Regenerative Agriculture for Health and Sustainability

Nurturing healthy soil is essential to long-term success and food security

Regenerative agriculture gives farmers an edge at a time of fertilizer shortages. (Attasit saentep/Shutterstock)

Soil isn’t just dirt—it’s the base of every ecosystem, a living and life-giving foundation that teems with billions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that fuel a symbiotic ecosystem.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Our modern food and agricultural industries are built on monoculture methods, where large farmlands are planted with only one crop. This results in nutrient loss; chemical contaminants from herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers; and dried and compacted soils that lack biodiversity but host pathogenic species, such as toxigenic molds.

Fortunately, there’s a growing movement to restore soil health and rebuild the very foundation of our food system.

Regenerative agriculture conserves soil health and rehabilitates our food and farming systems. It focuses on regenerating topsoil, which can increase biodiversity, improve the water cycle, support carbon and mineral biosequestration, increase resilience to climate change, and strengthen the health and vitality of soil.

It can also increase the quality of our food and reduce the use of chemical inputs that can affect our health.

A Healthy Soil Ecosystem

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) stated that soil health, also referred to as soil quality, is “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.”

Some definitions of soil health also include its impact on water and air quality, as well as plant and animal health.

The soil ecosystem is a complex community of insects, fungi, and trillions of microscopic organisms. One gram of healthy soil contains 40 million individual bacterial cells. Bacteria are the most plentiful organisms in any ecosystem, as well as the most plentiful organisms on earth.

All organic matter that’s added to soil—root exudates, plant residues, manure, and so forth—becomes food for soil organisms. Soil micro-organisms convert this organic matter into nutrients such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen, which plants need for photosynthesis.

Plants depend on soil organisms for essential minerals and nutrients. Soil organic matter sequesters carbon and holds moisture in the soil. Developing and maintaining a healthy soil ecosystem results in improved nutrient content and long-term sustainability of plant production.

Soil can be stressed by intensive plowing, heavy applications of liquid fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, exposure of soil surfaces to extreme temperatures, and the drying effect of direct sunlight. These soil stressors can compact or erode the soil and deplete its life-giving microbiome.

Soil and Our Gut

It’s little surprise that the health of the human gut microbiome is tied to soil health. Each individual’s gut microbiome is different, but like the soil, the gut microbiome should be diverse and plentiful.

Our microbiome is host to trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that play a variety of essential roles in our intricate biochemistry, from digestion to hormone production.

Its composition affects the functioning of the immune system, the endocrine system, and the nervous system through the production of neurotransmitters and more.

The gut microbiome, therefore, has a direct effect on physical and mental health. Unhealthy diets, some medications, and environmental chemicals can significantly damage the gut microbiome, leading to negative health effects.

Dr. Axe explains how “the foods you eat, how you sleep, the amount of bacteria you’re exposed to on a daily basis and the level of stress you live with all help establish the state of your [gut microbiome].”

The quality of the soil microbiome directly affects the quality of the gut microbiome. Healthy and diverse soil microbiomes result in more nutritious foods that lead to healthier gut microbiomes. The complexity of the soil microbiome affects the health of all other creatures in the ecosystem and the food chain.

Likewise, some chemical additives, such as glyphosate (RoundUp), the most widely used herbicide in the world, are known to damage our microbiome and are linked to neurological problems as well.

Those who promote regenerative agriculture understand that we must change our current agricultural system by developing an ecosystem that’s rich with diverse plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms so that we'll be able to ensure that our soils, crops, and animals—as well as we ourselves—will thrive.

Soil Health Advocates 

There are several groups working to improve the health of our soil for those purposes. The Soil Health Institute (SHI), an international nonprofit focused on safeguarding soil health, uses research and best practices to help farmers and others improve the vitality and productivity of soils.

SHI also brings experts and leaders in soil health science together with industry to conduct research and help landowners and farmers understand how to adopt regenerative soil health systems. Doing so can “contribute economic and environmental benefits to agriculture and society,” according to the Institute.

SHI has also produced a 60-minute documentary, “Living Soil,“ which features diverse food production practices by farmers from across the United States who discuss strategies used to improve soil health.

“Our soils support 95 percent of all food production, and by 2060, our soils will be asked to give us as much food as we have consumed in the last 500 years,” the documentary notes.

“They filter our water. They are one of our most cost-effective reservoirs for sequestering carbon. They are our foundation for biodiversity. And they are vibrantly alive, teeming with 10,000 pounds of biological life in every acre. Yet in the last 150 years, we’ve lost half of the basic building block that makes soil productive.”

In 2014, the Rodale Institute stated that “we could sequester more than 100 percent of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to common and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term ’regenerative organic agriculture.'”

The Soil Health Academy is another nonprofit organization that believes that the “wide-spread adoption of regenerative agriculture has the remarkable potential to restore the health of our bodies, our farms, our communities, and our planet, as well as the economic viability of our nation’s farms and rural communities.”

The challenge is that farmers and ranchers need to learn how to use soil-improving practices, the academy noted.

Fortunately, there’s a growing list of people and organizations that want to help. The Bionutrient Food Association, the Organic Farming Research Foundation, Farmer’s Footprint, and many other groups and formal organizations are working to improve soil health and promote regenerative farming practices in the United States and around the world.

Making the Regenerative Switch

For farmers that take up regenerative practices, there are significant benefits, including lower input costs and rich soil capable of withstanding restrictions in chemical inputs. That point has particular relevance as many countries around the world face a shortage of fertilizer, prompting concerns about food security.

The NRCS stated that the four principles used to promote soil health are to minimize disturbance by not tilling the soil, maximize soil cover by planting cover crops, maximize biodiversity, and maximize the presence of living roots in the soil.

Determinants of soil health include air, water, soil organic matter, and minerals. Farmers can improve soil health by incorporating cover crops, crop rotation, remineralization, livestock, and natural predators.

Cover crops are planted to cover soil but aren’t harvested. They help to aerate soil, promote water absorption and reduce erosion, and protect soil from temperature extremes and compaction. They increase soil quality and fertility by providing nutrients to enhance the biodiversity of soil microorganisms or biomass and build soil organic matter. Cover crops also help to reduce weeds, pests, and diseases.

The Rodale Institute defines crop rotation as “the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure.” This diversity improves soil health.

Soil remineralization involves the addition of silica or granite basalt rock powder or seawater to soil in order to provide essential minerals that have been depleted by over-intensive conventional farming practices. Modern farming uses just nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, while remineralization provides these and other essential minerals as well.

Grazing livestock on farmland also helps build a healthy soil microbiome. Plants develop stronger root systems after being grazed on. The hoofs of roaming animals help to aerate soil while manure adds nutrients.

Feeding soil microorganisms with livestock manure, compost, and other organic plant residues provide for both crop and livestock nutrition. This has been a foundational principle of organic agriculture. The use of natural predators helps reduce plant infections.