Organic September: Could farming be a solution to the climate crisis?

This article was originally written for the Independent by Live Frankly founder, Lizzie Rivera

“In that total hopelessness and in the face of impending climate crisis there’s something very humble about farming,” says Lynne Davis, who swapped a career in software for farming when she was in her twenties and now runs The Open Food Network, which connects food hubs with local communities.

“You know you can do something good to restore the planet and give people what they need at the same time. It feels a very practical and tangible way of doing something useful.”

It’s no secret that agriculture has been vilified as a primary cause of the climate crisis, with food and farming regularly linked to a third of climate emissions, 70 per cent of water use and 60 per loss of biodiversity.

But, what if farming could be a way to reduce emissions rather than adding to them? What if it could be a way to store water in the ground, for plants to call upon in times of drought? And begin to restore biodiversity?

Harvesting hope

What if farmers all across the world were already doing this? Organic, biodynamic, regenerative, regenerative organic – whatever label you wish to attribute to them; farmers have not only been preventing more harm from being caused, but actually reversing this harm, for years.

Until recently, these nature-focused farming methods – and buying food produced in this way – felt almost philanthropic because the environmental benefits were positioned as nice-to-haves.

The foods and wines are luxury items, offering the promise of guilt-free indulgence thanks to better animal welfare and no “nasties”, for a more expensive price.

But, the destruction caused by not farming in tune with nature is becoming much more apparent now.

“Even 10 years ago, wheat and barley growers in the east of England were still rejecting the idea that their soil was going to run out of steam,” says Helen Browning, chief executive of the UK’s largest organic certifying body, The Soil Association.

“In the past five years the impacts have been felt; organic matter in the soil is running really low, the chemicals aren’t working so it’s costing a lot to cultivate these crops, and across the board farmers are recognising that we haven’t done enough to care for our soils.”

The Soil Association claims if Europe’s farmland all followed organic principles, agricultural emissions could drop by 40-50 per cent by 2050, with plenty to feed the growing population with healthy diets.

Helen Browning's farm safari
Happy as a pig in… Helen Browning’s organic fields.

The secret is in the soil

It is only fairly recently that we have started to appreciate the significance of what Sir Albert Howard, a founder of the organic movement in the early 1900s and the Soil Association in 1946, always knew: “The health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible.”

One teaspoon of healthy soil has up to a staggering nine billion microorganisms in it. But industrial farming is pretty much killing off that life in the soil.

So, the essential conversation is now all about how to restore it. To increase soil fertility we need biodiversity. This relies on practices like agroforestry – planting forests as a way of building soil resilience, and increasing crop diversity by planting crops that are native to the environment.

“No-till”, so as not to kill off soil life, is becoming increasingly common and can prevent soil erosion and allow more water to infiltrate the soil. Mob-grazing – where a field is split up and farmers move cattle every day or so, leaving the grass to recover for longer periods of time – improves soil fertility. Chickens that are allowed to freely roam have a similar impact and are a good source of eggs and, well, chicken.

From a food and environment point of view, it’s a rare example of a win-win situation – a variety of nutritious fruits, vegetables and free-range meat practically become the bi-products of farming healthy soil.

“And when unfertile soils are affecting yields, from a purely financial point of view you can make the case for soil management really quite quickly,” says Browning.

So, why isn’t every farmer farming in this way?

“Of course it makes so much sense once you’ve removed the economics and practicalities of everyday farming,” says Davis. “Farming is a high capital industry. You have to change a lot and it’s a big gamble – there are so many variables and if you get it wrong you don’t get to try again for a whole year.”

From farm to fork

The other question we have to ask is, why isn’t everyone eating this way already?

The Soil Association Certification 2022 Organic Market Report reveals that despite the challenges posed by Brexit and Covid-19, the organic market continued to grow in 2021, with a 5.2% increase in a market now worth over ÂŁ3 billion.

But, organic still accounts for less than 2 per cent of the overall food and drink market and it’s simply not viable to produce food in this way if people aren’t going to buy it.

The incentives are not just environmental.

Gut instinct

Although more difficult to prove, as studies that restrict diet and behaviour over a number of years are hard to conduct, the human health benefits appear significant. “We all know it, we just can’t say it,” more than one organic expert has said to me.

A 2020 peer-reviewed study, published in the journal of Environmental Research and funded by Friends of the Earth, revealed that eating an organic diet can reduce the amount of glyphosate – the world’s most widely-used weed killer – in your body by 70 percent within a week.

Groundswell 2022 | people talking in a field
Groundswell Event 2022

One of the biggest studies is Newcastle University’s peer reviewed research, published in 2015 in the British Journal of Nutrition. It found there are between 18 percent and 69 percent more antioxidants, which defend cells from damage, in food produced using organic methods.

Choosing organically produced foods can also lead to a reduced intake of potentially carcinogenic cadmium and pesticides.

It also found both organic dairy milk and meat contain around 50 per cent more beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, which help to maintain a healthy heart, than conventionally produced products. Organic meat also has slightly lower concentrations of two saturated fats linked to heart disease.

More and more research is connecting the diversity of organisms in the human gut to the diversity of microorganisms in the soil.

When you talk to organic farmers, regenerative farmers, farmers who farm traditionally and resist being labelled, it is nearly always this deeper understanding of our connection with nature that drives them. They are not only building our soils and growing better food, they are harvesting hope.

Main image: Helen Browning

About the author

Lizzie Rivera

Lizzie Rivera

Lizzie Rivera is the founder and chief purpose officer at Live Frankly. She has been writing for mainstream publications for 10 years, specialising in sustainability and ethics since 2014.

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