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UK: ‘Sustainable isn’t a thing’: why regenerative agriculture is food’s latest buzzword

James Rebanks on his Cumbrian farm. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Observer

Everyone from small farms to McDonald’s is getting involved in regenerative agriculture. Could it point the way to a better future for farming?

By Tim Lewis
The Guardian
July 18, 2021

Excerpt:

Regeneration is a buzzword in farming these days. It is the subject of Ted talks: Allan Savory, a farmer originally from Zimbabwe and a leader in the movement, claimed in a 2013 lecture watched online at least 7.5m times that following its principles could “reverse” climate change. It has a Netflix documentary, Kiss the Ground, a 2020 film narrated by Woody Harrelson, which jumps off from the UN’s projection that unless we find a way to repair our soil, we have only 60 harvests left before our topsoil is gone (though this claim is contested by recent research from Oxford University, which called it “overblown”). Gabe Brown’s 2018 book, Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture, is the movement’s holy text.

Brown, a North Dakota rancher and farmer, landed on regenerative methods in the 1990s after four years of freak storms led to huge crop failures and cattle deaths. He argues there are numerous benefits for farmers who focus on the health of their soil, not least the money they will save on fertiliser and other treatments. Healthy soils also absorb water and carbon dioxide, and Brown’s land has been shown to have up to three times as much soil carbon as that of his neighbours. It’s argued that, if emulated on a large scale, this could have a significant impact on global heating.

Read the complete article here.