As we never tire of reminding everyone who will listen, there are pre-existing “shovel ready” Organic and Regenerative best practices emerging and expanding everywhere. These organic and regenerative best practices, when powered by grassroots action and consumer action, and combined with natural (i.e. regenerative) health practices, and strategic political/economic action/reform (especially at the local and regional level), can provide positive solutions to the food, health, environmental, climate, and political Crisis.
In the global People’s Food Summit, organized by OCA’s sister organization, Regeneration International, and our allies last week on World Food Day, we highlighted organic and regenerative best practices on every continent. One of the recurrent themes in every region was the relative scarcity of funds for farmers, ranchers, and pastoralists to make the transition to organic, and the lack of resources for infrastructure development and market access that are necessary to speed up the transition to organic food, farming, and land use before it is too late. Basically world governments and investors, almost without exception, are continuing to subsidize degenerate food, farming, and land use practices rather than those that are organic, healthy, equitable, and regenerative.
The global best practice model for funding and scaling up regenerative and organic food and farming comes to us from Australia, which has more organically certified farmland and pastureland than any other nation in the world. Veteran organic farmers in Australia have come up with an alternative solution to the global fraud of carbon trading and carbon credits, and corporate greenwashing. They call their new system, which we at OCA and Regeneration International believe is a global game-changer, “Organic Eco-Credits.” In this video, Regeneration International Director, Andre Leu, interviews two leaders of Australia’s new organization, the Organic and Regenerative Investment Coop (ORIC). Listen as they explain how Australian farmers and investors are creating a new paradigm of Organic Eco-Credits and Bonds. The interview begins at the one hour mark of this seven-hour segment of the People’s Food Summit.
For background on the need for Organic Eco-Credits, see the interview with Ben Dobson of the Hudson Carbon Project and Ronnie Cummins at the 1 hour 17 minute segment of this North American panel.