All the talk with food and we need to look at one of the main root causes of all these chemicals put on/in our food to help preserve it. The soil health in the United States is not great. The country is losing fertile soil at a rate that is much faster than nature can replenish it, Tilling kills microorganisms that help keep soil healthy and productive. It also makes it easier for soil to be washed away by rain and wind. For others reading this the Documentary Kiss the Ground is good to watch or this web site What is the State of Soils in the USA? - Earthworm
Agree! Another knowledgeable person is Paul Gautschi. He is on YouTube “Back to Eden Gardening.”
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I’m not sure I understand the policy proposition here. What would you like to see from the government?
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There are people within the government’s AG sector who have been trying to stop and teach the farmers about the problems with over tilling. What happens to the soil when it becomes straight-up dirt, Dust Bowl, ( Contributing Factors
Due to low crop prices and high machinery costs, more submarginal lands were put into production. Farmers also started to abandon soil conservation practices. These events laid the groundwork for the severe soil erosion that would cause the Dust Bowl.)
In response to the Dust Bowl disaster, the Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), was formed. This government agency aims to promote more environmentally sustainable farming techniques.
so we do have a government department already. They could go in and over time teach farmers how to get the nutrients back into the soil without using pesticides and over-tilling.
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I think if farmers were to have sufficient (affordable) land and encouraging the tried-and-true practice of leaving a portion of the farmland ‘fallow’ and use crop rotation methods, the soil would have time to recover. I recently saw where a dried-up landscape was revitalized by the ‘dumping’ of orange peels onto it. Just an example.
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yes, I saw a documentary a few years ago about that. Someone dumped industry waste of solely orange peels somewhere in Central or South America. In very short order a rain forest grew!
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We need to move away from plant food sources, we can save our soils and feed our people with Ruminant pasture agriculture.
Look up Peter Balderstadt aka the Sod Father
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