Introduction
Toxic synthetic pesticides and soluble chemical fertilizers are damaging our health and harming the environment. They significantly contribute to the rise of chronic diseases, the decline of insects, birds, and other species, as well as widespread pollution, algae blooms in our streams and rivers, and dead zones in the oceans. This is justified on the notion that without poisoning our food and environment, we would starve.
This is a mythology created through ongoing misinformation campaigns by the poison cartels, their captive media, researchers, academics, and regulators. This article clearly shows that we can produce more food that is healthier without these toxic, degenerative inputs.
Regeneration International is an international network of more than 680 partner organizations in 80 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, North America, and Europe.
Our Mission:
To promote, facilitate, and accelerate the global transition to regenerative food, farming, and land management for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger, and rebuilding deteriorated social, ecological, and economic systems.
We use the term “Regenerative and Organic agriculture based on the science of Agroecology” to describe nature-based farming systems, distinguishing them from degenerative industrial agriculture.
These systems adopt practices like longer rotations, cover crops, green manures, legumes, compost, and organic fertilizers to increase Soil Organic Matter (SOM). These methods include organic farming, biodynamics, natural farming, agroforestry, agroecology, permaculture, holistic managed grazing, silvopasture, syntropic farming, SRI (the system of rice intensification), and many other agricultural approaches that can enhance SOM levels. SOM is a key indicator of soil health because soils with low SOM are considered unhealthy and tend to produce poor crops
Yields
The Rodale Institute’s 40-Year-Report on their Farming Systems Trial should end the myth that we need to poison our food, bodies, and environment with toxic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and GMOs to feed the world. Rodale’s scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture on every key criterion. (Rodale 2022)
The Farming Systems Trial demonstrated that organic manure systems using either standard or limited tillage had higher levels of SOM and greater crop yields compared to GMO herbicide no-till and standard industrial farming systems.
The trials achieved the highest maize yields in the tilled organic manure system, with the greatest increases in SOM occurring where the organic manure system used limited tillage. The limited tillage field was tilled every second year.
Importantly, 40 years of research show that organic maize yields have been 31 percent higher than those of industrial farming systems during drought years.