in bed with the profiteers.
Corruption in corn country: The ethanol racket
According to the Des Moines Register, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa raised $6.7 million for his 2022 Senate campaign. One can only assume that some of this money comes from the corn ethanol industry, because Senator Grassley always manages to push through subsidies and regulations favorable to corn ethanol.
“Renewable energy” for “energy independence”
Ethanol constitutes about 10% of gasoline at the pump.
According to this study from Cornell University, ethanol fails on most major criteria. For one thing, it takes more energy to make ethanol than the combustion of ethanol produces.
We could stop there.
All this vast acreage of GMO crops, sprayed with herbicides that are known carcinogens. All the grain bins, the transportation, the processing. All the steel, aluminum and plastic. All the people who go to work every day to buildings made of concrete and glass, threaded with plastic coated copper wire.
All to make a product that is completely useless, because it gives no more energy than the gasoline and diesel required to make it.
And yet, I’m sure somewhere in the regulatory framework, ethanol is labeled a “biofuel” and therefore “renewable.” By definition.
Displacing food
The Cornell article quotes David Pimentel, Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production: “Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning.”
In other words, why don’t we just grow food and burn it? The result would be the same.
Junk food nation. Can we do better?
When industrial agriculture is not growing useless fuel at taxpayer expense, it is growing junk food, like high fructose corn syrup, a substitute for cane sugar.
I wouldn’t say high fructose corn syrup is completely useless. But is it the best use of our farmland?
Can we do better?
People in farm states don’t eat food that is grown locally or regeneratively.
Can we do better?
The corn business drives up the price of farmland, making it difficult for regenerative farmers to grow healthy food.
Can we do better?
Myth: “We need to feed the world”
Another obstacle in the path to regenerative agriculture is the myth that “we need to feed the world.”
Nice thought. But consider the source. Who wins when farmers think: “We need to feed the world”? Not farmers. Not consumers. And not “the world.” (Nature loses and do fo the people of other countries, due to dumping cheap food and destroying local economies.)
The myth that “we need to feed the world” comes from agribusiness and food corporations who benefit from overproduction, and the low prices that emerge.
But …
Who REALLY feeds the world?
Farmer, author and activist Vandana Shiva addresses this question in her book “Who Really Feeds The World?”
Here are some of her conclusions:
Small scale farmers feed the world, not large-scale industrial farms
Living soil feeds the world, not chemical fertilizers.
Bees and butterflies feed the world, not poisons and pesticides.
Biodiversity feeds the world, not toxic monocultures.
Localization feeds the world, not globalization.
Women [female farmers] feed the world, not corporations
What we hear from agribusiness propaganda is that what feeds the world is large scale industrial farms planting monocrops, using heavy and expensive equipment, chemical fertilizers, patented seeds and toxic pesticides. Furthermore, we need huge corporations and global supply chains to feed the world.
This does not make sense to me, because all of the above (plowing, monocrops, chemical fertilizers ) is a war on our soils. It’s like saying, let’s feed the world by destroying the very soil we need to feed the world. It makes no sense whatsoever.
But how do we evaluate whether we are feeding the world?
Yield per acre or nutrition per acre?
How do we evaluate the productivity of farmland? Farmers universally emphasize yield per acre. Yield is the total weight of one crop. So if a cornfield beats the national average of 173 bushels per acre, that’s considered a success.
But corn is not very nutritious. It has its place. But corn alone is empty calories.
Vandana Shiva urges us to emphasize nutrition per acre, not yield. She writes: “Women who run small farms maximize nutrition per acre and health per acre, while they conserve resources.”
Yield is also not the best measure of profitability.
Yield per acre versus profit per acre
Gabe Brown argues that yield and profits are two different things. One farmer might have a higher yield, but also higher costs and lower profit margin. Another farmer has lower yield but lower costs and a higher profit margin. One farmer is winning at the yield game, while another is making more money.
So yield per acre does not account for the cost of the “inputs,” such as fertilizer, pesticides, equipment and diesel fuel.
Yield does not measure ecological costs
Yield per acre does not measure the ecological cost of farming, i.e., degraded soil, water quality and wildlife habitat.
So farmers are being told they have to feed the world by maximizing yield. But yield does not account for nutrition or profit or ecological impacts.
The culprit: Crop insurance
The farm program that incentivizes high yields, chemical fertilizers and all the worst practices is the federal crop insurance program.
Crop insurance guarantees that if crops fail, e.g., due to drought or hail or disease, then the farmer will be paid as if the crop had not failed. The amount of crop insurance proceeds depends on yields from previous years, so the farmer is incentivized to maximize yield every year.
What is possible?
What can we do about this sad state of affairs?
Regenerative farming, as practiced by Gabe Brown, Vandana Shiva and many others around the world could be the norm, and it could be supported by farm policy.
We could:
Produce tasty and nutritious food
Draw down carbon
Lower costs of irrigation
Lower fossil fuels associated with irrigation
Increase water quality downstream
Increase wildlife habitat
Nurturing our farm ecosystems
Our farms COULD be ecosystems producing healthy food.
Here is Gabe Brown’s seminar on “Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem.”
We want our farm ecosystems to grow in acreage, biomass and biological diversity.
Where are the climate “leaders”?
Why are the climate “leaders” not talking about this? They are smart enough to understand it. Back in the day, Naomi Klein was writing massive books from 500 to 700 pages long. No Logo, The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, her first three books, are well researched, well written and demonstrate a breathtaking mastery of topics that Naomi did not learn in school.
Similarly, Michael Mann and Bill McKibben probably already know everything I have written above.
But they don’t talk about it, not with any regularity and not with any emphasis.
Why?
The wrong narrative: It’s all about CARBON
Klein, Mann and McKibben are thoroughly invested in the narrative that says “climate change” is this big existential crisis that we have to deal with FIRST, before we do anything else, environmentally.
This is ludicrous. Climate change is part of a more fundamental problem. We are making war on our environment. Fossil fuels are only one weapon in the arsenal. Carbon emissions are only part of the problem.
But …
If it’s all about carbon, then let’s talk
Dr. David C. Johnson’s work (featured in the video below) proves that we could draw down several tons of carbon per hectare per year, if we implemented Johnson’s (easy and economical) composting methods, involving fungal dominant compost, the Johnson-Su Bioreactor.
Johnson’s work demonstrates the potential to draw down 10 to 20 tons of carbon per hectare per year.
Here is a video that demonstrates how we can store carbon in the soil.
Storing carbon in the ground using good compost is an idea for which there is no downside, except to the agribusiness corporations.
Why ELSE are they not talking about regenerative agriculture?
I think Klein, Mann and McKibben are aligned with nefarious institutions that have a hidden agenda, and are not primarily concerned with the environment. I think they are using obfuscation, distraction and delay to do nothing while creating the appearance that something is being done.
We cannot know their actual motives. But we can watch what they say, and what they do. And we should.
These are the same people who used all their credibility and prestige to discredit--and censor--the 2020 documentary Planet of the Humans, free on YouTube:
Here was a meritorious movie that made important points that all environmentalists should be concerned about, including the destructive aspects of solar, wind and “biomass” (i.e., burning trees for fuel).
Naomi Klein gave it a thumbs down in a tweet that failed to address the substantive issues raised in the movie.
https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1256647052970340353
Bill McKibben wrote a meandering and self-pitying lament that said nothing of substance about the movie.
https://350.org/response-planet-of-the-humans-documentary/
Given the merits of Planet of the Humans and the valid points that it made about corruption and environmental devastation, why should we take seriously those climate celebrities who want to dismiss, discredit or censor the movie?
But the powerful friends of Klein, McKibben and Mann pulled out all the stops to have the movie censored by removing it from YouTube, based on bogus copyright claims.
Michael Mann’s misleading rant about Planet of the Humans
In his 2021 book The New Climate War, climatologist Michael Mann fills eight pages with a strident, vitriolic and mendacious rant about Planet of the Humans. It’s a series of false claims about what the movie is really about.
For example, Mann charges that Planet of the Humans: “grossly inflated estimates of the carbon footprint of biofuels and biomass (which is tiny compared to that of fossil fuels) …”
He doesn’t give a time stamp that allows us to check which scene or claim he is disputing.
He doesn’t tell us where these “grossly inflated estimates” occur.
He doesn’t tell us which biomass or biofuels he is talking about.
But, as discussed above, corn ethanol, a biofuel, produces less energy than it takes to make it. That’s not a tiny carbon footprint. That’s a useless industry.
The word “biomass” means cutting down trees and burning them like coal. Mann says the carbon footprint is tiny. But it’s a polluting and carbon intensive industry that destroys forests. The whole industry rests on the faulty logic that says, “Hey, these trees were going to die anyway, 100-200 years from now, so let’s cut them down now. They were going to release carbon anyway--in the future--so it’s ‘carbon neutral’ to cut them down now.”
Never mind that the trees would have continued to absorb carbon if allowed to stand and that they would have continued to filter water and build soil and provide bird habitat if allowed to stand.
Planet of the Humans exposes the “biomass” industry for what it is--the wholesale devastation of our forests based on the false claim that this is somehow clean, green, renewable or sustainable. It is none of these things.
Mann ends his rant with the following: “It appears they [the movie makers] will go down in history as having ironically sided with wealthy, powerful polluters, rather than “the people” they purport to care about, in the defining battle of our time.”
No, Michael, I think that’s your job. I really do. I think you have sided with wealthy, powerful polluters in the defining battle of our time.
Are we going to protect the actual living earth, or are we going to act as if carbon is all that matters, and this based on false carbon numbers, or no numbers at all? Are we going to destroy forests, our soils, our waterways and our bird habitat, all because the carbon numbers look good?
Corruption?
Watch Planet of the Humans--especially the last half of it--and tell me that the people portrayed in the movie are not demonstrably corrupt.
Climate celebrities will not review or respond to Bright Green Lies.
These same people will not respond to the 2021 book Bright Green Lies (by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert) which presents a devastating critique of everything from solar to wind to battery storage and recycling to “green cities.” Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben figure prominently in the book.
They appear to grossly misrepresent the numbers related to Germany’s alleged revolution in renewable energy.
Why won’t they respond?
Follow the money.
As Upton Sinclair said: “It is hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
In the place of “salary” substitute prestige or power or social standing. It’s the same idea.
Living systems are not profitable to concentrated power and wealth
Living systems, such as forests, waterways and regenerative farms create a type of wealth, but it’s not a type of wealth that is easily concentrated into the hands of a few.
Gabe Brown can create a profitable farming operation, and teach his friends to do the same, but it’s hard for Bill Gates or Elon Musk to extract wealth from it without destroying it.
Climate “misleaders” are aligned with the economy of extraction, exploitation and death
From where I sit, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and Michael Mann are aligned with the economy of extraction and exploitation. I see no evidence that they really stand in support of our living systems.
They are narrowly focused on carbon emissions and the gadgets that will supposedly help lower carbon emissions, like solar power, wind power and electric vehicles. These are profitable corporate products whose manufacture generates water pollution and deforestation. The carbon numbers never account for ecological devastation.
And these high tech gadgets will not reduce our carbon footprint, as long as the economy continues to grow and as long as we place no real limits on the activities of corporations and billionaires.
Climate Misleaders rail against fossil fuel companies, without proposing any meaningful limits on the rest of corporate America. As if we could reduce fossil fuels without placing limits on road construction, mining, war and industrial agriculture.
If they really wanted to reduce fossil fuel consumption, they would call for a decisive shift from industrial to regenerative agriculture.
But they don’t, because that would call for a real battle with really powerful people and companies. It would require more than posturing, hand wringing and virtue signaling, which is all they do now.
When, in our lifetime, has the government said “NO” to the rich and powerful?
In her 2013 book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein talks about how we can’t just cajole and incentivize these companies. We have to stand up and say “NO!” But that was ten years ago.
You really cover all the bases. Keep up the good work, Hart!
Very comprehensive article, Hart. Great job! One area you might consider exploring a bit further is how land use practices are changing. This November 2020 census from USDA shows that about a third of farmers are using no-till practices, another third low-till, and only the remaining third are using intensive tillage systems: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2020/census-land-use-practices.pdf Admittedly, a lot (majority?) of the no-till operations use herbicides to terminate cover crops before they plant main crops, but you'll see that things are changing. What policies, incentives, and regulations are different states using to encourage and help farmers move towards better, more regenerative practices? An article about those might be helpful. I have a few other ideas, too. Let's talk.