It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? That something as simple and as abundant as the soil can actually help us tackle the world’s most challenging and urgent problem – climate change. But it can.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that soil is in fact teeming with life. In just one handful of soil, there are more living organisms than there are people on the planet. And these microorganisms need feeding. That’s where the carbon comes in.
As plants grow, they draw in CO2 from the atmosphere and through photosynthesis convert this into oxygen and carbon. The carbon is sent down through its roots and released into the soil to feed the microorganisms that then create healthy soil.
This carbon-rich, healthy soil creates a nutritious environment for the plants to grow, allowing the cycle of drawing down carbon and storing it in the soil to play out over and over again.
“Carbon is not the enemy here….it’s just that the balance has been disrupted and we now have too much carbon in our atmosphere and not enough in our soil.”
You see, carbon is not the enemy here. It’s just that the balance has been disrupted and we now have too much carbon in our atmosphere and not enough in our soil. Over the centuries, commercial farming methods, ploughing and deforestation have all resulted in large quantities of CO2 being released from the soil into the atmosphere, not only leaving the soil depleted and in very poor health, but also contributing to global warming.
“Simply by employing regenerative farming methods, we can help reinstate the balance, reducing carbon in the atmosphere and increasing carbon levels in our soil.”
But we now know what we need to do to take care of the soil and reverse this trend. Simply by employing regenerative farming methods, we can help reinstate the balance, reducing carbon in the atmosphere and increasing carbon levels in our soil. Farming in this way works with nature to protect the health of our soil and create one of the planet’s greatest tools for locking in carbon.
