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THREAD: The @WorldResources believes regenerative agriculture doesn’t have the potential to considerably mitigate climate change. This is incorrect and a group of scientists have pointed out why: http://bit.ly/regenagclear 1/
So, what is regenerative agriculture? It doesn’t have a standardized definition. But in short, it’s a farm and ranch management practice that aims to reverse climate change by restoring degraded soils. 2/
By rebuilding the soil organic matter and soil biodiversity, soil is restored and can be used as a carbon sink – meaning it can actively remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it. This is climate change mitigation. http://bit.ly/carbonsequestrationdef 3/
Back to WRI. Recently, the Institute published a blog with the overarching claim that regenerative ag has “limited potential” as a climate mitigator. One of the points made to support this claim is that regenerative efforts on a farm... 4/
are canceled out when deforestation happens off-farm to make room for the livestock and feed crops that are no longer on the land integrating regenerative practices. Both globally and in the U.S nearly 2/3 of all agricultural lands are marginal land. 5/
In other words, unsuitable for growing crops but able to be grazed by ruminants. We make use of this land by turning the forage grown on it into protein people can eat. Here’s more on that: http://bit.ly/deforestationbeef 6/
As my academic colleagues stated in the response to WRI, regenerative ag can actually help IMPROVE yield stability, resulting in less pressure for land use conversion. Here’s that response again: http://bit.ly/regenagclear 7/
WRI also cites “faulty carbon accounting”, and the increased use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for building soil organic matter, as reasons on why regenerative ag has limited potential. In a nutshell, WRI pointed to an increase in GHGs elsewhere… 8/
similar to how they approached the land use change claim I refute above. 9/
Both these claims were rejected by topic experts in their response to the blog. They mentioned that regenerative ag practices such as cover crops, can build up soil organic carbon & nitrogen stocks w/out use of additional nitrogen, while maintaining and increasing yield. 10/
Also, did you know there's a bill backing up regenerative ag? The Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) was introduced by @chelliepingree earlier this year. It recognizes farmers as playing a crucial role in climate adaptation & mitigation. One of the building blocks of this bill? 11/
Soil health. http://bit.ly/agricultureresilienceact 12/
In conclusion, by using different land management practices, ecosystems can maintain carbon in soil and serve as a sink. This IS a big deal. WRI failed to include the nuances within regenerative ag to provide the full scope of the benefits. 13/
Here is the WRI blog for reference: http://bit.ly/WRIblogregenag 14/14
