REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE

Conventional thinking has generally suggested that organic and/or regenerative farming practices, when measured by conventional short term methods, did not always result in the highest output or present the neatest, cleanest farms. As a result, conventional wisdom has generally promoted the quick-fix easy solutions. For example as yields have declined along with organic carbon, we have added more urea, decreased our soil organic carbon further, mined more nutrients, used more water or grown plants that are less demanding on water and nutrients. 

It takes time to overcome soil health problems - there are no silver bullets or quick fixes. “It takes time for organic matter to build up, so we wouldn‘t have seen these surprising results had we only looked after a few years,” says John Teasdale USDA.  

Farmers are not necessarily being encouraged to go “cold turkey” and adopt a policy of “organic fundamentalism” but to minimize agrichemicals like synthetic fertilizer nitrogen, not to eliminate them. In much the same way as we use integrated pest management (IPM) integrated nutrient management draws on the proven principles of organic agriculture.