International conference on agriculture and climate change, Soil Not Oil, Sept. 4-5, in Richmond, CA, features speakers Vandana Shiva, Fritjof Capra, Anna Lappé, former EPA senior scientist Ray Seidler, soil scientist Rattan Lal, agro-ecologist Miguel Altieri, environmental and land use attorney Claire Hope Cummings, and others.

Richmond, CA — Getting to the root of global climate change, the 2015 Soil Not Oil International Conference will bring together farmers, ranchers, scientists, policy makers, NGOs and community leaders on Sept. 4-5, 2015, at the Memorial Civic Center Complex in Richmond, CA, to explore how sustainable, regenerative agriculture practices can help mitigate the planet’s global warming.

“The goal of the two-day conference is to provide practical information, research, and networking to help society create a more vibrant, healthy future via better farming practices. Along with reduced reliance on fossil fuels and increased availability of green energy, we need to shift to carbon farming to reverse climate change,” said Miguel Robles, conference organizer and Director of the Biosafety Alliance.

Vandana Shiva Headlines Conference
Inspired by Dr. Vandana Shiva’s book, Soil Not Oil, the 2015 Soil Not Oil International Conference examines the crisis on food security while highlighting the role of oil-based agro-chemicals and fossil fuels in soil depletion and climate change. The conference will focus on practical carbon farming solutions including cover crops, planned grazing, compost application on range land, tree planting and other holistic land use practices.

The conference will feature a keynote address by Dr. Vandana Shiva on Friday, Sept. 4, 7:00 pm, along with presentations featuring noted soil scientist Rattan Lal; author Fritjof Capra; environmental and land use attorney Claire Hope Cummings; Earth Guardians director and youth leader Xiuhtezcatl Martinez; author Anna Lappé; agro-ecologist Miguel Altieri; Adelita San Vicente Tello, Ph.D., director of Seeds of Life; Regeneration International and Organic Consumers Association co-founder Ronnie Cummins; John Roulac, CEO and founder of Nutiva; and other international leaders, farmers, researchers, climate change experts, and environmental and food justice advocates.

“We are pleased to host this important gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area, the heart of the organic food industry,” said Richmond-based John Roulac, founder and CEO of organic food leader Nutiva. “To secure a livable planet we need to both de-carbonize energy and re-carbonize our soils via regenerative agriculture.“

Carbon Farming Defined
Carbon farming (also known as regenerative agriculture) is an agricultural system that improves the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material and/or organic matter in the soil. Today, mainstream industrial food and farming and unsustainable land use generate the majority of all greenhouse gas emissions, with carbon that is stripped from the soil ending up in our atmosphere and oceans, creating acidic conditions that threaten plant and animal species. In removing carbon from the atmosphere and oceans by implementing the practices of regenerative organic agriculture, we can sequester carbon into the soil and expand the soil’s water-holding capacity.

As a 2014 Rodale Institute report states, “Organically managed soils can convert carbon CO2 from a greenhouse gas into a food-producing asset.” In fact, says Rodale after conducting more than 30 years of ongoing field research, regenerative, organic farming practices and improved land management can move agriculture from one of today’s primary sources of global warming and carbon pollution to a potential carbon sink powerful enough to sequester 100% of the world’s current annual CO2 emissions.

Or, as the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2014, “Organic practices could counteract the world’s yearly carbon dioxide output while producing the same amount of food as conventional farming…”