"Healthy soils for a healthy climate" – in 6 words, Jean-Paul Courtens gives us a simple guide towards resolving climate change. Above image is from the email linking to his article "What Have We Learned? Healthy Soils For A Healthy Climate" (02 March 2019, Real Organic Project, realorganicproject.org).
The email introduces Mr Courtens' video talk in these words: "Watch biodynamic farmer Jean-Paul Courtens of Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook, New York speak about (agriculture's) pivotal role in reversing Climate Change."
"Agriculture's pivotal role in reversing Climate Change." I have always believed that,if not said it in those words, since 2007, months before Al Gore along with the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize. (See my essay, "The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop," 04 February 2007, ICRISAT Watch, blogspot.com.).
As I write this, I check on Facebook and here comes my friend Joby Arandela sharing about regenerative agriculture, with the 6–layer graphic that begins to say: "For a farm in drought, the carbon left in the soil can be as low as 0.5–1%." You're not communicating, my dear – you're only scaring me.
I google for "regenerative agriculture" (regenerativeagriculturedefinition.com), and it begins to tell me about its "4 principles" – I find them too complicated for me, sorry! So back to Mr Courtens, who is now saying:
It's like what we need here is a "future thinking" – thinking outside the box. And we have to come up with something that will allow nature and help nature to come back in the equilibrium that we have disrupted.
It is the soil that will allow nature and help nature to come back. And Mr Courtens points to organic farming, "as it was intended is based on the fundamental principle of integrity; that everything in nature is interdependent, and that a farm is a living organism."
I remember Edward H Faulkner telling me something like that in his book Soil Development that I read in the 1960s, that the soil is, or should be, alive – alive with minute and not-so-minute plants and animals. Only a live soil is rich. Only a live soil will "help nature to come back in the equilibrium that we have disrupted."
Mr Courtens asks, "So isn't it safe to conclude that a healthy farm has most of its land covered?... And the best way to do that of course, is to cover it with grass and legumes and put some animals on it."
Even without animals and without manure from somewhere else, my soil should still be healthy with grasses and legumes growing. Trash farming is how Mr Faulkner put it. He taught me to incorporate weeds and crop refuse on the top soil, rotavating them with shallow bites of the blades so that the soil and plant matter are cut into pieces and mixed together to make a living mulch all over the field.
How important is that? Mr Courtens says 1% organic matter on 1.6 billion hectares is 102 billion tons of carbon dioxide sequestered.
Climate change, we've got you covered!517
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