Only small farms solve.

“The uniformity at the heart of these systems, and their reliance on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and preventive use of antibiotics, leads systematically to negative outcomes and vulnerabilities.” [4]

At the same time, the climate crisis bears down. A decade ago, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said we needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 44 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (44 GtCO2e) by 2020 [5]. If we did nothing new to mitigate climate crisis, projections suggested that by 2020 annual emissions might be 56 GtCO2e, leaving a gap of 12 GtCO2e between the carbon already in the atmosphere and our desire to continue living normally on Earth [5].

In 2018, total global emissions were 55.3 GtCO2e—approaching the worst case scenario [6]. (A seven percent reduction every year for the next decade is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C) [6]. What’s more, “accelerated soil erosion may be the second largest source of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and its credible estimates are not known” [7]. We spent the last decade walking a path to a precipice. The emissions cuts needed now “may seem impossible,” says Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UNEP, “but we have to try” [6].

And yet, there is hope right beneath our feet. There is a biotechnology for massive planetary rehabilitation that is tested and available for widespread dissemination right now. The cost is minimal and it is adaptable to local contexts the world over. It can be rolled out tomorrow providing multiple benefits beyond climate stabilization. The solution is farming. Not just business-as-usual industrial farming, but farming like the Earth matters. Farming in a way that restores the quality of soil, water, air, ecosystems, animals, and ultimately humanity. Farming that improves our soil’s natural ability to function so the planet and all of its life can also function. This kind of farming is called regenerative agriculture.

Regenerative agriculture revitalizes land. It’s a systems approach where farmers work with nature, not against it. It’s a biological model based on principles of ecology. With the farmer’s help, farm and rangeland can lock carbon underground, thereby restoring degraded soils, addressing food insecurity, and mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis on food production. Regenerative agriculture is also our best hope for a quick drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Let us learn from regenerative farmers who have been cooperating with nature, who have “solved for pattern” [8]. Their results are the inspiration that will fuel a wholesale shift away from the failed era of sustainability to a golden age of regeneration.

Agricultural Emissions

Agriculture as practiced across most of the world is not yet part of the solution—it’s part of the problem. Rather than mitigating the climate crisis, it is a net producer of greenhouse gas emissions both directly through conventional industrial farming practices, and indirectly through land-use change and the greater food system [10]. Agriculture production accounts for around ten percent of annual emissions (6.2 Gt CO2e) [11]. The food system at large, including fertilizer and pesticide manufacture, processing, transportation, refrigeration and waste disposal, accounts for 30% or more of total annual emissions [11].

With the widespread industrialization of farming in the mid-20th century, contemporary agricultural practices, such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, intensive tillage, monocropping, and yieldbased management systems, accelerated the depletion of soil carbon stocks [10,12]. Most agricultural soils have lost from 30% to 75% of their original soil organic carbon to the atmosphere due to conventional farming practices [13]. Two-thirds of the world’s corn and wheat cropland now have less than two percent soil organic carbon [14]. Nitrous oxide emissions have been rising due to nitrogen fertilizer over-use [11], and the intensification of livestock and rice production has exacerbated release of methane (CH4) [11].

Yet, there is hope. These degraded soils hold the promise for regeneration. Degraded farm soils are some of the best soils on the planet to achieve carbon drawdown: they are already highly managed, they’re accessible, and they have the capacity to hold a lot of carbon—all it takes are management changes to make this happen. While soils are inherently different, agricultural soils were chosen because they are productive and they have the natural capacity to store carbon over long timescales.

Regenerative agriculture, with its focus on achieving positive ecosystem outcomes, can be practiced under many names: agroecology, organic, biodynamic, holistic, conservation, permaculture, management intensive grazing, agroforestry and more. There won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach for regeneration of degraded farm and rangeland, but the vanguard of regenerative farmers and researchers know enough now to provide guidance for each farm given its specific physical, environmental, social and economic contexts. Farming in ways that sequester carbon is not just possible in many places, it’s already happening across the world.