Regenerative systems

A regenerative design is based on lots of choices: what should the system look like? Which plants, crops and trees are combined into a planted ecosystem? And how does the business model looks like? But this above-ground design must then also be translated to the subsoil: the soil life must be completely in line with the above-ground planting. Because the associated soil life is quite different for different grasses, row crops, shrubs or trees. That's what this blogpost is about. The Soilfoodweb More and more we are discovering that the subsoil is not an inert medium, but that a healthy soil is full with an abundance of life. And life adapts to the circumstances and is therefore not always the same. Yet if you look at healthy soils, there are clearly groups of organisms living together in the soil in a well functioning ecosystem. Some are receiving exudates from plants, other are eating dead plant material, or are eating the soil organisms.

In the introductionary blogpost about agroforestry, a few options have been mentioned as possibilities for mixing trees, crops and animals. One of those options was planting trees as a wind barrier. This blogpost is looking into that. How can trees and hedges provide good protection against wind? And what are the gains from a wind barrier? The advantages of wind barriers Wind barriers can have a lot of advantages. The FAO has compiled quite a few of the advantages of a wind barrier: - They protect the (vulnerable) crops and trees behind the barrier - They reduce evaporation of plants - They reduce open water evaporation, so that more water is available for other uses - They protect plants against very high or very cold temperatures of the wind - They make it possible to stabilise dunes (just like dune grasses) - They can protect the crops behind the barrier against salt spray from the sea - They improve pollination by insects (less easily blown away). Also, the wind barrier ...

The industrial agricultural system is destroying our planet (see the introduction of the previous blog ). But this can be done differently, the agricultural system can be redesigned into a impact-positive regenerative food producing system. It all starts with a proper understanding of (eco)system at the location. This understanding is a necessary input for the system that is to be designed. Every location at this planet is different, so every location at this planet requires a (slightly) different design. The system that is to be designed must maximize the links and dependencies in between plants, but also between plants, soil life and animals, in order to achieve the greatest possible diversity and stability, which ensures the highest possible yield in the long term (multi-layer polyculture instead of monoculture). Although this results in a lower yield per hectare per cultivated crop, you can achieve a greater total yield per hectare. You get the multi-layer system by including sh...

In the "Our Food"-series of my Dutch blog, I have shown that our industrial agricultural system is just not working, because it is destroying our planet (see " Our Food (13) " for the summary). The image below is a good visual summery of all the negative aspects of our industrial agricultural system. The system leads to destruction of fertile soils, increases inequality, results in unequal food distribution (shortage and wasting food), is very fragile in case of pandemics, is susceptible to exploitation of farm workers, contributes to climate change, etc. In short: the industrial agricultural system is having a hug amount of negative consequences. That is why it needs to be done in a different way. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10221112309462382&set=a.2308852965794