What is regenerative agriculture for soil health and how does it promote sustainable development and environmental security?
RK once you had more answers, I’ll feel more comfortableto join. I am presently undertaking invertebrate surveying across Cotswold farms, some transitioning from ‘standard management’ to organic certification, some on the routeway already. Amongst the owners and farm managers there is uncertainty as to quite what ‘regenerative’ actually means, and specifically any level or amount of action taken to use the title‘regenerative’?
Rk, I have yet to scale the heights of a PhD yet, I am plain Marc, thanks for the promotion though.
Regenerative agriculture is a holistic farming system that focuses on soil health, food quality, biodiversity improvement, water quality and air quality. It improves soil health through practices that increase soil organic matter, biota and biodiversity. By keeping living roots in the soil, cover crops reduce soil erosion, increase water retention, improve soil health, increase biodiversity, and more. They can be planted during harvest time or in between rows of permanent crops. In principle, natural inputs help improve soil structure and its organic carbon content, while planting water-guzzling and water-efficient crops together or in alternating cycles reduce the frequency and intensity of irrigation. They conserve energy used by irrigation aids such as pumps. Soil health is defined as “the capacity of soil to function as a vital living system, within ecosystem and land-use boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and promote plant and animal health”. Soil is an important resource for everything from human health to agriculture to water filtration. The imperative benefit of healthy soil is food production. Healthy soils also give us clean air and water, plentiful crops and forests, diverse wildlife and beautiful landscapes. By farming using soil health principles and systems that include no-till, cover cropping, and diverse rotations, more and more farmers are increasing their soil's organic matter and improving microbial activity. Soil health describes the biological integrity of the soil community-the balance among organisms within a soil and between soil organisms and their environment." Soil quality is a term that we use when we talk about the physical attributes of soil. Physical attributes can be as basic as color. Social, economic and environmental development should and carefully planned taking the availability of resources into account. Thus, the concept of sustainable development has a social orientation. It aims to preserve social and cultural stability, including reducing the number of destructive conflicts. In relation to this, the concept of sustainable development was defined as a balance between environmental protection and economic growth that promotes community prosperity and ensures a future for the next generation. Environmental management helps you identify degradation factors and implement strategies to mitigate them. It also helps you predict future impacts of environmental degradation and initiate processes to minimize the effects.
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