How to Build Sustainable Agriculture Practices

Part 2 🌿 Farming Beyond the Field: Harnessing Nature to Shape Our Climate 🌧️ I recently had the privilege of joining Wayne Ebersole on the Outsyde Podcast to discuss a topic close to my heart: how farmers can manage water cycles and even increase rainfall through regenerative practices and ecosystem management. 🚜💧 Here are some key takeaways from our conversation: 1️⃣ The Power of Cover: Keeping soil covered year-round isn’t just about preventing erosion—it’s about fostering conditions that capture moisture, reduce dust storms, and improve soil temperature. Farmers can mitigate failed rainstorms (haboobs) by maintaining green, living cover and adopting no-till practices. 2️⃣ Bioaerosols & Rainfall: Did you know every blade of grass and tree leaf releases bioaerosols like Pseudomonas syringae, which seed clouds at warm temperatures? Healthy vegetation doesn’t just grow crops—it seeds rainfall. 🌱☁️ 3️⃣ The Local Resilience of Regen Ag: Regenerative farms like Gabe Brown’s in North Dakota and Brad McIntyre’s in Idaho demonstrate unmatched resilience. From drought resistance to flood absorption, their farms thrive under extreme conditions—while neighbors struggle. 4️⃣ Fixing Our Food System: It’s time to break the cycle of subsidizing sickness. Current systems prop up nutrient-poor foods laden with chemicals while regenerative systems focus on nutrient density, soil health, and local food economies. Models like Singing Frogs Farm in California are paving the way with their high-yield, no-till approaches. 5️⃣ Regeneration is the Real Climate Solution: Regenerative agriculture doesn’t just reduce emissions; it restores the water cycle, rebuilds soil, and increases climate resilience—all while feeding people better and healthier. This is the sustainable path forward. 🌍 One particularly memorable part of the discussion? Comparing the dust storms in Idaho to a “Gandalf moment” in The Lord of the Rings: “You shall not pass!” The dust literally repels rain while the uncovered ground exacerbates climate extremes. 🌀 💡 What’s next? As we discussed, these solutions are scalable, profitable, and accessible. Whether you’re a farmer, policymaker, or passionate advocate, regenerative practices can transform our planet—and our future. 🎧 Catch the Full Episode: Listen to the full episode here, where we explore these concepts in-depth, including how restoring the Great Green Wall in Africa could mitigate hurricanes and why nutrient-dense food starts with healthy soil. Thank you Wayne for hosting. Wayne Ebersole Big Sky Capital Group LLC AgReserves, Inc. Singing Frogs Farm EcoRestoration Alliance Soil4Climate Inc. #RegenerativeAgriculture #ClimateSolutions #WaterCycle #Sustainability #SoilHealth #Farming #FoodSystems https://lnkd.in/gaFQhhmy

Innovations in Phosphorus Management: Enhancing Efficiency for Sustainable Agriculture Phosphorus (P) is essential for plant metabolic processes and global food security, yet its finite reserves and inefficient use (PUE often <20%) present critical agronomic and environmental challenges. Cutting-edge research is advancing strategies to enhance P availability, reduce losses, and promote sustainable farming practices. Key advancements include: Specialty P-Fertilizers: Development of slow- and controlled-release fertilizers, including polymer-coated and reactive P-enhancing formulations, to improve soil P availability and uptake efficiency. Phosphorus-Solubilizing Microbes (PSMs): Leveraging microbial consortia, including bacteria and fungi, to solubilize soil-bound P and increase bioavailable P without adding excess phosphorus to soils. Precision Fertilizer Application: Transitioning from traditional broadcasting methods to targeted approaches, such as localized banding and fertigation, to maximize plant P acquisition and reduce runoff losses. P-Efficient Crop Varieties: Advancements in molecular breeding, including the identification of QTLs like Pup1 and the overexpression of Pi-transporter genes in rice, wheat, and soybean, to enhance P uptake and improve crop productivity under low-P conditions. These innovations hold immense potential for improving PUE, reducing environmental impacts, and ensuring sustainable and responsible plant nutrition globally.

6 ideas to scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture: 1. De-risk farmer transitions with yield-loss insurance. 2. Support farmers with the public-funded payback of existing agrochemical loans to enable new loans related to regenerative agriculture inputs and working capital. 3. Provide low-interest loans (de-risked by public institutions) for farmers transitioning to regenerative practices. 4. Investment into: Input-manufacturing (and nursery) infrastructure to increase the availability and reduce the cost of inputs. Post-harvest infrastructure in regions with regenerative farming clusters to aggregate, and guarantee the sale of premium outputs to reach diversified marketing channels. 5. Connect transitioning regenerative farmers with high quality, and ongoing capacity building services through extension services (ideally farmer to farmer). 6. Additional economic incentives via carbon credits, biodiversity credits, labor credits, etc. Anything to add to this list? Photos Courtesy of Juntos Farm

🇳🇱🌱 Dutch Farmers Are Growing Food Nature’s Way! 🌾 In the Netherlands, a quiet farming revolution is underway—one that swaps chemicals for nature-based solutions to heal the soil and grow better food. Here’s how they’re doing it: 🔸 Year-Round Roots – Living root systems enrich the soil and support underground ecosystems. 🔸 Nitrogen-Fixing Crops – Plants like clover naturally draw nitrogen from the air into the soil. 🔸 Microbial Partnerships – Fungi, bacteria, and worms boost fertility without synthetic fertilizers. 🔸 No-Till + Cover Crops – Protects soil structure, cuts erosion, and boosts biodiversity. 🌍 The results? Less pollution, healthier crops, more carbon captured—and farming that works with the Earth, not against it. Despite its size, the Netherlands is the world’s #2 food exporter—proof that sustainable farming can be powerful and productive. 👩🌾 Could this be the future of agriculture? #RegenerativeFarming #DutchInnovation #LivingSoil #EcoFarming #Agroecology #FutureOfFood #ClimateSmartAg #GreenFarming #SustainableAg #NetherlandsFarming