Georgia's Food System

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Georgia's Farms and Farmers are as productive as any in the United States. The problem is that our food system conforms to agribusiness models that focus on yield per acre. "Feeding the World" comes at a price. Large scale industrial farming has a steep entry cost in inputs like GMO seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, not to mention expensive farm equipment, materials handling, and specialized storage.

It works, but it leaves soil depleted of nutrients and produces crops that also lack nutrition. Often, our vegetables look pretty and hold up well in storage, things our food system has prioritized.  But foods that lack nutrients also lack flavor.

Clean foods are free of contamination by toxins and are nutrition dense. In order to have clean, nutrition dense food, alternative growing practices must take root.

Regenerative Farming and Ranching

An available alternative is Regenerative Farming and Ranching. The five pillars of Regenerative Agriculture are:

1. Minimal disturbance of the soil. No-tillage. 

2. Soil Armor: soil is always covered with plants or plant litter.

3. Living roots are left in the ground year round.

4. Diversity plants and animals in fields, paddocks and in buffers around the fields.

5.Animals integrated into the growing cycle.

It sounds crazy and it is the opposite of industrial farming, but it works. Big Food knows it works. For many years, General Mills paid North Dakota Farmer Gabe Brown (RIP Gabe) to teach Regenerative Farming practices to farmers all over the United States. Heinz Corporation awarded the Heinz Award to Gabe Brown for his work in "Revolutionizing Agriculture."  (1227) The Heinz Awards - YouTube 

Cargill, the grain distribution conglomerate,  is promoting its "regenerative agriculture program brings healthier soil and profits to more European, U.S. farmers."  Digging in: Cargill’s regenerative agriculture program brings healthier soil and profits to more European, U.S. farmers | Cargill 

If Big Food and Big Ag know that changes are coming, we should pay attention too.