Healthy soil for a healthy climate

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Skip coal, natural gas, urea, and ammonia

If it has worms, a hearty smell, dark color, and a lumpy chocolate cake consistency you may have healthy soil. Like the forests and the ocean, organic soil is a beneficial carbon sink.

Soil is a non-renewable resource. People don’t know how to make a forest, an ocean, or soil. Nature knows how, taking a long time to make sure all the ingredients are just right. Five hundred years seems like a second when you look at our galaxy from far, far away.

Climate emergency

Last month, the International Energy Agency, the world’s top energy experts, said we have six months to act on the climate emergency to prevent a post-lockdown surge in carbon emissions. The trillions of dollars to re-start national economies should be used for clean industries, our last chance to stop carbon emissions.

Sustainable agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture promotes quantity over quality with the use of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, under the umbrella of “sustainable” agriculture. Nutrition is not part of their equation.

Petrochemical companies manufacturing fertilizers falsely claim, “nutritious food needs adequate portions of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) for proper growth and development. Fertilizers guarantee humans and animals a safe and healthy supply of food and nutrients. Without commercial fertilizers, the world would be without one-third of its food supply.” NPK are the three numbers shown on bags of fertilizer, but you would never know the nitrogen comes from natural gas.

If you use fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides and till the soil 10 inches deep you will end up with dry, gray, rocky, dead soil. Nitrogen is the main ingredient of farmers’ fertilizer, made by large petrochemical multinational companies using natural gas, urea, and ammonia using energy-intensive processes.

Most of the farm runoff ends up in the mighty Mississippi River, ending in the Gulf of Mexico. Over 40 percent of the nitrogen flowing to the Gulf comes from farm fertilizer. This pollution created the largest ocean dead zone in the world, the size of New Jersey.

Soil and climate

Soil is the skin of the Earth. Fertilizers have destroyed 2 percent of the organic matter in the soil, creating about 30 percent of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With regenerative agriculture, farmers can lead a soil revolution to mitigate the climate emergency by increasing the carbon content in the soil.

Regenerative agriculture

The air we breathe is 20 percent oxygen and 78 percent nitrogen. Regenerative agriculture takes organic farming to a new level. Between cash crops, farmers leave the organic matter in the ground, roots and all, and grow various types of cover crops to renew and protect the soil and hold in the water. Peas are in the legume family and they transform nitrogen from the air into useable nitrogen in the soil. No-till, no fertilizers, no herbicides, and no pesticides.

For details on regenerative agriculture, please see the following books, available on Kindle, Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture, the Hidden Half of Nature and Terra Preta.

Please visit Farmer’s Footprint, www.farmersfootprint.us, and read the February 2020 interview with Dr. Zach Bush, “The Next Regeneration.”

Please visit, acresusa.com, for a copy of “Dr. Zach Bush MP3: Grounds for a Revolution: The Intersection of Soil and Human Health and a Path to Recovery.”

Better soil better health

Kansas and the Great Plains have some of the best farming soil in the world. However, food insecurity in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic has left many people hungry while community kitchens struggle to give free meals.

But hunger is not a new problem. According to Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, nearly 30 percent of households with children in Arkansas struggled to afford enough food in 2010. Arkansas and Mississippi are tied at the bottom of the states ranked on food security. The problem is worse than it seems, cheap food has low nutritional value. Fruits and salads are expensive and hard to find.

Join the next regeneration!

Dr. Luis Contreras

10 COMMENTS

  1. Thr fracking bubble is here today!

    June 30, 2020 – Chesapeake Energy might not be the last company to declare bankruptcy, there are other companies with debt woes.

    EPA has destroyed most environmental protections as “burdensome” for the oil and gas industry.

    There is a glut of oil and gas in the market.

    Water Warriors going to jail under new Federal and State laws.

    China won the Oil War storing oil and gas on tankers while prices hits bottom.

    Drilling the land, building walls, and destroying bridges, is beyond comprehension.

    2016 will be remembered as the end of the US Democracy and International leadership

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/after-chesapeakes-bankruptcy- these-oil-and-gas-companies-could-be-in-danger-51593507600

  2. Monsanto owner Bayer reaches $10 billion settlement over Roundup cancer lawsuits

    July 1, 2020 – The main ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which EWG calls “the most widely used herbicide in the world.”

    While the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015 classified glyphosate a “probable carcinogen” for humans, Bayer asserts that the weed killer is safe to use and will not put cancer warning labels on the product.

    http://redgreenandblue.org/2020/07/01/monsanto-owner-bayer-reaches-10-billion-settlement-roundup-cancer-lawsuits/

  3. Natural gas – fertilizer connection

    Using nitrogen fertilizers creates a lucrative market for Oil & Gas

    “Urea market growth strategies with leading players: Koch Fertilizer, Nutrien, OCI Nitrogen, Petrobras, and Qatar Fertilizer”

    This Urea Market study is a helpful source of information for market players, investors, VPs, stakeholders, and new entrants to gain a thorough understanding of the industry and determine steps to be taken to gain a competitive advantage.

    https://apsters.com/urea-market-growth-strategies-with-leading-key-players-koch-fertilizer-llc-nutrien-ltd-oci-nitrogen-petrobras-qatar-fertiliser-company/

  4. How can agriculture be sustainable if we tolerate a net loss of its foundational resource?

    Coupled with the fact that our nation has lost an alarming amount of topsoil in the past 100 years, shouldn’t we move beyond sustainable agriculture to regenerative agriculture?

    1. Using no-till farming to protect the soil

    2. Keeping the ground covered with plants and residues

    3. Keeping living plants and roots in the soil at all times

    4. Using diverse plants and animals

    https://www.farmprogress.com/soil-health/note-usda-time-regenerative-agriculture-now

  5. Soil hits pay dirt: $250K Prize for helping farmers, fighting climate change, with healthy soil
    June 22, 2020

    The most valuable stuff in the soil is organic matter content —nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen that a seed needs to grow into a plant.

    These nutrients need only be present in small amounts. Healthy soil is about four percent organic matter content

    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/22/880932230/soil-prof-hits-pay-dirt-250k-prize-for-helping-farmers-fighting-climate-change

  6. The Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture

    Industrial agriculture is the dominant food production system in the U.S. characterized by large-scale monoculture, heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

    The industrial approach to farming is defined by its heavy emphasis on a few crops that overwhelmingly end up as animal feed, biofuels, and processed junk food ingredients.

    https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-industrial-agriculture

Comments are closed.