Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world

http://theconversation.com/healthy-soil-is-the-real-key-to-feeding-the-world-75364
Date Written:  2017-04-03
Publisher:  The Conversation
Year Published:  2017
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22789

Some of the more common myths regarding the modern agricultural industry are outlined, notably that large scale commercial farming provides higher yields and greater diversity of products. Indeed the author contests the coversation should move beyond conventional farming vs organic, and that it is regenerative farming practices that concentrate on soil health that will provide the best solution.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

When I embarked on a six-month trip to visit farms around the world to research my forthcoming book, "Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life," the innovative farmers I met showed me that regenerative farming practices can restore the world's agricultural soils. In both the developed and developing worlds, these farmers rapidly rebuilt the fertility of their degraded soil, which then allowed them to maintain high yields using far less fertilizer and fewer pesticides.

Their experiences, and the results that I saw on their farms in North and South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ghana and Costa Rica, offer compelling evidence that the key to sustaining highly productive agriculture lies in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil. This journey also led me to question three pillars of conventional wisdom about today's industrialized agrochemical agriculture: that it feeds the world, is a more efficient way to produce food and will be necessary to feed the future.