How to climate-proof crops: scientists say the secret’s in the dirt (excerpt via Alix Soliman, Nature)
Featured image: Agronomists examine a field where the cash crop, maize, has been harvested and a cover crop, radishes, has been planted to protect soil health. Credit: Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press/Alamy
Evidence is building that regenerative agriculture boosts soil health, which, in turn, could bolster food security.
As climate change threatens farmers’ ability to produce the world’s food, researchers and environmental advocates think they have a solution: playing in the dirt.
“There are lots of ripple effects from the changing climate that are creating challenges for our food system,” says Rob Myers, the director of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia. “The ways we combat that are with biological diversity, more organic matter in the soil — and more integrated approaches.”
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Regenerative agriculture lacks a formal definition, but scientists who spoke to Nature say that its general goal is to rebuild healthy soil. That starts with increasing the proportion of organic matter — including living roots and manure — to feed the soil microbiome and recycle nutrients for plants.
Although the term is modern, regenerative principles are ancient. Implementing them means “returning to some of the practices that we’ve relied upon as a human species for thousands of years”, says Rich Smith, an agricultural ecologist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
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