10/19/2024
There is a lot of information being published these days about the connection between regeneratively grown produce and the nutrient density of food. Yes, Organic is the gold standard for vetted ecological growing methods, and it avoids a TON of toxic chemicals used in conventional agriculture, but it usually replaces chemical w**d killers with tillage, which destroys mycorrhizal fungal networks that can deliver way more nutrients to the plants. Plus, each tillage event burns up organic matter in the soil, (suggested 1% each time by Michael Phillips in “Mycorrhizal Planet”) gasifying it into CO2 in the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.
There is also a BIG difference between industrial organic and small-scale family farms. In industrial agriculture, most of the labor is mechanized with big equipment to save $ at the expense of soil health and paying workers. In order to mechanize they also have to do monocultures for ease of harvest, and use chemical pesticides. Nowhere in nature are there monocultures because the symbiotic relationships between a wide diversity of living things is the very fabric a healthy ecosystem is made of.
Why do wild forests thrive without the need for chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides etc.? Because of the diversity of life in natural environments. Environmental triggers cause specific plants to germinate to attract the right microbes that can deliver exactly the right nutrients at the plant roots, or to remediate toxins or physical damage, or draw particular minerals from the bedrock, and probably lots of other reasons we are just starting to understand. Soil scientist Dr. Christine Jones describes “Quorum Sensing” where there is a minimum number of ecological players needed to set all natural systems in motion, whether it be the number of plant species or microbe species (even in our gut). Our conventional system of monocropping and killing all the microbes with chemical fertilizers and tillage, completely shuts down the rich growth of diversity, carbon sequestration, and nutrient potential that is possible through regenerative agriculture.
By not using tilling or microbe killing chemicals, regenerative agriculture nourishes the soil microbiome and keeps living plants in the ground as much as possible to feed soil microbes through sugary plant root secretions called root exudates. The plants can change the sugary recipe to attract the specific microbes it needs to deliver exactly the right nutrients at the root zone by absorbing the microbe’s waste and their bodies when the microbes die. Keeping this active and diverse microbiome at the root zone is key to growing nutrient dense food!
In the book “What your Food Ate”, we see some of the first comparative tests between nutrient density of vegetables grown in regenerative, organic and conventional systems, and there are huge differences between each one! One of the farms featured in the book was Singing Frogs Farm in Napa Valley and they were one of the first farms I visited to learn their methods. I recently reached out to them to find out about their testing and they confirmed that our soil health scores are right in line with theirs, which is super exciting! Many people have heard our food is not as nutritious as it was for our grandparents, and it’s because of the vast majority of our food production systems. In the Book “Food Fix”, Dr. Mark Hyman talks about how chronic diseases are tied to our food system and how regeneratively grown, nutrient dense food can greatly impact our health, but seemingly the general public is not really hearing or understanding this information.
There’s a fad diet going around now that aims for 30 plants a week, which is great in itself just for the increased fiber, which most Americans don’t get enough of, (plus fiber is a favorite food for our gut microbes) but if you are eating conventional grocery store produce, you are getting a fraction of the benefits you would get if you ate regeneratively grown produce from healthy living soil! The USDA recommends at least 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day and some research suggests we should be consuming 15 servings a day for optimal health, yet 90% of Americans don’t consume even the minimum recommended amounts! I’m going to suggest that one of the best things you can do for your health is to eat a big salad of as many different plants as you can, that are grown on a regenerative, diverse farm like ours with high organic matter and microbial biomass, for at least one meal every day!
In addition to the health benefits, the environmental benefits are huge in regenerative systems! In a regenerative system with lots of microbial activity, including mycorrhizal fungi, those sugary root exudates are Carbon put back in the soil. Plants are still the best carbon sequestration tool on the planet, especially perennials including trees! (more on that later…) Those sugary exudates, as well as Glomalin from mycorrhizae and other Carbon chains from different bacteria, also bind small particles of soil together to form larger aggregates, giving soil a structure that can hold together and not wash or blow away. The United Nations in 2014 said there were less than 60 years of soil left if we continue current conventional agricultural practices, and erosion is a huge part of that. Erosion happens when soil is degraded to the point of losing the soil life that gives it structure, usually through chemicals and tillage, and there is no artificial way to rebuild soil structure, it needs the living microbiology! The good news is that regenerative farming methods can rebuild soil pretty quickly.
When the soil has good structure and life, including burrowing insects and worms, it creates stable passages (held open by the carbon “glues”) in the soil to allow air and water to infiltrate, allowing water to percolate in and stay and not run off, like it does in damaged, structureless soil with low organic matter. Most farmland in this country is less than 1% organic matter right now, which is not even enough to sustain soil microbial life. Organic matter can hold water, which helps mitigate floods AND droughts, which are increasingly common as the climate warms. For every 1% in organic matter in the soil, soil can hold 16,500 – 20,000 gallons of water per acre. Not only that, high organic matter can improve water quality as it filters out pollutants. (remember most of our water cleansing filter systems use charcoal, a very stable form of Carbon, and the root exudates and soil organic matter are essentially Carbon as well).
At the Paris Climate Summit in 2015, regenerative agriculture was proposed as the best solution for mitigating climate change. The 4 per 1000 initiative proposed by the French government showed how if we could scale regenerative agriculture to just 10% of all agriculture, we could reverse climate change.
With all these benefits of regenerative agriculture for both the health of people and the planet, why is it not getting more support? That’s a good question, read the book “Food Fix” for more background on these issues. Unfortunately, we live in a system where profits and the fallacy of constant economic growth is the priority, not general well being. The 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling also allows corporations to influence our politicians through financial contributions, and the agrochemical companies basically dictate current agricultural policy through this ( Watch the films “Common Ground” and :”Kiss the Ground” for more information about this). Public education can help. Some people are interested in solutions for climate change when they find out about Regenerative Agriculture but unfortunately Chronic Disease is usually the impetus for most people to discover the benefits of Regenerative Agriculture as they look for solutions for their own health issues.
In the book “Food FIx”, Dr Mark Hyman, Head of Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic states, “while agriculture may seem like a distant concern best left to farmers, we must all come to terms with the fact that it is the most important aspect of our world today”.
I feel like the work we do at Dayton Urban Grown is the most important work we can do today for the health of people and the planet. We have increased our soil organic matter to 12-18% over the past eight years using regenerative methods, our PLFA Microbial Biomass is over 4500 and our Microbial Functional Group Diversity Index is 2.17, both off the literal charts at the highest quality (see our soil tests in our FB photo album!). I am working on getting some nutrient density testing on our crops, but generally it is tied to soil health. If you want the most nutrient dense food in the area, I dare say our soil is almost certainly the best in the area and therefore our produce should be the most nutrient dense. As this kind of testing becomes more accessible, maybe people will choose regeneratively grown food more often. The Bionutrient Food Association has been working on a scanner that the general public can test produce for themselves, in support of small regenerative farmers who currently impoverish themselves by doing this important work, without the recognition of the general public. Producing this kind of quality food is also VERY physically demanding and labor intensive to avoid the mechanical tillage and chemical sprays and fertilizers that would damage the soil microbiome. Because of the hard physical labor and low wages, not to mention the astronomical prices of farmland; there are very few people even getting into agriculture right now. If you want to continue to have access to this quality of food and environmental services, farmers need to be able to make a living doing it.
Spread the word and educate yourself and please support small regenerative farmers!
If you are interested in our nutrient dense, regeneratively grown food, look for information coming soon on our super salad subscription CSA with 20-50 different varieties of greens in the mix, available in very limited quantities, or you can message me at [email protected] for more info.
