An impact tremor
An impact tremor
By Dr. Jonathan Lundgren
He looks down, at one of the T-rex footprints in the road. It’s filled with water. The water in the puddle vibrates rhythmically. Malcolm’s eyes widen. He looks around, frantically. “Uh—anybody hear that?” Malcolm is staring, wide-eyed, at the rings in the water, which are getting bigger now. “It’s a—an impact tremor is what it is, it, uh—” BOOM. BOOM. “I’m fairly alarmed here.” (Koepp, 1992; Screenplay for Jurassic Park)
In 2022, the 1000 Farms Initiative set out to measure the effects that an evolved regenerative food system might have on planetary scale problems. Over 5 years, a rag tag team of scientists deployed from a pole shed on an operating regenerative farm in the middle-of-nowhere South Dakota to more than 2000 farms across the U.S. and beyond. In an unprecedented experiment meant to study farm systems (not reduced components), this team generated 500+ data types from each operation.
We focused on what was needed, rather than constraining our objectives by what we thought was possible. This campaign was a new kind of applied research at a scale that really hasn’t happened before. This science was driven by the heart of people that wanted to make a difference.
For some it was too slow. For others it was too fast or too incomplete. For yet others, our team wasn’t the right people for the job.
But to date, the 1000 Farms Initiative has produced the largest repository of data on regenerative agriculture in existence, the 3rd largest bioinventory in human history, and has supported some of the most extensive food quality assessments ever created. More than 128,000 soil cores inform us how regenerative agriculture is a major part of the answer to climate chaos.
A reverberation is felt, and a ripple is seen on the water surface that was still.
A few weeks ago, we published the first flagship research paper from the 1000 Farms Initiative. The study does a couple of unique things within the peer-reviewed literature. It defines empirically what we regarded as regenerative farms. It measures the effects of management on several elements of the whole farm system. It relies on best management practices as defined by farmers. And it is at a scale that lends a lot of confidence to the results (210 farms across North America).
Regenerative farms store 39% more carbon in soil than conventional farms while producing more nutritious food, maintaining yield equivalence, and earning equivalent net profits per acre. This was achieved by life on farms. Biodiversity was the mechanism that fostered greater soil health and carbon storage.
For context, if all U.S. field crops shifted to regenerative management, soil carbon gains could equal 1.5-2 years of current U.S. emissions. The carbon storage potential of regenerative farms exceeds the projected 2050 carbon capture totals of all proposed tech-based solutions combined. Wait until you see the data we have on carbon storage potential in well-managed rangelands….
The reason this study worked is because we developed trust with farmers. Regardless of their management or values, we wanted them to know that when we leave their farm, that we care about them. We care about their farms. And we care about their family. Understanding the potential of our food system is only possible with trusted relationships between scientists and farmers; and the scientists need dirt under their fingernails and calluses on their hands for that to work
The rings in the glass of water on the dashboard grow larger…. BOOM. BOOM.
Regenerative agriculture is here. It changes many aspects of our culture. The corporations that have based their business models on milking the farming communities into oblivion need to change. The naysayers bent on keeping industrial agriculture in power who criticize farmers in this nascent regenerative movement…these naysayers are wrong. The people who say they want to do something about climate or biodiversity loss- you now have a tool to do this in a meaningful way. The croplands paper is the impact tremor that things are about to get a lot more interesting.
Read the reseach here:
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