Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

by Yvon Chouinard

And I believe that revolution starts, to paraphrase David Brower, by “turning around and taking a step forward.” In other words, we need to go back to the old ways of farming, with organic practices, biodynamics, and crop rotation leading the way. Farmers in Brazil used green manures and legume cover crops to double their yields of corn and wheat. Scientists at the Washington State Bread Lab and the Land Institute in Kansas are rediscovering perennial wheat and other heritage grains that require less water and little topsoil disruption. A recent study by Technische Universitat Munchen showed that organic farms emit around 20 percent less greenhouse gases per yield unit than conventional farms.34 The Rodale Institute found that organically managed soils can actually sequester more carbon than they release.35 They found that if all cropland were converted to the regenerative model, it would absorb 40 percent of annual carbon dioxide releases, and if ranching lands were to do the same, those lands would absorb an additional 71 percent.36 As we confront global climate change, increasing drought, and a diminishing supply of fossil fuels, it’s clearly time to rethink our agricultural practices.

looking ahead