38
A Regenerative Farm Policy
No other natural process steadily removes such vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as photosynthesis, and no human scheme to remove it can do so on such a vast scale with any guarantee of safety or without great expense.
—
K O
,
The Soil Will Save Us
S
kepticism about the ability o small, local arms to “eed the world” is to be expected. But that very goal—“to eed the world”—is the dubious claim repeated dully by the agriculture industrialists to justiy the continued
bleeding
o the world. It is not the goal o regenerative and local agriculture policy prescriptions to eed the world rom the
top
, but rom the
bottom
. The goal is to “eed the local”—the world will ol-low, while it heals rom the scars o industrial rapaciousness. And while improving ood quality and reshness and human health, these policies will at the same time reverse the environmental destruction that also can only be achieved at that same local level. A one-world government cannot save the planet environmentally.The alse logic is that there are only two choices: absolute industrially processed ood abrication (we are nearly there) versus a pseudo-Amish migration o all humans back to an idyllic agrarianism that never existed. A proper agricultural policy perspective dismantles this harmul divi-sion. Human ood production causes a range o environmental impacts that include not just carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption, but toxic chemical inputs, water depletion, and soil erosion—a myriad o consequences o ood choices that vary depending on the method o production, crop variety, geographical location, shifing weather patterns, processing and packaging methods, and distribution.
39
For example, some so-called expert analysis asserts that there is a “water equivalency” to oods consumed and that the amount o water consumed in the growing and processing o various oodstuffs can be “measured” and summarized in a simplistic chart. This is useul inormation. Almonds are indeed a water-use offender, or instance, and greater individual awareness o that act might incline some consumers to shif to peanuts instead. But consider “scientific” sources that claim that a six-ounce serving o hamburger consumes sixty-five gallons o water in production. Even i that were an accurate assessment o confinement-raised, grain-ed bee (which would also vary depending on geographic area, drought conditions, and so on), it is an absurd slander against grass-ed, rotationally grazed cows. The latter may well use
no
net water whatsoever and even
improve
water quality while preventing water runoff through grazing and soil-eeding manure, enriching soil health, sequestering carbon, and avoiding actory-armed grains entirely. To equate the two products is absurd olly and explains the ignorance o condemning all bee production, as some politicians and academics do.To effectively calculate the environmental cost o ood choices, American consumers and policymakers must assess inputs and outputs on a spectrum o impacts. The debates over organics, labeling, and GMOs have obuscated and delayed effective action. Local conventional (that is,
not
organic) produce is likely to use less energy and generate less CO than organically grown ood transported long distances—the energy, chemical pollutants, and CO o transportation count as environmental costs. Local arms always improve reshness, reliability, and trust, but they also reduce pollution rom transportation.¹ Similarly, organic vegetables raised on armland that draws water rom endangered underground aquiers carries a much larger water liability than conventional vegetables grown in the wet Northeast.No one can accurately calculate all the vicissitudes o the various consid-erations o ood origin and production methods. But to reduce all oods to a calorie-like measure o environmental damage is to avoid understanding their impact properly. Further, it is unrealistic to propose that all industrial agricultural production could or even should be abruptly halted. A nation dependent on this system would starve as precipitously as a heroin addict in withdrawal. Indeed, modern ood consumption bears an eerie similarity
40
to a synthetic opioid addiction en masse. Just like cigarette manuacturers who worked to make their products even more addictive (and deadly) while advertising them as the opposite, industrial ood manuacturers and their high-paid lobbyists and political allies have conspired to peddle their Earth-destroying wares as Earth-saving. It is a truly Orwellian, dystopian allacy that requires an organic, populist awakening to counter it.A truly effective regenerative and local policy toolkit will create a level playing field or local arms and reduce the amount o ood produced by mega-arms whose monocultures are dependent on destructive chemical inputs. It is neither an “all-organic” nor an “all-local” model but sensibly weighs pros and cons o each. This transition will involve a deeper under-standing o soil, supply lines, ood security and healthulness, and other vitally important considerations being ignored by the Green New Deal.² As America will see, these are not trivial matters. The nation’s uture economic and social stability depends on getting this balanced transition right.In defining “best practices” or an agriculture that is not purist organics but instead assesses the complex interaction o transportation, processing, and production inputs, a more blended and realistic approach is required. Reducing and in some cases eliminating chemical pesticide and ertilizer applications is necessary, but our aspirations must not be overly zealous. Purist models ofen view agriculture in an input-narrowed vacuum, ignor-ing, or instance, that massive amounts o CO and chemical inputs can be conserved in large-scale operations that still employ chemical inputs such as synthetic ertilizers when they shif to no-till or reduced-till practices or shif away rom GMO corn or soy monocultures. It is imperative that large industrial producers are incentivized to reduce pollution and rebuild soils in viable ways. Overnight conversion to 100 percent organic is simply not pos-sible without calamity—witness the travesty o Sri Lanka and other nations that precipitously eliminated synthetic ertilizer and other chemical inputs.³ And to the extent that converting chemical-drenched industrial soils back to nutrient-rich health can be achieved, it is a process that takes years.As used in this book, the term “regenerative agriculture,” reers to pro-duction methods that shif toward ecologically sustainable perennial crops; rotational grazing and reduced reliance on confinement eed methods or livestock; reducing tillable acreage or employing no-till or reduced-tilling