I recently read an interesting article that got me thinking. It reminded me of a recent prime minister saying we should align with Europe and put off electric vehicles in the UK for an extended period. This is in the same country where we build many houses on our best agricultural land, with fake plastic chimneys and little insulation. Building houses on prime agricultural land is not a UK exclusive, it’s been happening in coffee-growing countries for years.
I enjoyed this article as it tells me more about what it can’t say. If you read the well-written article about Regenerative Agriculture Is About More Than Sustainability, it feels like there is a rush to be seen doing the right thing. We know there are limited harvests for (our species) the world. This current (new shiny?) organisation is called the Regenerative Organic Alliance. As I understand it, is attempting what the Soil Association in the UK has been doing since 1946, but with a U.S. view. If I am honest our relationship with the Soil Association is an auditing one, although what the S.A. is really about is all in the name, of soil.
I ask every one of our producers ” How is climate change affecting you?”. It turns out that soil health and climate are the future and that isn’t a well-kept secret, it’s just inconvenient to most of our species and modern human life.
Returning to Regenerative Farming, I asked an experienced coffee agronomist (and farmer friend) if his view was different from the headlines. I can’t quote directly but here is the gist.
Regenerative Agriculture is a fever today. The aim is to make conventional agriculture more climate-resilient and less chemical and pesticide-dependent. There is a proliferation of regenerative agricultural standards. The focus is on larger farms and less politicised. Overall, it is a good path to make conventional agriculture more sustainable. The fear is that regenerative becomes a vacuous, ambiguous word with little meaning, like “sustainable” or “quality” Oh hang on, whilst I am here “ethical!”.
Let us see. There may be a chance that fever can positively impact mainstream production systems.
