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Incentivizing healthy soils through sensible policy
Healthy soil is a win-win for everyone, but converting from conventional to regenerative agriculture is a process that needs to be incentivized. Land Core is an organization that’s doing just that. Their mission is to advance soil health policies and programs that create value for farmers, businesses and communities. We talk to founders Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross.
Show Notes
0’28 how did Land Core get started
3’04 how have soils gotten so unhealthy and what are the costs
6’30 60 years of topsoil left
8’19 what are the incentives to build healthier soils now, how could they be better
12’19 what is the NRCS
14’30 healthy soil mitigates against soil and drought both
15’46 crop insurance … food lost and farms destroyed
17’00 roots of industrial agriculture
19’20 healthy soil and carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation
22’49 how does regenerative agriculture challenge unhealthy and inhumane animal agriculture
26’34 animal-crop integration
29’05 breaking away from the idea of giving specific practices to farmers
29’20 incentivizing farmers’ creativity and ingenuity
30’18 taking soil improvement to a large scale
32’39 soil health and risk mitigation
33’00 how much of our land is regenerative, organic, conventional
33’59 what are farmers asking for
34’53 incentives preferable to regulation
36’09 are politicians understanding all this
37’13 is anyone pushing back
38’21 bi-partisan potential of soil health issues
38’58 soil health leasing programs
40’32 risk assessment and soil health
44’10 relationship between healthy soil and rural communities
46’15 investing in communities
47’25 how can people get involved
More Episodes
Episode 52 – Nicole Masters – For the Love of Soil
Nicole Masters is an agro-ecologist and educator in regenerative agriculture. She’s founder of Integrity Soils, and author of the new book, For the Love of Soil.
Episode 51 – Meriwether Hardie: Making the Business Case for Regenerative Agriculture
The food business is beginning to realize that they’re unsustainable — but don’t really know how to transition. Bio-Logical Capital provides demonstrations and research that point to possible paths forward.
Episode 50 – Graeme Hand: How to regenerate land with livestock and still make a steady profit
Graeme Hand teaches Holistic Management, and how to restore grasslands with cattle–and his techniques might surprise you!
Episode 49 – Joel Benson Holistic Management: It’s Not Just for Land
Joel Benson applied his training in holistic management to his business, and then to the government of his small town where he was mayor for eight years. The results are inspiring — and remind us of the power of systems thinking.
Episode 48 -Rodrigo Sierra Corona, Conservation Cattle on the California Coast
While cows can be destructive, they can also be effective management tools for improving land health. We talk to Rodrigo Sierra Corona about his work to improve grasslands and preserve species at the Santa Lucia Conservancy.
Episode 47 – Kate Greenberg, Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture
A long-time Quivira Coalition leader and proponent of regenerative agriculture, Kate Greenberg is now the Commissioner of Agriculture for the state of Colorado. We talk about what it means to take a regenerative and “Radical Center” approach from her position in government.
Episode 46 – Richard Teague: the Science of Holistic Grazing
Industrial agriculture looks like it’s alive, but often the soil is dead, animals are living in excruciating conditions, and the food looks good but is not as nutritious as food grown from living soils in humane circumstances.
Episode 45 – Mountain and Prairie host Ed Roberson on innovative approaches to water in the West
Industrial agriculture looks like it’s alive, but often the soil is dead, animals are living in excruciating conditions, and the food looks good but is not as nutritious as food grown from living soils in humane circumstances.
Episode 44 – A regenerative farmer in Kenya
Industrial agriculture looks like it’s alive, but often the soil is dead, animals are living in excruciating conditions, and the food looks good but is not as nutritious as food grown from living soils in humane circumstances.
Episode 43 – Envisioning a post-carbon food system
Industrial agriculture looks like it’s alive, but often the soil is dead, animals are living in excruciating conditions, and the food looks good but is not as nutritious as food grown from living soils in humane circumstances.
Episode 41 – Zombie Agriculture
Industrial agriculture looks like it’s alive, but often the soil is dead, animals are living in excruciating conditions, and the food looks good but is not as nutritious as food grown from living soils in humane circumstances.
Episode 40 – Farming While Black
That’s the name of Lean Penniman‘s new book, and it’s a profound and wide-ranging exploration of everything from the practical details of how to start a farm, to the rich history of African-heritage farming.
Episode 39 – Rounding up the evidence on Roundup
Carey Gillam is a veteran journalist, researcher and writer with more than 25 years experience in the news industry covering corporate America. Since 1998, Gillam’s work has focused on digging into the big business of food and agriculture.
Episode 38 – The little rodent that could…
“In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers.”
Episode 37 – Regeneration in the rockies
If we were left to our own devices with a large selection of healthy food choices, how would we choose? Would we make healthy choices? What about livestock, and wildlife?
Episode 36 – Reawakening our instincts for healthy eating
If we were left to our own devices with a large selection of healthy food choices, how would we choose? Would we make healthy choices? What about livestock, and wildlife?