Regenerative Farming
Regenerative farming has become a buzz word as of late. But what is it? How does it work? And should we care about it?
First, let’s tackle what is regenerative farming. It’s different types of farming practices that try to restore the quality of the soil as the land is being used for farming. The NRDC describes it thus: “As a philosophy and approach to land management, regenerative agriculture asks us to think about how all the aspects of agriculture are connected through a web—a network of entities who grow, enhance, exchange, distribute, and consume goods and services—instead of a linear supply chain.” The goal is to nourish instead of deplete: nourish the earth, animals, and people. It is regenerative because it adds back biodiversity to the soil instead of repeatedly depleting it. Regenerative farming is a more natural way of farming.
There are no specific guidelines of exact practices that farmers must follow to be “regenerative,” but there are basic principals that farmers and ranchers from region to region can implement. Since the basic idea is to nourish the earth, a few good ways to do that is to rotate crops, use natural fertilizers (i.e. animal manure), protect wetlands, rotationally graze, no-till or minimal tilling, cover crops, and more. These are basic ways improving the land. Rotating crops brings diversity to the soil and helps it not to be depleted of nutrients unlike planting the same crop over and over. Animal manure adds nutrients to the soil that are easier on the earth than synthetic fertilizers. Protecting wetlands helps keep our water pure. Rotational grazing insures that the ground is being fertilized without destroying the grass by over grazing. No-till or minimal tillage helps the nutrients stay in the soil since the ground is not open to run off from precipitation or irrigation. And cover crops can add diversity and nutrients back into the ground.
The healthier our earth is, the better our food we grow in and on it will be. We want to be growing the most optimal food for our nutrition and for our animals.
In addition to the health of the soil, one reason this is important to us at MarGro Farms is that we believe that this is one way we can be good stewards of the earth. While many say that this helps fight climate change, we try not to get too caught up in the scare tactics of all that as the climate has always been changing to one degree or another. That being said, we do believe that God gave us this land and these animals to have dominion over and to care for. We want to do that to the best of our abilities. We realize that good farming practices are apart of us glorifying God through our farm.
As the consumer why should this matter to you? Again, for the nutritional value of your food and for the care of the earth. Plus, many of the farmers that are going more of a regenerative route are small farms. By supporting regenerative farming, you’re often supporting small family farms like us!
We’ve been implementing regenerative farming practices before they were cool. We have been rotationally grazing our milk cows for many many years. Our heifers and steers rotationally graze pastures in the summer and are put out on corn stalks over the winter. We use their manure as fertilizer on the fields that we find need it most through testing. We’ve worked extensively with our local conservation office to protect our wetlands. The only time we till up our ground is when it is so packed down by equipment or livestock that it needs to be broken up. We also do cover crops when we can.
So many small farms do live by many regenerative principals. Regenerative farming is something we all should support in one way or another as it is a way of caring for the land. No farm is perfect, we certainly aren’t. But every step towards caring for the soil is a step worth taking.
