Healthy Soil for Healthy People

Soil touches us in so many ways, from sequestering carbon and impacting the weather, to the quantity, flavor and nutrients of our food. Yet most of us never think about the microscopic life beneath our feet, and yet it has much in common with the gut microbe biome.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/healthy-soil-microbes-healthy-people/276710/

As we destroy the soil biodiversity, we run the risk of killing off ourselves. Although this article is a decade old, the urgency of its message has only continued to increase.

It is estimated that if 20 million acres converted to regenerative agriculture methods, and farmers focused on feed the soil, not the plants – that is, growing the soil microbes that feed the plants, that the entire carbon footprint of the US could be offset.

To put that number into context, the state of Iowa has 26 million acres of farmland. If Regen Iowa succeeds in proving to farmers with 1 million acres in Iowa that Regen Ag improves their bottom line, then 20 million is achievable as quickly as we can grow and deliver the complete soil microbe biome.

Published by Elizabethp

RegenIowa restores the indigenous soil ecosystem and seeks to convert 1 million acres from conventional, fertilizer based farming to biological farming by 2025, in Iowa. This is done with soil conditioning, minerals and a combination of a broad biodiversity of local fungi, protozoans, bacteria, microscopic insects and other soil life. This microbiome cycles plant nutrients which feeds plants the way nature intended. Mitigating climate change and better food are additional benefits.

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