Co-opting regenerative agriculture
The book ‘Soil’ is heralded as ground-breaking for agriculture, however it’s part of a media trend advocating for greener practices like regenerative farming while excluding their Indigenous history.
ABOUT SOIL
Commentator, farmer and chef, Matthew Evans, released ‘Soil’ in 2021, explaining in layman’s terms what research globally is showing – we must change our agricultural practices to centre healthy soil in order to sequester carbon.
Throughout the book Evans details the history of both destructive and sustainable agriculture, attributing the ‘invention’ of organic, biodynamic, and now regenerative farming to usually affluent white aristocrats and scientists over the last century.
Evans makes one or two fleeting comments of the Indigenous roots these methods are rooted in, but quickly moves on to continue an all too familiar trope of white ‘innovation’ of agriculture that’s realistically been practised for thousands of years.
WHAT IS REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE?
Regenerative Agriculture (RA) is the latest management approach to be co-opted from sustainable practices that have long been central to farmers that are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC). Essentially, the aim of RA is to improve the ecosystem it operates within, rather than simply sustaining it. It’s garnered attention recently from research into the potential to sequester carbon and enhance soil health, therefore mitigating the climate impacts of conventional agriculture.
‘Rebranded’ RA is typically understood in terms of its processes and outcomes. In Soil, Evans explains the principles as being:
Keep the soil covered (no bare earth).
Minimise soil disturbance (don’t dig).
Aim for diversity (in plants and animals).
Make sure you have living plants all year round.
Integrate livestock.
However, these process and outcome based principles don’t encompass the shift away from industrial-productivist thinking that RA should represent, and the roots of these farming practices.
ROOTS OF REGENERATION
Rather than being a purely agricultural management approach, traditional farming practices were often a system of being that focused on community instead of individual interests. For example, in many African languages the same word used for family refers to collective, sustainable stewardship of land, while Zapotec farming from Mexico is based on ‘mantenimiento’, meaning maintenance of individuals, families, villages, and village lands.
Spiritual leader of the Kogui peole at the Lost City, Colombia, who incorporate their spiritual practices into cultivating crops.
These traditional practices inform modern RA, such as Indigenous American’s ‘companion planting’ of diverse mutually beneficial crops, while excluding essential components, like the social comradery inherent in ‘companion’. Further, this history is often intentionally excluded, such as decades of refusal to acknowledge that Western African slaves introduced the method of land use rotation of rice and cattle to the U.S.
Recently there has been a wave of research and books highlighting this holistic approach and roots. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ describes how Indigenous cultures often have a collective approach to both agriculture and life that involves reciprocity between humans, land, water, plants, and animals. While in ‘Healing Grounds’, Liz Carlisle shows how historically racist power structures that enable our food system must be dismantled to realise RA’s potential.
However, these voices pale in comparison to the torrent of media, corporations and government policies supporting ‘modern’ RA while perpetuating socially and environmentally degrading food systems.
MORE THAN LACKING RECOGNITION
Various recent docos have promoted RA but neglect to meaningfully include the contribution of Indigenous peoples, failing to highlight the necessity of systemic changes to our current food system. For example critics argued that the Woody Harrelson narrated, Netflix produced, ‘Kiss the Ground’ didn’t address how structural racism in agriculture - such as historical discrimination and ongoing barriers to leasing and owning farmland - directly impacts the plethora of BIPOC farmers attempting to continue their traditional practices.
Given that industrial-productivist agriculture was built through colonisation, Indigenous land dispossession, and enslavement, this history needs to be reckoned with in order to address the ongoing discriminatory power structures. For example, Carlisle’s book Healing Grounds – which focuses on the U.S. – shows how 60% of farm workers in the country are BIPOC yet own just 2% of agricultural land.
“This stark inequality in agricultural land ownership is not only unjust, it’s also holding back regenerative agricultural practices – techniques that are rooted in the ancestral traditions of these very communities of color – that we desperately need to combat climate change,” writes Carlisle.
Instead, the systems that transitioned away from regenerative to degrading practices are in some ways being entrenched further through modern RA. For example, Joe Fassler’s article highlights how cows are being heralded (and funded) as essential to the RA practice of livestock integration, because conventional, damaging corporations have invested in cows for the U.S. food system. However, other ruminant animals important for Native American diets - such as elk, deer and buffalo – would work just as well, and funding animals inherent in Indigenous RA could have significantly more positive impacts.
FARMING FUTURES
Without supporting practices that make the most impact to mutually benefiting environment and humans, we run the risk of simply rebranding systems that degrade ecosystems and profit few.
The opportunity for change is particularly pronounced in the wake of COVID-19, which highlighted the necessity to build resilient agriculture in the face of supply chain breakdowns and climate change induced barriers to food security.
Acknowledging agricultural history can help dismantle barriers still in place for the original regenerative farmers, and provide learning opportunities to realise the full potential of these practices.