To Save the Earth, We Must Save the Earth
As human populations mass-migrate to cities, our direct connection to the land is severed and essential knowledge of the growing of food is lost. As a consolation, we inwardly view farmers as the authentic connection to our past. We appointed them keepers of a unique flame – guardians of our sacred relationship to the productive soils and our care and stewardship of the land.
Then cometh the climate crises! In seeking to find effective ways to help avert the worst-case scenario, we discover 50% of our topsoil has already disappeared by erosion and desertification.
Much of the loss is due to Poor Farming Practices ! As a consequence, rainfall patterns are shifting beyond recognition, and vast areas will soon become too hot or dry to grow food.
We also discover that farming lobbies are bloated and powerful and fully invested in maintaining the destructive status quo. That too many Government Subsidies flow to farmers, without which, most dairy, livestock and stock-feed production farms are as wildly uneconomic as they are inefficient. Our taxes support unnecessary land destruction and water wastage. All encouraged by the herbicide/pesticide and artificial fertilizer companies embedded within the agriculture system.
They are ruthless in policing their plundering of the system, existing only to maintain their free-range exclusivity and dominance over government agricultural policy and largess. They Thwart the development of alternative farming solutions and stall conscience on global climate change. They Block Any Shift that may threaten their income or influence. Thereby they diminish even the incredible potential of human ingenuity and resilience, just as these attributes are most desperately needed to help solve the most significant threat humans face.
Those few brave farmers who attempt alternate farming methods are abruptly cut off from Government funding. The monolith of agricultural policy remains focused on rewarding the intense application of chemicals. The rusted-on article of faith, that chemicals provide food security, endures, despite all the evidence shouting the very opposite.
Alternate farming methods
- Organic farming has now been part of the farming scene for decades, yet less than 1% of U.S. farms are organic. We wish there were many more. The organic movement has stalled out, and it is not entirely focused on soil vitality. Constant plowing and disking to control weeds has severely degraded the soil on many organic farms.
- Soils revitalized through the alternative of regenerative farming take up and hold massive quantities of Co2. Enough to halt and then reverse the buildup of carbon in the sky. We need 20% of the currently cultivated land, globally, to move to regenerative agriculture as rapidly as possible.
Regenerative agriculture produces nutrient-dense food in abundance. Regenerative farmers prosper without having to charge a premium for their produce. Regenerative agriculture focuses on the continual rebuilding of the vitality of soils. The improved soil structure created on regenerative farms slows erosion, saves water, supports billions of microorganisms and takes Co2 from the atmosphere. The abundant quantities of nutrient-dense chemical-free food is a welcome side-benefit.
Regenerative agriculture is soul-deep good for farmers. The satisfaction of rebuilding soil and creating an abundant future also regenerate the heart and enthusiasm. Regenerative farming is our last best hope for allowing the Earth some much-needed breathing space.
We have no time to wait for legislators to find the intellect, fortitude and moral fiber to stand up to Big Ag and the farming lobbies. The Big Ag companies view soil in much the same way we see (or don’t see) the paper on which this article appears: merely a medium for the written message. So, the land is only to them a substrate to hold their chemicals and artificial fertilizers — only the lifeless underpinning of their wealth creation system. Value for them is not in the soil, but in the chemicals they foist onto it. Good topsoil is after all their only competitor, a competitor they have been systematically killing off for decades because good, fertile, productive topsoil makes their whole business model redundant.
Good, fertile, productive topsoil is what regenerative farming is all about. Healthy topsoil is the living, resilient, abundantly fruitful silent engine of all life on Earth. Every growing thing, even every aspiration we hold and our very future, depends on the continuing vitality of our lands. Soil is the goose that lays all the golden eggs. A goose that is rapidly becoming too chemically toxic to keep producing.
Now science informs us that without intervention and dramatic change in agriculture, we have no more than 59 harvests left to us. Read that sentence again! It has become imperative that we regenerate our soils.
As the soil goes, so goes all life above it.
The good news is that consumers across the globe are spontaneously altering their food purchases in support of our planet. Many will join in demanding regeneratively farmed produce – the alternative is just too weighted with dispiriting consequence to contemplate.
We are in this battle together, and we have to win. Now is a historical all-hands-on-deck moment. We, the common folk of Earth, collectively face a most common problem. We can match the fragility of life with our ferocity to save it.
We the people can enable regenerative farming and the planet to flourish – or not.
As for milkadamia, we choose to support the Earth’s earth through regenerative agriculture.
Jim Richards, CEO milkadamia
