Regenerative Agriculture is a given
We want to go one step further.
Protect the fragile soil
“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.”
1949, Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac
We’re part of a global community of change-makers who understand the role of soils in climate solutions. For the first time, the capture of carbon in soil is a formal part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference’s plan to reduce global carbon emissions. Dozens of countries and organizations have joined France’s 4/1000 Initiative, a transition initiative toward resilient agriculture, job creation, and sustainable development.
Soil health is the cornerstone of regenerative agriculture and is often defined as, “the continued capacity of the soil to function as a vital, living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans.” We often think of “soil health management” as a new strategy but it’s actually not. The health of our landscapes and soil are interdependent. The primary goal of regenerative agriculture should be to improve soil health as it is a foundational precursor to the proper function of many ecological processes. There are four basic principles to regenerative agriculture:
Promote Biodiversity
Decrease or eliminate tillage
Reduce the use of fertilizers
Livestock integration
When we are talking about rangelands in the west, there is one major characteristic that is just now being recognized — Biocrust.
Biocrusts — Why they are essential for soil and rangeland health
Biocrusts are the stalwart architects of dryland soils, digging in where many plants can’t survive. Biocrusts glue the soil together, slowly building its fertility by pulling nitrogen from the air and converting it to a form usable by plants, as well as storing atmospheric carbon. Biocrusts also soak up water like sponges when it rains, slowing down runoff and helping store water for desert plants.
Methane (CH4) is an important trace gas, and its contribution to the greenhouse effect is estimated to be as high as 30% (Dlugokencky et al., 2011; Shepherd et al., 2020). Aerobic methanotrophs( Biocrusts) are crucial biological sinks of methane in upland soils and play significant roles in carbon cycling and the alleviation of global warming (Tveit et al., 2019).
Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are widely distributed in arid and semi-arid regions and are important methane sinks.
Furthermore, western rangeland soils with Bio-crust were not designed for large hooved ungulates. The grasslands of these areas were home to the smaller hooved more agile herds of antelope, deer, elk and big horn sheep.
1) Biocrusts contain photosynthetic organisms. These photoautotrophs fix atmospheric carbon dioxide and thus require presence at the soil surface.
2) Biocrusts are extremotolerant. They can withstand extreme temperatures and low precipitation through desiccation tolerance.
3) Biocrust organisms withstand high levels of UV radiation by manufacturing sunscreen pigments.
and many components (e.g. the cyanobacterium Microcoleus and related genera) can also tolerate high salinity levels.
4) In addition to the photoautotrophic cryptogams, biocrusts contain a great diversity of microbial heterotrophs, including fungi, bacteria, and archaea.
5) Biocrusts create a habitat that is occupied by microfauna such as protozoa, nematodes, tardigrades, rotifers, and microarthropods (Neher et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2011). Thus, biocrusts form entire foodwebs/ecosystems, made up of photoautotrophic producers and heterotrophic consumers.
Unique Characteristics of Biocrusts
According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), “land degradation is almost always the result of multiple interacting causes” including large-hooved animals which were never part of the original fauna.
The direct causes of desertification can be broadly divided between those relating to how the land is – or isn’t – managed and those relating to the climate. The former includes factors such as deforestation, overgrazing of livestock, wrong management practices on fragile bio-crust soils, over-cultivation of crops and inappropriate irrigation; the latter includes natural fluctuations in climate and global warming as a result of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.