> Before the Civil War, over half of the country’s residents were farmers, Jolliff said, and they worked with small parcels of land in diversified operations. The modern regenerative agriculture movement encourages that same type of farm diversification.
Yea, and before the civil war, we didn't have gasoline engines. You are never going to see a broad return to rural farming life ever again.
The farmers already know regenerative ag and are executing certain aspects of it, but for most of the US the financial incentives aren't aligned and the mineral losses in heavily farmed soils will take generations to recover.
This is an economics problem not a knowledge problem.
From many examples I have seen of farms that have switched to regenerative practices it takes about 3 years to bring the soil back to life. Some of those had been corn for generations. Living soil consumes rock minerals making them available to plants. It doesn't matter if all the previously released minerals all washed away. As long as there is sand, silt, clay and living soil the minerals are available for plants.
Aren’t those minerals depleted by higher and higher yield crops that are industrially farmed and then shipped all over (along with the water)? How does the regenerative practice add back an equivalent amount? Wouldn’t it need additives that are equal in mass to all the plants previously farmed?
Yea, and before the civil war, we didn't have gasoline engines. You are never going to see a broad return to rural farming life ever again.
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