Soil Conservation

I'm an electrical engineer by training; My brain is wired to analyze complex systems from first principles. I've worked in the solar energy industry since 2018 and I'm a lifelong environmental advocate. I believe our agricultural practices are equally as important in combating climate change as a full transition to renewable energy.

Throw a dart randomly at a map of the current United States. Now, take a journey back a few hundred years to the inception of the US as a fledgling country to the location your dart landed. Imagine what your surroundings might be like. You'd likely be standing on rich, vibrant, and deep top soil* surrounded by herds of bison, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, deer, and countless other species that once numbered in the millions. You might be awed by the vast prairies of the Great Plains or the surprisingly vegetatively rich deserts of the expansive West and Southwest.

Landing on the Plains, you might imagine the grasses and wildflowers at a local nature center, wild game preserve, or even a National Park. These small havens of nature are doing their best to remain wild. But your image is nothing like what you'd have experienced before we tamed the land to grow our food. Gone are the 450 species of wild grasses that grew up to 12 feet tall, their roots penetrating equally as deep into the fragrant top soil.

Further west to the desert, the climate would never have been mistaken for a rainforest, but the soil eagerly soaked up the rain that did fall and remained inviting for myriads of plant species and critters both minuscule and massive.

Both environments are now a mere shell of what they once were. So what happened? We culled the herds of hoofed creatures - close to extinction. We burnt the seas of prairie grasses to replace them with neat rows of corn, soybeans, and wheat - now all genetically modified to the point of unrecognizability to their ancient ancestors.

Each year, millions of acres of land are planted with these same three staple crops. Each year, these crops pull the same nutrients out of the ground and are harvested to produce the highly processed and artificially flavored and colored contents lining our grocery store shelves, to rapidly bulk up livestock that grazed peacefully for the first 2/3rds of their lives, and to ferment into biofuel. Over the past 100 years, we've systematically extracted the life-force from the topsoil containing the enormous carbon sink of microbes and decaying plant matter that is the bedrock of a thriving ecosystem.

We've turned topsoil that went as deep as the roots of towering prairie grasses into a flat expanse of dirt*. In the process we've inadvertently released all those billions of tons of CO2 back into the atmosphere. We apply factory-synthesized ammonia fertilizers to the land to maximize the yield of our crops - much of which washes into waterways and causes toxic algal superblooms in the Gulf of Mexico - but we never replenish the vast array of nutrients back into the land as the millions of animals grazing - and pooping - had done for millennia**.

We've replaced the vast herds of herbivores grazing across the desert Southwest with sparse groups of cattle in some places and with nothing at all in others. The grazers would cheerfully trim back the plethora of plants that spent the summer growing tall providing lush habitats for desert dwellers, leaving gifts of microbe-rich droppings in their wake. Their hooves trampled the mineral-rich soil, aerating it in the process so that the seasonal rains would easily soak into natural underground reservoirs. Today, plants that do grow, wither and fry in the intense desert sun. The ground, without constant disruption, is hardened and primed to expel rainwater into rapid flash floods that disappear as quickly as they come.

It's a bleak picture, but there is a growing movement of regenerative agriculture - family farmers that put careful planning into mimicking historical animal movements across the land, increasing wild plant diversity and rotation of both food crops and cover crops. They're working as ecologists to restore their local biomes to what they once were. It takes time and effort, but early results have proven we can revitalize our land while producing greater yield sustainably with minimal to no lab-designed applicants.

Regenerative-grown products are not inexpensive. They require increased labor, while subsidies to behemoth factory farms make monocropping artificially cheap. The finance of farming is as twisted as much of our mainstream nutritional knowledge. Americans spend substantially less on food than any other developed nation, and that's reflected in our food and therefore health. If you can afford it, sourcing food from regenerative-oriented farmers is likely the most impactful thing you as an individual can do to make a positive impact on our climate. You'll also be fueling yourself with the most nutrient dense foods money can buy.

If you know a local farmer doing it the right way, please support their work and your local economy. If not, check out Nose to Tail. The farmers are from west Texas and embrace regenerative practices where the dry climate requires specific consideration to return the ecosystem to a thriving biome. Many of the meat products already contain the most nutritious multivitamins imaginable - liver and other organs. Their skincare products don't contain unpronounceable toxins.

Yes, Nose to Tail is an affiliate. Your price won't change with that link, but it helps support our efforts towards empowering people to make the best choices for their lifestyle and situation. We truly believe Nose to Tail is one of the absolute best sources of nutrition for your health and the health of the planet.

*What's the difference between dirt and soil? Dirt is inorganic silt, sand, clay, and rocks. Soil is rich in organic material from microorganisms, fungi, plant matter, worms, nutrients, and minerals.

**Yes, cattle belch methane in to the atmosphere. But what happens next, and how potent is it on the climate? We cover the methane cycle and other environmental topics in depth in our program. Spoiler alert - I am no longer concerned like I once was about eating red meat.