大象传媒

Tropical Storm Isaias downed power lines and trees across the greater New York City area in early August, snapping limbs from the ancient oaks that ring Patty Gentry鈥檚 small Long Island farm. 

Dead branches were still dangling a month later. But rows of mustard greens were unfurling nearby, and a thicket of green vines reached toward the sun, dotted with tangy orange bulbs.

鈥淭hese sungold tomatoes were toast,鈥� Gentry said, sounding almost astonished. 鈥淏ut now look at them. They鈥檙e coming back. It鈥檚 like spring again.鈥�

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Over the past four years, Gentry has transformed 2 acres of trash-strewn dirt on Long Island鈥檚 southeast coast into a profitable organic farm by betting big on soil. Instead of pumping her crops with pesticides and petrochemical fertilizer, Gentry grows vetch, a hardy pealike plant, and rye to cover the exposed soil between the rows of greens intended for harvest. She layers the soil with specially mined rock dust that replenishes minerals and pulls carbon from the air. And in the spring and summer, she uses a system of crop rotation鈥攕hifting around where different crops are planted鈥攕o that one plant鈥檚 nutrient needs don鈥檛 drain the soil. These practices are collectively known as regenerative farming.

Tests of the soil show the organic content is now seven times higher than when she began. The result is produce so flavorful that she can鈥檛 keep up with the number of restaurants and home cooks looking to buy shares. 

Gentry鈥檚 farm is also resilient, one where healthy soil soaks up rainwater like a sponge and replenishes the crops. She barely missed a delivery after the storm. 

At a moment when fires and storms are wreaking havoc from coast to coast, mounting research suggests that practicing the soil techniques Gentry uses on a much wider scale could remove climate-changing gases from the atmosphere and provide a vital bulwark in the fight to maintain a habitable planet. They鈥檙e part of a mix of solutions experts say are needed to keep global temperatures from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, beyond which projections show catastrophic threats to our coasts, ecosystems, and food and water supplies. 

Regenerative practices range from growing trees and reverting croplands to wild prairies, to rotating crops and allowing remnants after harvest to decompose into the ground. The techniques, already popular with small-scale organic growers, are steadily gaining traction among big farms and ranches as the chaotic effects of climate change and financial pressure from agribusiness giants eat away at their businesses.

鈥淭his is about covering the soil, feeding the soil and not disrupting it,鈥� said Betsy Taylor, the president at Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, a consultancy that focuses on regenerative agriculture. 鈥淭hose are the basic principles.鈥�

Countries such as France are promoting large-scale government programs to encourage farmers to increase the carbon stored in soil. Members of Congress have also proposed legislation to push regenerative farming in the U.S., and several states are designing their own policies. Progressive think tanks call for small shifts in existing U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and beefed-up research funding that could trigger the biggest changes to American farming in almost a century. Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate pitched paying farmers to trap carbon in soil as a key plank of their climate platform, including nominee Joe Biden.

鈥淲e should be making farmers the recipients of a climate change plan where they get paid to absorb carbon,鈥� the former vice president said during a CNN town hall this past week. 

While the benefits to soil and food nutrition are difficult to dispute, regenerative farming has its critics. They argue that its climate advantages are overhyped or unproven, the product of wishful thinking about a politically palatable solution, and that the focus on regenerative farming risks distracting policymakers from more effective, if less exciting, strategies. 

Industrial Agriculture鈥檚 Bill Is Coming Due

At the end of World War II, federal farming policy started to transform the breadbasket of the Midwest into vast plains of corn, soybeans, and grains. The same principles of mechanized bulk production that turned the United States into a military powerhouse capable of fending off the Japanese and Nazi empires were applied to farming. Surplus chemicals from weapons manufacturing found new uses eradicating crop-eating insects, and nitrogen plants that once made components for bombs started producing ammonia to feed fields. 

Geopolitics only hastened the trend, as widespread Soviet crop failures forced Russian officials to buy grain from overseas and the Nixon administration capitalized on the opportunity. Agriculture Secretary Earl 鈥淩usty鈥� Butz, who served under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, directed farmers to 鈥減lant fence row to fence row,鈥� and quantity trumped all else. Farmers took out loans to expand operations, turning 鈥済et big or get out鈥� into a mantra, as Butz promised that any surplus could be sold overseas. 

The damage to farm soil kicked into overdrive as farmers planted the same monoculture crops year after year and added more chemical fertilizers to make up for the sapped minerals and dead microbes. The cumulative effect has been twofold. The U.S. loses top soil at a rate than it鈥檚 replenished. And carbon and other gases seep from the plowed, exposed soil into the air, contributing to the emissions rapidly warming the planet and increasing the frequency and severity of destructive droughts and storms. 

Less than two weeks after Tropical Storm Isaias made landfall over Gentry鈥檚 farm, a powerful storm known as a derecho鈥攐r 鈥渋nland hurricane鈥濃�攆ormed in Iowa, some 1,100 miles west. The storm destroyed nearly half the state鈥檚 crop rows. 鈥淭his will ruin us,鈥� one farmer told a . Another called it a 鈥渃atastrophic scenario.鈥� 

Losses from extreme weather are only expected to grow in the years ahead. Even if warming is kept within a 2 degrees Celsius warming scenario, the less ambitious goal spelled out in the Paris climate accords, U.S. corn production will likely suffer an 18% hit, according to a published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

For many farmers, the federal crop insurance program has been a lifeline in tumultuous times. But it also encourages them to plant in harm鈥檚 way by providing incentives to cultivate every inch of land, including marginal acres prone to flooding, and it  by making it difficult for farmers to insure a variety of crops at once. In 2014, the federal  found that, as a result of the insurance program鈥檚 policies, farmers 鈥渄o not bear the true cost of their risk of loss due to weather-related events, such as drought鈥攚hich could affect their farming decisions.鈥�

鈥淎s farmers, we鈥檙e trying to make rational economic decisions in an irrational system,鈥� said Matt Russell, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer who promotes regenerative soil practices. 鈥淲e have externalized the pollution so the public pays for those costs and nobody in the supply chain pays for it, while at the same time, when I do something good, I can鈥檛 externalize the cost at all.鈥� 

鈥榊ou鈥檝e Got A Win鈥�

Plans to shift federal incentives to favor regenerative farming aim first to loosen big agribusiness鈥檚 grip on the industry. 

The think tank has proposed overhauling the federal crop insurance program to limit the total acreage eligible for coverage, phase out incentives for single-crop planting and create new tax credits designed specifically for family-owned farms, restricting how much corporate giants could benefit from the subsidized insurance. 

With that stick would come a carrot: Under Data for Progress鈥� plan, Congress would increase the budget for the USDA鈥檚 existing conservation programs. 

As farmers, we鈥檙e trying to make rational economic decisions in an irrational system. Matt Russell, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer

The Conservation Stewardship Program already provides farmers with cash payments of up to and technological assistance for steps such as assessing which plots of farming and grazing land should be allowed to go natural. With an expanded mandate to sequester carbon dioxide, the program might fund a national assessment to determine which areas are best suited for rewilding or carbon farming and compensate farmers directly to do that. 

The program paid out $1.4 billion last year alone. Data for Progress proposed that the USDA significantly increase funding for both the program and research, and provide employees in all its conservation programs with training to understand and help regulate regenerative farming practices. 

鈥淭here are so many wins in regenerative agriculture,鈥� said Maggie Thomas, a former climate policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who serves as political director of the progressive climate group Evergreen Action. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got a win for farmers. You鈥檝e got a win for soils and the environment. You鈥檝e got a win for better food. There鈥檚 no reason not to do it.鈥�

The hopes for such changes are dim under the Trump administration, which spent its first three years sidelining climate science and spurring an from the USDA as frustration over political appointees鈥� meddling with research grew. (A five-year proposal the agency released in February did seem to show a growing acceptance of the need to address climate change, offering what called 鈥渉opeful signs.鈥�)

Maryland already pays farmers  for fields maintained with cover crops. Montana state officials collaborated with a nonprofit consortium paying ranchers to adopt that increase carbon storage in the soil. 

In January, Vermont proposed a plan to incorporate by farmers into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade scheme that includes most of the Northeast states. In March, Minnesota officials gathered for a to combat climate change. In June, Colorado solicited input for a state-level aimed at 鈥渁dvancing climate resilience.鈥� 

Investors see potential profit in the shift to regenerative agriculture. In January, the Seattle startup Nori was able to raise $1.3 million to fund its platform using blockchain technology to pay farmers to remove carbon from the atmosphere. And Boston-based Indigo Ag, a similar startup, announced in June that it had brought in another $300 million from investors, becoming the world鈥檚 highest-valued ag-tech firm at an estimated $3.5 billion.

But some fear these platforms offer dubious benefits, particularly because the credits generated by the farmers鈥� stored carbon could be bought by industrial giants that would rather offset their own pollution than eliminate it.

鈥淚t鈥檚 right to be skeptical of these companies,鈥� said Mackenzie Feldman, a fellow at Data for Progress and lead author on its regenerative farming proposal. 鈥淚t has to be the government doing this, and it can be through mechanisms that already exist, like the Conservation Stewardship Program.鈥� 

Are The Benefits Being Oversold?

But not everyone is jumping on the regenerative farming bandwagon. In May, a group of researchers at the World Resources Institute , arguing 鈥渢hat the practices grouped as regenerative agriculture can improve soil health and yield some valuable environmental benefits, but are unlikely to achieve large-scale emissions reductions.鈥�

鈥淣o-till鈥� farming鈥攁 seeding practice that requires growers to inject seeds into fields without disturbing the soil, which became popular with environmentalists several years ago鈥攈as had only limited carbon benefits because farmers inevitably plow their fields after a few years, WRI argued, pointing to a in the journal Nature Climate Change. 

And cover crops can be costly to plant and difficult to propagate in the weeks between a fall harvest and the winter months, WRI said, highlighting the findings of an . The group also cast doubt over the methods used to account for carbon added to soil.

In June, seven of the world鈥檚 leading soil scientists  to WRI鈥檚 claims, which they said drew too narrow conclusions and failed to see the potential of combining multiple regenerative practices. 

WRI researcher Tim Searchinger renewed the debate this past month with his own response to the response, accusing the critics of his critique of relying on misleading information from a 2007 United Nations report to inflate the potential for capturing carbon in soil at large scale. 

鈥淭he realistic ability to sequester additional carbon in working agricultural soils is limited,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淏ecause what causes carbon to remain in soils is not well understood, further research is needed, and our views may change as new science emerges.鈥�

Rock You In A Hurricane

Some of the latest science sheds light on one aspect of regenerative farming that didn鈥檛 factor into the recent debate at all. In July, a published in the journal Nature found that spreading rock dust on soil at maximum scale in the world鈥檚 three largest carbon emitters鈥擟hina, the United States and India鈥攃ould collectively remove up to 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air per year. 

The process, known as 鈥渆nhanced rock weathering,鈥� occurs when minerals in the rock dust react with carbon in rainwater and turn into bicarbonate ions. Those ions are eventually washed into the oceans, where they鈥檙e stored indefinitely as rock minerals. 

鈥淭he more we looked into it, the more it seemed like a no-brainer,鈥� said David Beerling, a soil researcher at the U.K.鈥檚 University of Sheffield and the lead author of the study. 

That鈥檚 a leap Thomas Vanacore took nearly four decades ago. The Vermont farmer and quarryman realized in the 1980s that mineral-rich dust from basalt and shale quarries could replenish nutrients in soil without using synthetic fertilizers, which would appeal to his state鈥檚 organic farmers. But as he studied climate change, he also concluded that his product could help pull carbon from the atmosphere. 

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do what modern farming has done for years, where you kill everything and expect to grow life,鈥� Vanacore said, standing before a pile of black shale at a quarry in Shoreham, Vermont. For farmers looking to make the shift to regenerative practices, 鈥渞ock dust is the jumpstart,鈥� he said. 

This month, he delivered his largest shipment to date to an industrial farm supplier in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Vanacore said he expects to ship an added 245 rail cars full of rock dust over the northern border in the next 12 months. 

His customers swear by the stuff鈥攊ncluding Gentry, who started buying bags of his brix-blend basalt when she first started her farm. Without the rock dust, Gentry doubts that her soil would be as fertile as it is today. Her embrace of pioneering techniques is reflected in the name of her plot: Early Girl Farm. 

This story originally appeared in and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.