Regenerative Agriculture: Reviving Soil Health for a Sustainable Future

As a practicing physician and professionally trained chef, I believe that regenerative agriculture is our chance at a future. Regenerative ag blends the ancient wisdom of caring for the earth with new scientific insights about nutrient density and your health.??

Regenerative agriculture is actually a series of farming techniques that can also be used in your own raised bed or backyard garden. They prioritize the health of the soil– minimally tilling the soil, using compost to balance and enrich it, planting and using cover crops for health, utilizing crop rotation, creating deep biodiversity and polycultures instead of monocultures and using natural approaches such as mulching to suppressing weeds and pests.

For my urban farm, organic certification is something we strive for and maintain: we work on making the soil sustainably healthy, so it can nourish our plants and animals. Healthy soil is teeming with life – it has a complex, buried, helpful ecosystem of microbes, fungi, earthworms, and other organisms (a type of microbiome: sound familiar?) that helps plants absorb nutrients and fight disease. The soil microbiome breaks down organic matter and helps plants and trees store carbon, helping to fight climate change too.

Unfortunately, too many conventional farming and gardening practices can damage soil health and your own. Excessive tilling disrupts the delicate soil ecosystem and microbiome. Planting the same crops in the same place every year encourages disease. Conventionally applied artificial chemical synthetic fungicides, herbicides and pesticides can harm beneficial microbes and poison the water, and people too. ? Our reliance on chemical agriculture has led to soil erosion, decreased fertility, and lower quality food. ?

Regenerative farmers, like members of California Alliance of Family Farmers and the Regenerative Farmers of America embrace ancient yet progressive agricultural techniques and practices. Some farms, like ours, teach them in our materials, guided tours and demonstrations.

Here's how we do it:

No-till farming: For millennia, Central and South American farmers have planted a seed in a hole, covered it and covered the soil, preserving the soil ecosystem, and many still do today.??

Like them, we don’t till our farm’s soil which then has positive effects on soil moisture, organic matter and microbial activities. This key technique of Regenerative Agriculture reduces erosion, and leads to better water retention in the soil, healthier crops, and ultimately, more nutrient dense food. We add good mulch everywhere on undisturbed soil surrounding the plants and trees we grow, and think it is the magic sauce.?

Compost and Cover Crops: The Bible and the Talmud both speak of using dung on fields, and the first mention of composting was around 2350 BC, in the Mesopotamian Valley in the Middle East.

We make much of our own compost from plant (and food) trimmings and weeds, and we use tons annually. Composting reduces waste, makes us less dependent on disposing waste in landfills, and decreases greenhouse gas emissions. It also recycles nutrients back into the soil, and cures many nutrient deficiencies.?

The ancient Romans used cover cropping too! We use a multispecies cover crop mix from Project Apis for our orchards to help enhance fertility and provide habitat for beneficial insects. Our tailored mix puts more nitrogen in the soil, because our soil is sandy and not rich, at all. The National Academies estimates that regenerative practices like cover cropping and composting and covering the soil can sequester 250 million tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. annually, or around 4% of the country’s emissions.?

Biodiversity: Three quarters of the planet’s food comes from just 12 plants and animals, as industrial agriculture destroys biodiversity! We plant hundreds of plants in and around our 20+ certified organic types of fruits and vines, as polycultures (like corn and beans, rather than just corn) have fewer pests.. This plant biodiversity helps nourish the soil, confuse pests and attract beneficial insects.??

We attract beneficial insects with insectary plants– and you can too. Plant gorgeous nasturtia, sweet alyssum and every type of marigold and sunflower–they all trap insects and draw down carbon.? They grow easily, are beautiful and sometimes fragrant, and work for you to create a better garden. You’ll also reduce, as we do, your reliance on synthetic artificial chemical pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, and create a garden that is more resilient, more stable and less toxic. ?

By adopting these practices, we're not just improving the health of our soil; we're also growing more flavorful, more nutrient-dense food with higher levels of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. What we hope to achieve is a resilient system that makes not just world-class food, but also cools the earth, draws down carbon, and holds on to water, storing it in the soil…and you can too.

Feel good about nourishing yourself and the planet with every bite. Find a farm with a regenerative approach and enjoy their fruits and grains and vegetables and nuts and animals and more. And try growing something yourself! It’s easier than you think and so rewarding, and a nature-based solution to food insecurity and climate change.