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Five years ago, at the massive People’s Climate March in New York City, a small but determined band of food, farm, natural health and climate activists held a press conference at the Rodale Institute in Manhattan, where we announced the formation of a new global network: Regeneration International (RI).
Vandana Shiva, Andre Leu, Richard Teague, Ryan Zinn, Kris Nichols and myself, among others, put forth the bold, but then little-known proposition that regenerative food, farming and land-use practices, scaled up internationally, and in conjunction with a global transition to renewable energy, could not only substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow down global warming, but could actually draw down enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reverse climate change.
We pointed out that a Regeneration Revolution could also dramatically improve the environment, soil fertility, food quality, public health, biodiversity and rural economies, while revitalizing the body politic.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of media to attend our first RI press conference. But 400,000 people marching in the streets of New York did generate massive world media coverage of the impending Climate Emergency.
Congressional Democrats have offered an ambitious legislative framework for 2019. Titled the Green New Deal, it seeks to tackle impending climate threats while generating innovative opportunities in the energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors. The Green New Deal includes support of soil health. Between 50% to 70% of agricultural soil has been lost, and rebuilding soil health is crucial for food system security, water quality, and climate change mitigation.
In 2013, when brandon king and others launched Cooperation Jackson — a radical project to bring economic democracy and worker ownership to Jackson, Mississippi — they decided to put their funds toward purchasing land instead of paying themselves salaries.
Ninety people are gathered along a trench—maybe 20 feet long, five feet deep, and three feet wide—in the Montana prairie. It’s an overcast spring day, with a cool breeze stirring the grass. Children clamber around the edges of the trench while the adults crouch or stand, listening to a woman pacing at the bottom, pointing out roots and different layers of exposed earth, talking about how the soil can save us from a climate catastrophe.
It was sheep shearing day on my grandpa’s ranch in the mid-20th century, and all I knew was that I was having fun. Everyone, including Grandpa, was clad in blue denim jeans on this sunny day. Gathered with other neighboring small-scale ranchers, we sheared and then stuffed and stomped wool into the gigantic bag that would be taken to market.
We all eat food. Most of us every day. Most of us several times a day. Food is undoubtedly one of the most constant and impactful aspects of our lives. And the ways that we produce — and consume it — are impactful as well.
Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario wants to change the way the world grows crops, and she's ready to take on any entrenched powers that would stand in the way. Marcario is one of Business Insider's " 100 People Transforming Business," and in an interview for the feature, she kept coming back to one of her passions for the last couple years: regenerative organic agriculture.
Maintaining soil organic matter is critical to tackling climate change because soil organic matter is rich in carbon. Soil carbon is also the keystone element controlling soil health, which enables soils to be resilient as droughts and intense rainfall events increasingly occur.
We are at a radically new stage in our fight for the planet. The Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youth-led Sunrise Movement, and hundreds of other climate justice leaders and organizations has given us a new holistic framework for tackling both the climate crisis and structural inequality.
As a kid growing up on a Montana wheat and cattle ranch in the 50s and 60s, I was raised farming with chemicals. I never questioned our use of fertilizer and herbicide: these were new tools that my dad quickly adopted after a little experimentation, as he thought they could help us be better farmers and make more money.
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