The Regenerative Farm Working to Improve Soil Without Fertilisers
5th June 2022
Let’s see:
- Reference to Ukraine? Check.
- Reference to ‘climate crisis’? Check.
- Buzz-phrase ‘wakeup call’? Check.
- Suggestion that one instance means a trend? Check.
- Start with a cozy story rather than getting to the point? Check.
- Buzz-phrase ‘sustainable’? Check.
- Creating a new hip-and-trendy term (‘regenerative’) for farming techniques that are centuries old? Check.
- Assumption that farming needs a government ‘scheme’? Check.
- Spouse has a professional outside job that no doubt brings in serious money? Check.
- Fruits and veg good, meat bad? Check.
- Buzz-phrase ‘climate-friendly’? Check.
- Buzz-phrase ‘carbon negative’? Check.
This is one criticism of regenerative farming, which O’Connell concedes: on farms where fields are left empty for perhaps one year in three, the yield is lower than those farmed in more industrial ways with crops fed by synthetic fertilisers. If all food was produced in this way, critics say, people could go hungry.
No shit, Sherlock. One-field-in-three-fallow is how they did it during the Middle Ages. Nothing new about it. The reason people adopted ‘more industrial ways’ was to grow more food and feed more people.