When I founded the Tahoe Food Hub, I wanted to create a non-profit organization which supported farms using these restorative, sustainable farming practices. It was my hope that a food hub could increase the market potential for local, sustainably-grown food and help local farms receive a fair price.

With increased access to new markets, more farms would want to farm using these ecological techniques. More farms would mean more carbon sequestered. More carbon sequestered would mean we have a fighting chance against climate change.

Let’s take a deep dive into how regenerative agriculture can mitigate climate change and how small to medium size farms are the answer to not only making the dream possible but also feed the world.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative Agriculture is like Organic but goes a few steps further. Organic can assure you that the land where the food is grown was managed without the use of GMO’s and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. But the Organic label can’t tell you about the health of the soil and if it is being regenerated through a series of core principles that put back what farming took away. To be regenerative agriculture, you need compost applications, minimal tillage, crop rotations, cover crops, and biodiversity above and below ground. These practices feed the soil which grows healthy plants. Healthy plants have strong root systems. Roots are where carbon is sequestered. Carbon rich soil can retain more water to help improve drought tolerance.

Regenerative Agriculture Can Mitigate Climate Change?

Carbon sequestration may sound complicated, but it starts with something we learned in elementary school, photosynthesis. With photosynthesis, plants pull carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The plants convert CO2 into sugar or carbohydrates pushing it down into the roots to feed the soil microbes living symbiotically among the roots (fungi, nematodes, bacteria protozoa, etc.). The microbes decompose the organic compounds releasing important nutrients the plant needs like nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, etc. The plant then off-gases oxygen back out its leaves so we humans can breathe.

The Rodale Institute explained it this way in the 2008 Grist.org article: regenerative farming helps soil grow healthy fungi that protect plant roots and store carbon. But when synthetic fertilizers are used, those fungi die and the carbon escapes back into the air as carbon dioxide. Conventional farming, which relies heavily on synthetic inputs, contributes significantly to global warming. Regenerative farming, however, has the potential to help reverse it.

Rodale’s 2020 Soil Carbon Solution Report

After 40 years of side-by-side trials comparing yields of organic and synthetic farming practices, the Rodale Institute published a Soil Carbon Solution Report in 2020 backing up claims from the 2008 interview. Rodale reported that grazing lands account for more than 70% of the global agricultural land.

Regenerative agriculture, when combined with holistic grazing of our rangelands, has the potential to draw down a considerable amount of atmospheric carbon. If managed properly, grazing lands provide the greatest potential to sequestering carbon.

If animal feedlots with their bare dirt were replaced with pasture, then livestock could be rotationally grazed on open fields growing their own food as they spread their own manure. To raise livestock in this way, we would need to raise less animals for meat consumption so they could live in smaller herds. But the end result is pastured-land would have permanent grasses with deep root systems for sequestering carbon. According to the Rodale Institute, if regenerative systems were achieved globally, it could draw down 100% of annual CO2 emissions. If we can manage the current amount of carbon being emitted then it buys us time to reduce the legacy of carbon already in the atmosphere.

In 2018, Our World in Data found that 30% of global crop production is grown on farms under 5 acres.

60% of crops are grown on farms under 120 acres proving that we are not far away from small to medium size farms being able to feed the world. Smaller farms can be more efficient, often use less inputs, and can more easily adapt to changes in climate as well as transition to regenerative farming practices.

Where do we go from here.

A lot has to change for all this to happen. More farms need to transition to regenerative. Collectively, humans need to change how we eat. And politicians need to be on board and implement comprehensive change. But it is possible. The solution already exists in nature with regenerative agriculture. If consumers demand produce and proteins grown using regenerative agricultural practices, supply will meet demand. It is simple economics. There are over 500 food hubs nationwide. These food hubs can support small to medium sized farms using climate-smart practices, facilitate their growth and provide a regional and equitable marketplace to sell their products. Vote for food grown locally using sustainable and regenerative farming practices and we can take a bite out of climate change.