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https://www.positive.news/society/regenerative-agriculture-isnt-misty-eyed-nostalgia-its-the-future/>
"“It’s like growing muesli for cows,” says Yeo Valley Organic farmer Tim Mead,
as he describes the smorgasbord of barley, peas and oats that feed the British
food brand’s dairy herd – cereals and pulses thriving side-by-side.
“By growing them together instead of in separate fields [a tactic known as
companion planting], you get crop resilience, you get the peas fixing nitrogen
in the ground for other crops, you get better soil health,” he says.
Yeo Valley Organic led the way in bringing organic food to the masses – the
brand got off the ground in the mid-90s but its roots go back to 1961 when
Mead’s parents purchased Holt Farm in Blagdon, Somerset. They were humble
beginnings – some cows, sheep and a few arable crops, but they soon realised
they could do more than dairy farming. In 1972, the couple opened a tearoom and
a ‘pick-your-own’ fruit farm. Then came yogurt production and the launch of the
Yeo Valley Organic brand in 1994.
Now, the firm is helping sow the seeds of a second revolution, which builds on
its successes with organic cultivation: regenerative agriculture. Companion
planting is just one technique that Mead and a growing tribe of like-minded
farmers are banking on to rebalance agriculture’s relationship with nature,
restore its battered image, and maybe even help save the planet.
“You could argue that every farmer who is degrading their soil is on a runway,”
Mead says. “And at some point that runway runs out. It’s not a question of if
they have to start regenerating it, it’s when.”
At the heart of regenerative farming are a few core principles: keep soil
undisturbed, covered in vegetation, rich in living roots and full of diverse
crops. These simple shifts lock up carbon while restoring soil’s delicate
ecosystem of bugs, fungi and microbes. These in turn keep crops fed and
watered, without synthetic fertilisers.
Introducing livestock onto mixed pastures of herbs, grasses and legumes brings
other co-benefits: the root structure of the diverse plants breaks up compacted
ground, improving water retention, and the cows fertilise it by trampling in
plant matter.
While these measures might sound like a throwback, independent regenerative
farming consultant Niels Corfield stresses this isn’t misty-eyed nostalgia,
it’s the future. One where profit comes not at the expense of nature, but in
harmony with it.
“It’s important not to fall into this trap of feeling that regenerative has to
be old world and low-yielding,” says Corfield. “We’re seeing that as you
improve the health of the land…it becomes more productive, it carries more
animals."
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*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
