Worried But Not Surrendering. I Am Convinced That Regenerative Agriculture Can Save Us From Climate Change And Simultaneously Enrich The Earth

I am very worried. Wildfires and heat waves from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Europe to the US, huge sea waves, flash floods and landslides tell me climate change is endangering people all over the world – so, as long as we can do something about those, we should. Starting yesterday!

(images: “We can reverse” from Tecnologia Horticola, tecnologiahorticola.com; “We could sequester” from PA Environment Digest, m.facebook.com)

Here comes Rodale Institute with its appeal for world action: “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change (A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming) [15 pages, published 17 April 2015, Rodale Institute, rodaleinstitute.org]. In the very beginning of that document, Rodale Institute Director Mark Smallwood says:

Regenerative organic agriculture refers to working with nature to utilize photosynthesis and healthy soil microbiology to draw down greenhouse gases.

With the use of cover crops, compost, crop rotation and reduced tillage, we can actually sequester more carbon than is currently emitted, tipping the needle past 100% to reverse climate change.

Instead of “Regenerative Organic Agriculture,” I will continue to use the common term “Regenerative Agriculture” (RA) but likewise exclude bio-fertilizers as concocted in laboratories and include only naturally occurring organic materials.

As far as I know, by itself organic agriculture is regenerative whether you mention or not in combination: “regenerative organic agriculture” or “regenerative agriculture” – initially, organic fertilizers regenerate the health of the soil.

But I prefer to use the term “Regenerative Agriculture” because I have my own RA method that neither calls for concocting a bio-fertilizer nor uses such materials as vegetative mulch or compost. I call mine

Rotavator Organic WEALth – Weeds-Enriched Automatic Layer of Trash Triggering Terrestrial Health.

This is how that organic wealth is instantly produced:

Run the rotavator over the field with standing weeds (and crop refuse if any) with a shallow cut of 2-3 inches of the surface soil, not deeper. The blades will then cut the soil and vegetative matter simultaneously into pieces and in the same rotation mix them well, then lay them all over the field beautifully.

That modifies the concept of trash farming by Edward H Faulkner who wrote the book Plowman’s Folly in July 1943 saying:

“The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing.”

In my 2^nd ICRISAT book (2009), The Smart Revolution (ICRISAT Partners in Research And Development), this is what I wrote about Faulkner’s method (page 22):

[His] book, Plowman’s Folly (1943), taught me… that one could build a rich soil from a poor one by continuously incorporating crop refuse into the topsoil, along with minimizing cultivation, thereby simulating the natural cycle of death and life of organisms…

To Faulkner’s method I introduced shallow rotavation for minimum tillage simultaneous with the automatic creation of a soil-plant mulch all over the field – an original idea that astoundingly enriched my brother-in-law Enso’s harvests for a great many years!

Yes, I do believe my Rotavator Organic WEALth method can help save the world from chemical agriculture – from climate change!@517