Dirt to Soil

There is a real problem! Our Earth and the world’s current farm practices are at odds. If we continue in the direction that we are going, we will witness: 1) the continued degradation of the world’s precious soils; 2) increasing adverse climate conditions; and 3) ever growing global food insecurities.

Some scientists have predicted that, if we don’t change our current farming practices, the soils we depend on for our existence will become so eroded and depleted that they will cease to support crop growth and will put our human population into food crisis within the next 100 years or less. Common farming methods of the day have proven to be a degrading force on our life-supporting soils. If we don’t switch to ecologically friendly practices in our farming techniques, our fate might soon be sealed.

The difference between dirt and soil

Photo by Paul Leline

There is a real solution! There is a proven pathway to turning this destructive practice around. This pathway is called regenerative agriculture. This pathway works with nature rather than against it.

Author, Gabe Brown in his 2018 book, “Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture,” presents a proven alternative to current farming practices. Also, a complementary 2020 Netflix film documentary called “Kiss the Ground,” producer Rebecca Harrell Tickell, provides a visual support of Gabe Brown’s regenerative concepts. These works, and others have shown that healthy soil is not only the foundation of life, but it is the solution we are all looking for to combat our changing climate conditions, food insecurities, and depleted soil structures. “Dirt to Soil” describes Brown’s journey towards reviving the degraded soils of his own farm through such practices as the creation of healthy and diverse cover crops, reduced tillage, and crop rotation. In a similar way, “Kiss the Ground” highlights the remarkable capacity of healthy soil to sequester atmospheric carbon, emphasizing that restoring soil health can help to reverse the effects of global warming.

Regenerative farming practices encourage biodiversity and its complex relationships within soil ecosystems. By cultivating diverse crops, encouraging beneficial insects, and re-generating a healthy soil micro-biome, we can promote healthy living soils and greatly reduce the need for chemical applications of artificial fertilizers and/or pesticides while naturally strengthening resistance to pests and diseases through building healthy soil communities.

The over-tilling of healthy soil repeatedly breaks up the heavily interconnected relationships between micro and macro organisms in the soil communities. It exposes the underground organisms to the harsh surface environment that includes UV radiation, evaporative loss of water, and extreme temperature changes that would not occur in an intact underground environment, as well as exposure to rain events that wash the soil away into rivers lakes and oceans, to be forever lost. The earth’s soils, before agriculture, had supported life for hundreds of millions of years. Those healthy soils naturally provided the nitrogen, the phosphorus, the potassium, and so many more requirements that are provided by bacteria, fungus, and billions of other organisms that help to transport and recycle the necessary nutrients of life itself. The disruptive nature of current farming creates dirt, which is the term for dead soil. The vision of a tractor plowing through a field with clouds of dust billowing up behind, is a good sign of dead soil leaving the farm. Depleted and suffering soils require ever increasing amounts of fertilizers and pesticides just to get a single crop to grow.

Truly healthy soils do not require these kinds of inputs. According to Brown’s book, planting cover crops that include several perennial, forageable plant species can be harvested or used by grazing animals without the need for tilling a healthy, growing, interactive soil ecosystem. Allowing for grazing and foraging animals to be rotated onto these diverse cover crops is also an important step to the regenerative agricultural model. Allowing for post harvest matter to remain on the soil’s surface provides nutrients for the soil community to break down and recycle the important elements of healthy soil. It also reduces water loss and protects the soil year-round through the seasons. Planting directly into undisturbed healthy soil will provide for the crops and hold the needed soil in place.

It takes approximately 1000 years to create one inch of soil on average here on Earth, and we have lost many inches from past inappropriate farming techniques. Re-educating ourselves about regenerative practices, and applying them, will improve productivity while building and maintaining healthy soil structures with a minimum of disruption. Soils can be built to a healthy condition in a relatively short time if we embrace the regenerative farming model.

Regenerative farming can help farmlands to become resilient enough to overcome and even thrive during droughts and erratic weather events. Diversifying cover crops and crop rotation practices, not only break plant pest life cycles, but improve soil structure by building and maintaining organic, living matter into our currently degraded soils. Improved overall soil health leads to higher crop yields and less dependence on external inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. That reduces overhead costs while trapping and sequestering enormous amounts of carbon by removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and the activities of micro-organisms.

Gabe Brown‘s book “Dirt to Soil” and the documentary “Kiss the Ground” highlight the importance of regenerative agriculture practices for the future of our planet. As citizens and custodians of our living planet it is important that all of us learn about and advocate for the adoption of regenerative farming practices. That will begin the essential turnaround for a healthier, happier and balanced future for life on Earth.

By Paul Leline, Secretary, DCEC

Sources:
Brown, Gabe.“Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture.” Book 2018.Tickell, Rebecca Harrel.“Kiss the Ground.” Video documentary 2020. Netflix.

Related:
Egan, Dan. “THE DEVIL’S ELEMENT: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance.” Book 2023.