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

by Yvon Chouinard

The traditional assumption has been that once land is degraded, it is degraded forever. Some farmers have found, however, that not only is restoration possible, but it can happen very quickly. By ditching the plow and the spray plane, and using techniques such as cover-cropping, composting, crop rotation, and holistic grazing, farmers can create productive healthy soils within just a couple of years. These soils require less water, produce higher yields during drought, and generally cost less to farm than their modern agriculture counterparts.28, 29 It turns out that healthy soils also sequester carbon, a lot of carbon. Cover crops and regenerative grazing techniques increase photosynthesis, which sucks carbon dioxide out of the air and sinks it in the ground. The switch from chemicals to compost feeds the bacteria and fungi that aid the process, and nondisruptive no-till systems keep the carbon locked in.30, 31 Estimates vary, but even the low end of the spectrum suggests that a global switch to regenerative land husbandry would sequester our total annual emissions back underground.32 Which means we could reverse the trends of global warming simply by changing the way we farm and ranch.

ag is the key