Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 8
In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International
NUMBER 179
Regenerative Agriculture Innovations
W W W. H O L I S T I C M A N A G E M E N T. O R G
save the date ____________________________________________
BY ANN ADAMS
I
had the privilege of attending the Regenerative Agriculture Field Day at the holistically-managed 7,600-acre Paicines Ranch that was a pre-conference event for the 2018 Ecofarm Conference held in Pacific Grove, California this past January. This day-long event featured Holistic Management practitioners Gabe Brown and Paicines Ranch Manager Kelly Mulville as well as soil experts Ray Archuleta, Dr. David Johnson, Ray Archuleta and Tim LaSalle. Over 100 people attended this field day. The next day Ray, Gabe, and David offered a day-long Regenerative Agriculture Carbon+Soil=Solutions! Regenerative Agriculture Intensive at Asilomar which was also well-attended. Then on Friday of the conference, I gave a presentation with Spencer and Abbey Smith of the Jefferson Center for Holistic Management on “Regenerative Grazing: Managing Healthy Ecosystem Processes Using Livestock.” It was a great group of attendees at that workshop who asked a lot of good questions about how to actually put into practice these principles they had been hearing about all week long. What I was struck by during my time at Ecofarm and in talking with attendees and colleagues is just how much innovation is happening right now. It’s exploding! The interest in and increasing understanding of soil is phenomenal. I went to Ecofarm for the first time 12 years ago and again two years ago. It’s a great, cutting-edge conference, but I didn’t really notice that much difference between those two years. This year felt so much difference and perhaps it was because there was so much focus on the concept of regenerative agriculture
and how that does or doesn’t relate to organic agriculture. That is a critical conversation as it moves us more toward really looking at soil health and the practices to create living, resilient, regenerative soils. With that in mind I’d like to share with you some lessons learned from the conference.
Soil Health Innovations
nurture resilience, build diversity
REGENERATE
2018
Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2018
Albuquerque, NM
At the Regenerative Agriculture Field Day at Paicines we learned about the importance of the appropriate fungal:bacteria ratio for compost from Dr. David Johnson from New Mexico State University who is focused on BEAM (Biologically Enhanced Agriculture Management). The compost is so potent that people are using one pound of it in 30 gallons/acre to spray as a seed inoculate at planting time. One compost pile will yield about 1000 pounds. The compost produces a five times increase in production for a cost of only 25 cents/acre. We also heard from Ray “The Soil Guy” Archuleta who started his presentation with the ever popular soil demonstration to show how much better a no-till, biologically active soil can hold together in water and yet allow for better infiltration of the water during a rain event. He noted that tilled soil causes the soil to cannibalize itself. Also, the glomalin in the soil only lasts 27 days, so more glomalin must constantly be created through the microbial activity around the root of plants. This soil structure, along with ground cover, helps to stabilize soil which must withstand the force of a raindrop coming 20 mph. Increasing plants in the soil also help us from “leaking sunlight” by CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Regenerative Agriculture Innovations INSIDE THIS ISSUE The drive to determine how to better incorporate regenerative agricultural practices that work in a given situation or location is on. In this issue you will read the stories of how people from California to New Mexico to Ohio to New York are using Holistic Management to help them create healthy land, healthy food, and healthy lives.