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It is easy to forget that once upon a time
all agriculture was organic, grassfed and regenerative.

Seed saving, composting, fertilizing with manure, polycultures, no-till and raising livestock entirely on grass – all of which we associate today with sustainable food production – was the norm in the “old days” of merely a century ago, not the exception as it is now. Somehow, back then we managed to feed ourselves and do so in a manner that followed nature’s model of regeneration.

We all know what happened next: the plow, the tractor, fossil fuels, monocrops, nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, feedlots, animal byproducts,
e. coli, CAFOs, GMOs, erosion, despair – practices and conditions that most Americans today think of as “normal,” when they think about agriculture at all.

Fortunately, a movement to rediscover and implement “old” practices of bygone days has risen rapidly, abetted by innovations in technology, breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, and tons of old-fashioned, on-the-ground problem-solving.

Take Dorn Cox, a young farmer in New Hampshire. He tossed away the plow, preferring to use no-till practices on his parent’s organic farm, then he developed a biodiesel alternative to fossil fuels (his sister and her husband use draft animals). He also measures the carbon content of the soil through sophisticated technology, aiming to raise the content as high as possible. And he co-founded Farm Hack, an open-source, virtual café for young and beginning farmers. “Farming isn’t rocket science,” he likes to say, “it’s more complicated than that.”

Like Dorn, many young people in agriculture today are looking to the past and what they discovered is this: nature’s model works best. After all, nature has been using evolution and the laws of physics to beta-test what works for merely millions of years – billions in the case of photosynthesis. Humans are pipsqueaks and upstarts in this process by comparison and the idea that we know what’s best is looking like a dangerous form of hubris. That’s why a new generation of agrarians is returning to the roots of agriculture for a different approach – with large helpings of science and social advancement added in (i.e., no return to the bad old days of slavery).

Soil carbon is a good example. As gardeners know, building carbon stocks underground – the dark, rich soil called
humus – via soil biology is critical to plant vigor, mineral uptake, and water availability. At the farm and ranch scale it helps prevent soil erosion. A short list of practices that build soil carbon include: cover crops, mulching, composting, low or no-till, and planned grazing of livestock.