John Jeavons expects that 20 years from now most of the world’s people will be struggling to eat.

Jeavons, a developer of sustainable agriculture methods, delivered this dire message at a three-day workshop I recently attended. Although his vision might seem to approach the apocalyptic, this class was not “How to Build Your Own Backyard Bomb Shelter” or “The Book of Revelation Explained!” It covered a more humble subject, one to which we moderns have paid far too little attention: soil.

According to Jeavons, the simple dirt in which we grow our food could soon become disastrously scarce, and he promotes its replenishment with an evangelistic fervor.

This Earth Day there will no doubt be much talk of how to solve climate change, population density and our energy problems, talk that will make appeals to saving that vague abstraction known as the environment.

But perhaps it’s time to turn our attention to caring for something concrete, like the host of living organisms beneath our feet on whose health our own health — and that of our neighbors — depends. Perhaps it’s time to give the kind of attention the Yahwist writer in Genesis gave in describing our vocation as God’s creatures: till and keep the adamah, the fertile soil.

As a result of wind and water erosion fostered by conventional farming practices, between six and 24 pounds (depending on the world region) of farmable soil are lost per pound of food eaten, he said. In the U.S. our farmable soil took 3,000 years to develop. In just 250 years we have managed to squander 75 percent of it, much of it now resting at the bottom of the oceans.

It’s possible to skim past such numbers with glazed eyes; given more than a moment’s thought, however, these facts become astounding. Perhaps we should change that popular bumper sticker from “No Farms, No Food” to “No Soil, No People.”

“While soils are becoming increasingly depleted, the world population is growing, water is becoming less available, and other resources are increasingly in short supply,” Jeavons said.

To combat this trend, Jeavons has developed a small-scale, sustainable agricultural method he calls “Grow Biointensive.” Jeavons’ high-yield, low-input food-raising methods are being used by people in 141 countries, and taught by organizations such as UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Peace Corps.

Jeavons directs Ecology Action, a think tank for promoting and developing the biointensive method, and is the author of “How to Grow More Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine.”

He is a practicing Episcopalian. “My faith has been key in anything I’ve been able to do,” Jeavons told me. In addition to teaching people how to grow food, he believes that “we share our love through the spiritual food of the Eucharist.”

His faith, and through it his desire to create a better world, has been and continues to be the hope that keeps Jeavons going. Over the last 30 years and with a core group of committed followers, Jeavons has been quietly improving the soil and growing food crops on a steep, once-eroded hillside farm in Willits, Calif.

Jeavons, with his white hair and beard, has the air of an academic even when he’s digging in the dirt; his signature look is a tweed cap and coat with blue jeans.

During the past three decades, he has developed a method for growing food that’s 99 percent sustainable and doesn’t depend on oil. Unlike conventional farms, which are heavily dependent on petroleum fertilizers, the fertility loop at Jeavons’ farm is nearly closed. And he has reduced the space it takes to feed one person: from three-quarters of an acre to one-tenth of an acre.

One of his methods is growing soil. He plants nitrogen-rich crops like alfalfa and carbon-rich crops like corn and harvests them to make into compost. That compost is then fed to the soil, which will supply enough energy for all his other food crops.

“If you grow healthy soil, you will have healthy plants. Healthy plants will grow healthy people,” he said.

During the first hour of our workshop Jeavons cited studies indicating that as little as 36 to 52 years of farmable soil remain on the planet — information that tempts me to despair. I think of God’s command to till and keep the fertile soil, and how human history is a long record of our failure to do that just that.

“Don’t despair,” he said. “I wouldn’t tell you all these things unless there was something we could do about it.” We then spent the next three days learning how to replenish our Earth.

And that is the hopeful conclusion as this Earth Day approaches. There is a lot we can do about it, and I’m grateful that there are John Jeavonses in the world who can show us how. We still can learn to make the care of the soil — and the attendant forms of creation care that flow from it — the daily vocation it so needs to become. In the coming decades, our lives may depend on it.

Originally published at Faith&Leadership

“Dirt is community at many levels.” That’s just one of the many rich quotes from this wonderful documentary all about “earth’s living breathing skin called dirt.” The film is so packed with wisdom, knowledge, ideas, and purpose that I took four pages of notes while watching it and barely scratched the surface. Each enraptured moment brought me to the conclusion that this film has something for everyone – from the hardcore dirt aficionado to the casual earth dweller who stumbles upon it on PBS, when it makes its nationwide broadcast debut at 10:00 p.m., April 20th, Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary. (Set your DVR.)

The film, which is narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, tells the story of humans trying to re-connect to dirt and, as we’re taken from California vineyards to the plains of Kenya, it reveals how repairing our relationship with dirt can create possibilities for all life on earth. As a student of Permaculture who geeked out as Brock Dolman (a favorite teacher at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Sonoma County) shoved his hand into a stack of gorgeous black gold, it was a pleasure watching this film. It’s inspiring and has the potential to elicit some excitement about the importance of possibly the most important living thing on earth. Where are our front-page headlines about the state of this awesome resource that “might be more alive than we are”?

Vital information is delivered via engaging animation, site footage, and interviews with experts from around the world, including: Vandana Shiva, Peter Girguis, Wes Jackson, Jerri Clover, Majora Carter, Wes Kinney, Eliot Coleman, Andy Lipkis, Bob Cannard, Piere Rabbi, John Todd, Bill Logan and Paul Stamets, to name a few. Directed by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow, it skillfully communicates stats about the matrix of life on earth, from the mundane to complex, within a global perspective. It covers, simply and concisely: the history of the earth, the importance of dirt, how our relationship has been lost, how we destroy dirt in pursuit of coal and other resources we deem more valuable; and the impact of: asphalt, climate change, cheap electricity, dead zones, run off, crop failures, and how civilization we’ve seen societies rise and fall based on how they treat dirt. Whew.

Dirt! The Movie doesn’t shy away from communicating even more painful truths either. It delves into hunger riots, conflicts in Sudan, farmer suicides in India, the financial plight of farmers around the world, global corporate takeovers of industry and farming, and the damaging effects of GMO crops. One of my favorite quotes: “We can’t hear the soil scream, we can’t understand its cries…What if each organism in soil had a right to vote? Would they reject humans as a virus?” As Wes Jackson so eloquently put it, “It’s the end of a destructive economy and time to live within our means.”

The overall message is one of hope. There are stories of projects that support the root diversity below ground and green diversity above, like those at The Land Institute in Salinas, Kansas; and of the many CSAs, composting initiatives, school and community gardens, and green roofs that support urban connections with soil, plants, and food. As well as initiatives to harness energy from soil by creating microbial fuel cells. The hope begins with a recognition that we’re not separate from soil and that it provides physical, intellectual, and emotional connections for humans.

A Sundance Film Festival Official Selection, Winner of Best Film in Our Future from the Mendocino Film Festival and the Maui Film Festival’s Winner of Best Green Documentary, I give Dirt! The Movie two thumbs up. It will be available on DVD through Docurama Films starting April 6, 2010 (in eco-friendly packaging, of course!). Share it with your friends, neighbors, colleagues, and don’t forget the younger ones! (I’m no expert, but I think fourth or fifth graders could understand it.)

Dirt Enthusiasts Unite!

Watch the trailer here:

Around one third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the way we produce, process, distribute and consume the food we eat according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Meanwhile, farmers the world over will be the most affected by climate change, as higher carbon in the atmosphere and higher temperatures increase erratic weather patterns, pests, and disease occurrence, while decreasing water availability, disrupting relationships with pollinators and lowering yield and the efficacy of herbicides like glyphosate (aka Roundup) — all detailed in a revealing new report from the USDA called The Effects of Climate Change on U.S. Ecosystems [pdf].

We should all give the USDA credit for keeping the ties between agriculture, food and climate change at the forefront of the discussion. Even in Copenhagen, where agriculture is getting less attention than it arguably should be considering its impact and potential for mitigating climate change, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke about the need for research, and seeing agriculture as an opportunity for climate change mitigation. He even said to the delegates in Copenhagen, “We need to develop cropping and livestock systems that are resilient to climate change.” While I agree on the surface with these statements, taking a deeper look reveals potentially problematic ideas for just how to do this.

Outlined in Vilsack’s prepared remarks are a few clues for how the U.S. is looking at adapting agriculture in the face of climate change. I find it valuable to do a little point-by-point debunking here, so we can look at the facts again, laid out so clearly in the USDA report above, and come up with real solutions. And since the U.S. is responsible for the most greenhouse gases, and we were the first to adopt intensive agriculture practices, we have an opportunity to lead the world to a more sustainable future.

No-Till. Here is a classic case of agribusiness co-opting a perfectly good solution and making it bad (and then whispering it into the USDA’s ear). Sustainable no-till practices involve building soil fertility with cover crops, which sequester carbon, and then turning them into a healthy mulch. No chemicals are used, and soil fertility increases. This practice is being studied at places like the Rodale Institute. The co-opted version, on the other hand, which i’ll refer to as chemical no-till, is the one touted by Monsanto with it’s Roundup Ready seeds, which can be planted and doused with glyphosate — killing the weeds and not the soybeans. Aside from the fact that superweeds are more and more common as pesticides increase in use, the life in the soil is also being killed by these chemicals. What this means is that the earthworms, protozoa, ants and other decomposers that are actively ’tilling’ the soil are not there to do so. Furthermore, bacteria in the soil, like rhizobia, actively fix nitrogen. Without nitrogen-fixing soil life to intervene, a putrefaction process called denitrification results in lost soil fertility, as nitrogen is released as nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. What is totally not funny about nitrous oxide is the fact that it is 298 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Do you get where I’m going with this? Nitrous oxide may only represent 7.9% of our greenhouse gas emissions in total, but it is one powerful source, coming directly from synthetic agriculture fields.

Carbon Markets. Sure it sounds good to offer cash benefits to farmers who use more sustainable farming practices. But what would this look like? Would it encourage farmers to utilize fewer fossil fuels, or to transition to organic farming? A lot of Big Ag players would kick up dust if that were the case, even though these are truly the ways to draw down our agricultural footprint. Unfortunately there are some ugly manipulations of carbon markets to watch out for. And according to a report by Helena Paul et al and prepared for the Bonn Climate talks last June called Agriculture and Climate Change: Real Problems, False Solutions [pdf], getting this wrong could mean exacerbating global warming instead of preventing it. Paul told the Ecologist about a few worries: First, that chemical no-till might be one of the so-called “sustainable” practices that qualify. Second, that stipulating the use of biochar, or charcoal, as a soil remediation technique, could result in plantations as sources for the biomass, adding incentive to cut down forests. Thirdly, she mentions that some Big Ag players argue for further intensification of livestock operations, making the case for using manure to make biogas. We can’t afford such paltry solutions.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). If Monsanto had its way, our government would be paying farmers to grow GMOs. However, GMO manufacturers have been promising ‘sustainable’ drought tolerant and higher yielding crops for decades now with no results. All these companies have figured out how to do in the short-term is to create herbicide resistant plants and plants that make pesticides. Meanwhile, these technologies have brought with them a whole host of new problems for the environment: genetic contamination; the addition of 318 million pounds of chemicals into our soils, water and air; and a significant loss of biodiversity. There are agro-ecological solutions that could be employed now to build our soils and sequester carbon — because this is a new technology that hasn’t been tested in the long term, and we need solutions now, it is worth rethinking the billions spent on GMOs for twenty years from now.

Ethanol. Vilsack and President Obama talk about ethanol as if it had the potential to quench our thirst for oil. What you need to know is this: ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces. However, a cottage industry has emerged to get politicians to support ethanol — the growth in use of which helped fan the flames of last year’s food crisis. Unfortunately ethanol offers a talking point, and fulfills our desire to give a quick, silver bullet solution to a difficult problem: how to maintain our standard of living in the coming resource-starved era.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said that we will need to double world food production by 2030 in order to feed 9 billion people. I often see this statistic: 14% of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, while 17% come from deforestation, used by agribusiness to justify industrial farming as saving rain forests. In fact, it is the commodity market that encourages deforestation through increasing the size of farms and through over-production. Most of what is produced in this way is wasted or fed to factory-farmed animals. Since smaller, diverse and well-managed fields are more productive, we do not need to cut down the forest in order to feed a growing population sustainable food. Indeed, there will have to be more farmers willing to do the work, eaters willing to eat less meat, and better policies that support farmers before agribusiness. And I agree with Vilsack, we need more research. We also need to nurture soil life, as that is where the real heavy lifting is happening in agriculture.

Here in New York City, we are hopeful that we can change the climate impact food has in our city. But without federal, agricultural solutions to these problems, we will all continue dog-paddling through the flotsam and jetsam of unhealthy, resource-intensive, climate damaging food-like substances.

Photo: Reuters, Protesters in Copenhagen

Fortunately, many of the measures that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon in the soil will also make agriculture more resilient to extreme weather patterns, such as the current drought. Cover cropping, composting, conservation tillage, organic fertilization and other best management practices will increase the amount of soil organic matter, reduce erosion, conserve water and enhance fertility. This, in turn, will help increase crop productivity and drought and pest resistance in the face of an increasingly dry and hot climate. According to a January 2009, ground-breaking study by University of California at Davis researchers, these practices, when combined, will generate significant greenhouse gas reduction benefits, primarily through carbon sequestration.

Unfortunately, none of these measures were adopted or promoted in California’s climate change strategy. In fact, agriculture was almost entirely left out in the California Air Resources Board’s (ARB) implementation strategy for AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. Of the 174 million metric tons of CO2 emissions reductions targeted in California’s legally binding “Scoping Plan,” not one ton is expected to come from agriculture. Of the additional possible 37.4 million tons in voluntary reductions identified in the strategy, just one million tons are expected from agriculture.

Making matters worse, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) recently closed its environment division and currently has no full time staff, resources or web-based information specifically dedicated to the issue of agriculture and climate change. The Agriculture Climate Action Team (AGCAT), an inter-agency group established to give input to the Air Resources Board and ensure follow up on agriculture and climate change measures, has been disbanded; and most of its recommended follow-on actions were ignored.

For a state with a $33 billion-a-year agriculture industry and a history of leadership on climate change, this is completely unacceptable.

The Economic and Technical Advancement Advisory Council (ETAAC), which advises the Air Resources Board on climate change matters, estimates that by 2020, agriculture could achieve an estimated reduction of 17 million metric tons per year, or about 10 percent of California’s goal.

As things currently stand, however, virtually none of this will be achieved, leaving California farmers even more vulnerable to the higher temperatures, increasing drought, frost, floods and shrinking water resources that are already putting significant stresses on the agricultural sector. By 2050, estimates show average temperatures rising by as much as 3.6° F in certain regions and the Sierra Nevada snowpack declining by as much as 40 percent. These changes will result in declining crop yields, increased pests and invasive weeds, soil erosion and diminished productivity. If for no other reason than to protect agriculture from the devastating impacts of warming temperatures, California needs its best minds and most powerful institutions working actively to devise programs, incentives, and in a worst case scenario, regulations, that will dramatically expand the implementation of management practices that both reduce the impact of global warming on agriculture and reduce its contribution to global warming.

In our latest report, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) outlines a set of recommendations that include research, communication, technical assistance and incentive programs to promote cost-effective best management practices that will reduce emissions as well as help farmers cut energy use, improve water conservation and water quality and build healthier, more productive soils. These are all critical elements in a comprehensive strategy for minimizing and adapting to the serious threats that climate change poses to California agriculture.

As a first step, the Air Resources Board, together with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Energy Commission and the Natural Resources Agency, should establish an inter-agency working group on agriculture and climate change. Federal agencies, NGOs and farm groups all have critical roles to play and should be actively involved. The group would provide a much needed forum for the intensive stakeholder engagement and outreach needed to motivate real change in California’s skeptical agriculture sector.

In the conclusion of the report, EWG recommends 10 specific actions that should be carried out under the auspices of a new inter-agency working group and/or under the leadership of California’s chief state agencies concerned with agriculture and climate change.

Even with very few studies comparing organic to conventional out there, evidence has proven that certain nutrients, such as Vitamin C and antioxidants, are on average higher in organic food. For example, a US study released in 2008 by The Organic Center focused on the nutrient quality of plant-based organic versus conventional foods, using matched pairs, “crops grown on nearby farms, on the same type of soil, with the same irrigation systems and harvest timing, and grown from the same plant variety.” According to their report,

“Across all the valid matched pairs and the 11 nutrients included in [The Organic Center] study, nutrient levels in organic food averaged 25% higher than in conventional food. Given that some of the most significant differences favoring organic foods were for key antioxidant nutrients that most Americans do not get enough of on most days, the team concluded that the consumption of organic fruits and vegetables, in particular, offered significant health benefits, roughly equivalent to an additional serving of a moderately nutrient dense fruit or vegetable on an average day.”

The Soil Association in the UK also pointed out yesterday that the FSA left out a more rigorous report commissioned by the European Union that found a range of “nutritionally desirable compounds” like antioxidants, vitamins, and glycosinolates were present in greater amounts in organic crops, while the amount of “nutritionally undesirable compounds” like mycotoxins, glycoalkaloids, cadmium and nickel were present in lower amounts by comparison in organic crops.

For research purposes the FSA report took into account studies beginning in 1958, from before we knew about the role certain nutrients played in our diet. In addition, studies show that nutrient content of our food overall has been going down over time. According to Michael Hansen of Consumer’s Union, “including older studies, with crop varieties that no longer are on the market, and which did have more nutrients, only serves to lessen the possibility of finding any significant differences between organic and conventional foods.”

The FSA study also ignored the 15 relevant studies that have come out since their February 2008 cut off date that could have changed the outcome of the report. In addition, the FSA analysis actually found that organic food contains more phosphorus, a beneficial nutrient, while conventional food on average contains more nitrogen, which scientists have linked to cancer. (Read more here) Why wasn’t this information considered before issuing a substantial equivalence?

Aside from nutrients, contaminants are not considered in the FSA report. It has been proven that antibiotics are being taken up by plants via manure application on fields. The study did not address this or the unhealthy side effects of continued intake of pesticide residues, which accumulate in our bodies. There are a lack of studies on this subject, and investigators’ claimed that these questions were “beyond the scope” of this report, but that also might be due to a certain interest in keeping the scope small and thus the outcomes skewed.

The FSA is a branch of the government of the United Kingdom, but states on it’s website that it “works at ‘arm’s length’ from Government because it doesn’t report to a specific minister and is free to publish any advice it issues.” With no oversight, influence over the selected research could have been a factor in the outcomes. A look at the profiles of the head of FSA reveals former employees of agribusinesses like Arla Foods (now part of Europe’s largest dairy), Sarah Lee Corporation, and UK grocery giant Sainsbury’s. Therefore it is not hard to assume that the perspective leans towards what is best for agribusiness interests.

The FSA report was commissioned to determine whether or not the nearly 4 billion dollar organic industry in Great Britain could claim higher health benefits when selling its products. By rendering the playing field equal for conventional farmers, the government and the agricultural sector wouldn’t have to begin the difficult work of shifting the unwieldy agricultural system towards sustainability.

One of the biggest hurtles to reforming our food system in the United States is our unwillingness to acknowledge at the governmental level the superiority of sustainable agriculture. Leaving aside the nutrient question, organic agriculture helps improve the soil, protects farm workers from exposure to toxic chemicals, places an emphasis on animal welfare, and keeps toxic runoff out of our waterways. In so doing, sustainable agriculture improves not just our personal health, but our collective environmental health.

The nutrient content in our food is going down because our soil is being degraded. Sustainable agriculture, by contrast, improves the food we eat by improving our environment. Instead of focusing on puny reports that tell us next to nothing and yet dominate the media with simple binaries, we should be taking an integrative approach to analyzing data and therefore face the hard truths before us. Sustainable agriculture improves the food we eat by improving our environment. As Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, two of our countries most respected voices on our soil wrote in a New York Times op-ed back in January, which continues to be as scary as it is relevant: “Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland.”

So we have a decision to make. If we chose business as usual, it will be at our own peril.

The day before, Dr. Jackson opened the Institute with the first keynote speech of “Why Sustainability Matters.” This crowd of food writers and activists are constantly searching for a better, all-encompassing term to describe everything “sustainability” has come to illustrate, and that discussion alone could take up it’s own two day Institute. Jackson spoke about sustainability as a value term, like justice or health. These are things that cannot be defined because they are all subject to human history. The responsibility falls on those people who are passionate enough about value terms to defend them. That being said, his definition for the thrown around and subjective term is simply “living within our means,” the best examples are nature’s own ecosystems and economies, such as rainforests or prairies where water and sunlight act as vast self-sustaining recycling systems.

But then the “doom” descended when he told us that the “population bomb is still ticking and consumption is on the increase.” He aptly compared our country’s financial deficit spending mess to how we treat the environment, starting 13,000 years ago with the first agricultural systems. Without our overdrawn soil, forests, and coal carbon, we would still be a healthy hunter-gatherer society. Today, a 10 year old has consumed 25% of all oil ever burned and a 22 year old has consumed more than 50%. In a nutshell, these statistics he presented indicate the alarming rate of consumption we, as a planet, are gobbling up in the modern day compared to pre-industrialization. And when 70% of our calories on a global level are derived from grain, it makes agriculture the primary cause of the planet’s degradation.

Last month I wrote a piece here at Civil Eats that presented, in my mind, examples of “sustainable” food communities. For me, the solution that always makes the most sense when thinking about our current food system is to bring the focus back in, to zoom the macro lens to micro and do everything on a local level. Between bites of golden beets and shaved fennel I posed this idea to the kind Dr. “Don’t we just need to create self-sustaining systems one small community at a time?” I rosily queried. He turned to me and gave me this answer: “Well, I’m not sure, but it strikes me that that might be escapism.”

Yep. I’ve been a bit naïve. Although the “buy fresh, buy local” ideology is wonderful, and “food not lawns” should reign supreme, some of these ideas may just be a simplistic, black and white way to rationalize my safe little bubble of privilege living in progressive, fertile California bounty. When examining the real problems of global hunger, climate change, peak oil, etc., just skipping over to my favorite farmers market for a basket of strawberries doesn’t seem to fit into the fix-it equation. Paul Robert’s article “Spoiled” in the last issue of Mother Jones discusses this problem as well. He writes, “When most of us imagine what a sustainable food economy might look like, chances are we picture a variation on something that already exists-such as organic farming, or a network of local farms and farmers markets, or urban pea patches-only on a much larger scale. The future of food, in other words, will be built from ideas and models that are familiar, relatively simple, and easily distilled into a buying decision: Look for the right label, and you’re done.”

He goes on to discuss that our ideology of local equals better does not always take into account food miles accurately. Sometimes the carbon footprint of a fully stocked semi carrying goods from a single source distributor is less than the food miles tallied up from all the farmers participating in a single farmers market. In fact, at Cooking For Solutions 2007, CEO of Bon Appétit Management Company (BAMCO) Fedele Bauccio discussed this same idea. His company is a great example of how big does not always mean bad. They have made a strong commitment to being a leader in responsible food practices and have the power to actually fund research, implement programs, and alter trends on a corporate level. While putting together the impressive BAMC Low Carbon Diet program, Bauccio found that completely local purchasing models were actually less efficient than regional spending. And this program also corroborates that the emissions released due to transporting food is actually less than one-tenth of its total environmental toll. We should be looking at how food is produced (fuel and water inputs/outputs for things like meat and dairy) much more than if it is made in this county or the next, and limiting how much of those high methane gas and nitrous oxide generators we put into our diet.

But the carbon impact is just one issue. What about space to actually grow all of this sustainable food? Will we just hope that the people in our society who actually have the money to afford large expanses of land will want a variety of fruits and vegetables growing there? And is there even enough rural land on this planet to feed our entire population without the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers? Robert sites environmental scientist Vaclav Smil who essentially says that farmland would have to possibly triple, eliminating rainforests, grasslands and prairies, and our whole labor force would have to become field workers.

Okay, so I’ve been hit in the head with a reminder to think outside of myself, to broaden my scope and remember that we are tiny ants in a huge universe that needs some work if we are to survive. What should I do now? What are the big solutions if growing my own tomatoes and sharing my Meyer lemon marmalade isn’t enough? Too bad, it’s not that simple. There won’t ever be a checklist for being sustainable. All we can do is stay motivated, note advances and focus on ideas that prioritize balance within all the issues, from carbon footprints to labor rights to accessibility to the environment. Putting aside stoicism and unwavering one-track thinking to embrace a little cooperation, even if it means (gasp!), learning something from a farmer that uses a little bit of Roundup once in awhile. (Also read fellow Civil Eats blogger Rose Hayden-Smith’s post, “There Is No Box: Big Ideas About Urban Agriculture and Local Food Systems”)

After a whole life of studying botany, biology and genetics, Dr. Jackson has come to the conclusion that we need to perennialize crops to end fossil fuel dependency and reduce chemical contamination and dead zones. We need a 50-year farm bill and we need to grow double the amount of vegetables and trees. Some other current thoughts dwell on polyculture, vertical urban farming, roof top gardens on big-box stores, inner-city produce mobiles. The ideas are out there, the theories are abundant, but remember to shake yourself from time to time and make sure the whole picture is in view.

1. Peat cannot be restored at the rate that we are using it. Peat is essentially a really old and rich compost, developed over 360 million years. If we left it alone, it would become coal in another geologic stretch of time. But in our lifetimes, this dense, layered stratification is growing only at the rate of a millimeter per year, while we are extracting (according to the BBC) around 22 centimeters per year.

2. Gardeners didn’t always use peat in their soil, they built their own soil with compost. Peat came into use in the 1950s, but gardens still managed to be fruitful and beautiful before then. How did they do it? By starting a compost pile — which is not only a great way to recycle your kitchen scraps, but also makes great worm food, and by proxy, great soil. Adding this nutrient-rich material to your dirt, along with mineral fillers like coir, perlite, green sand and black rock phosphate, will make for a good growing medium.

3. The environmental consequences of using peat are steep. Not only is shipping peat from bogs thousands of miles away unsustainable, but scientists have found evidence that peat bogs play an important role as a carbon sink. When we remove the peat and dry it, it releases many tons of methane (a gas 21 times worse than carbon) into our atmosphere.  Peat bogs make up 2% of the earth’s landmass, and are home to many species that don’t live anywhere else. In using peat, gardeners are inadvertently contributing to the destruction of rare birds’ and other creatures’ habitats.

4. Peat-free alternatives work just as well, if not better. Kew Gardens, arguably one of the loveliest gardens in the world (with one of the most diverse groupings of plants), uses no peat on site for starting or adding later nutrients to plants. Some alternatives you can use in addition to compost include coconut coir and wood chip, both castaways of the fruit or logging industry that would otherwise go to waste. While these things also have to be shipped, they are very light weight (coir comes in dense and light bricks that you pull apart). Another popular seed starting tool, “peat pots” can be replaced by the local, sustainable answer: cow pots (biodegradable pots made in Connecticut by a small dairy farmer from manure).

5. Its the right thing to do. The United Kingdom has recognized the importance of protecting peatlands by setting the goal of reducing the use of peat in the UK by 90% by 2010. They are still struggling to meet their goal, mostly because consumers don’t understand the issue; bags of soil are not properly labeled in the UK or the United States, and so gardeners and growers still have yet to jump on board and work with alternatives. Proper labeling and education on these issues is key to changing our habits in our home gardens. But 66% of the peat extracted is used by amateur gardeners, so there is a huge opportunity to change the industry through the choices we make in our gardens.

Starting a rooftop garden requires tenacity and a good plan. Tenacity because there are more hurdles to climb in order to plant your roof, including assessing weight limits and reading the fine print of tax abatements.  If you are like me and live in a multiple-resident building, you’ve also got to present your neighbors with the pros and cons, and hope they’ll be so excited by the former that they agree about allocation of funds for your project.  Meanwhile, you have to devise a plan.

In the plan, both infrastructure and timing must be accounted for.  As a newbie gardener, I’d been nervously awaiting my seeds, and excitedly preparing to get my hands dirty.  But first, it was important to know how to proceed with 1000 square feet of roof space.

I started by consulting books and the wisdom of gardeners like the folks at Retrovore, and my other food fighter friends – in sum, an eager team of gardening enthusiasts (we’re bringing back community!).  Together we came up with some preparatory planning to create a lush, edible landscape that takes into consideration the unique planting opportunities and the difficulties presented by the roof.

For one thing, the rooftop is unprotected, and is thus windy.  To shelter our raised beds, we will need to construct a windbreak of evergreens along the sidewalls, which should be both aesthetic and purposeful.  (50 feet of young Canadian Hemlocks, $156) Fortunately, beds for these evergreens can be built from the pile of free, recovered wood currently hanging around in the back of the building. Score! But for growing edibles, planters have to be constructed from untreated wood. I’ve found a great source for salvaged, untreated wood at Build It Green in Queens, where wood starts at 15 cents per foot.

One of the benefits of being so high up is the access the plants will have to lots of direct sunlight.  This means good growing but also a need for strategic watering, like a drip irrigation system set on a timer. Watering close to the surface will help prevent water waste, and a timer will ensure we are watering in the early morning when the temperature on wilt-worthy summer days is cool. A rain censor is an added bonus, stopping the flow after a rain.  Irrigation is one of the more expensive aspects of the garden budget, at an estimated $350, but considering my status as a green gardener who doesn’t want to kill everything, I think its a wise investment.

Another important consideration is soil.  You don’t want to haul any old dirt you find up to your roof for your garden. And if you are planting directly in the ground, please get your dirt tested.  Luckily in New York we have the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which produces compost from New Yorker’s table scraps and makes a potting soil (featuring perlite, green sand, black rock phosphate, vermicompost and coconut coir – a sustainable alternative to peat moss), which they sell to the public, and deliver! Cost for soil that can be a permanent support for our garden for years to come: $500 for 1000lbs.

The garden may seem expensive to some, at our estimate of $2000.  But we are starting from scratch, and have decided as a collective to make an investment in energy efficiency, and in the creation of a living space, where we can save money by eating what we grow.  It is my hope that Councilman David Yassky’s Green Roof Tax Abatement (an extension of the J-51 abatement) passes, allowing us to recoup 90% of our costs. But at worst, we know we are making a great investment.

Stay tuned for the next post in the Roof Garden Rookies series, where I will be talking about starting my seeds.

Can something be old as dirt and the next big thing? According to Helge Hellberg, of Marin Organic, it can.

“I believe the sustainable food movement will be focused more and more on soil,” Hellberg told a group of farmers, food producers, educators and advocates at a panel on carbon sequestration at this year’s Eco-Farm conference. “Farmers,” he added, “are crucial because they’re the ear to the soil.”

Well-managed, fertile soil has always been the foundation of sustainable agriculture. Recently, it is also being seen as a pivotal component in the mitigation of climate change. The Marin Carbon Project, a collaboration between Marin Organic, scientists at UC Berkeley, and ranchers in Marin, among others, aims to identify land practices that capture and store carbon in the soil.

Why store carbon in the soil?  Changes in land use and land management (such as industrial agriculture practices, which have stripped a great deal of the arable land in this country of its nutrients) have accounted for around one third of the greenhouse gases that are currently in the atmosphere. Returning to practices that create fertile, nutrient-rich soil not only benefits the food system, it also pulls a percentage of that carbon into a solid form. (See more on the carbon cycle here).

According to Becca Ryals, of UC Berkeley, the Marin Carbon Project is focusing on two promising techniques: the addition of organic amendments (compost) and keyline subsoiling (a form of low-disturbance tillage that loosens soil 12-18 inches down, allowing water to drain deep into the soil, as seen in the above photo). One of the project’s two test sites is the Carbon Farm, a 539-acre pasture in Nicasio. The farm is owned by John Wick & Peggy Rathmann, who set out to preserve and manage their land ecologically. The native grasses on their farm, like in most rangeland ecosystems, are important because many of them have long, perennial roots that store a considerable amount of carbon underground.

The Carbon Project is measuring and comparing carbon in the soil over time in plots where composting, and subsoiling are practiced. “We hope to produce scientifically sound data that we can then bring to rangeland managers so that they may also want to do sequestration projects,” said Ryals.

Many in the room were optimistic about the power of this fairly simple science. Wick read the following quote by Australian author Allan Yeomans, whose father invented the keyline system and Yeomans Plow: “If the organic matter in the top foot of all the world’s field and pasture soils were increased by 1.6%, the greenhouse effect would be back to near normal.”

Jeffrey Creque, Ph.D., an environmental agriculture consultant who has worked with Wick and Rathmann in developing the Carbon Farm, also rang in. “For anyone who’s been farming organically for any length of time, [carbon sequestration in soil] is not a surprising development, but it’s also a pretty exciting time for farmers and ranchers,” he said.

Creque pointed to the USDA’s recent addition of an Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets. The new office will offer financial incentives for land owners to provide clean water and air, wildlife habitat, and carbon storage by recognizing that these crucial aspects of sustainable farming are indeed “services.”

Carbon sequestration will be the first ecosystem service examined by the new office.

Helge Hellberg says Marin Organic is also developing models for how to apply carbon sequestration to California’s Assembly Bill 32, which was passed in 2006 but has yet to be implemented. AB 32 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — an initial reduction of approximately 30 percent, followed by an 80 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050.

Marin Organic is also working on a carbon auditing system for businesses in the area as well as a carbon labeling program – which would identify products as carbon neutral or carbon negative.

Beyond providing a possible financial boost for farms and ranches already using sustainable practices, Hellberg believes the nation’s focus on carbon will have an even greater impact.  “Pesticides essentially kill carbon,” he says. “A carbon credit system could offer conventional farmers incentive to transition to organic.”

Photos: USDA, Yeoman’s Concepts, and the Conservation Research Institute

Note: This is the first in a series of articles produced for CUESA highlighting the themes raised at the 2009 Eco-Farm Conference.  This post originally appeared in CUESA’s weekly e-letter.

The connection is simple – the health of America’s eaters depends on the health of the food and agriculture system.

Diet-related diseases continue to escalate – specifically in our children. Researchers predict that as a result of the continued rise in overweight, the children of today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents. Overweight and obesity alone have translated into skyrocketing health care costs which are bankrupting families and the health care system.

Likewise, the number of family farms and acres used for growing food is falling, while the cost of farm inputs are increasing. Subsidized crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat have flooded supermarkets with more processed, packaged “food-like” substances. Often, these foods are of low nutritional value and high in sugar, fat and salt.

A dichotomy exists between agriculture policies and Dietary Guidelines for Americans – yet, ironically, both are overseen by the USDA. Current food and farm policies stand in the way of making healthy food the easiest choice.

Food and agriculture policies must support disease prevention efforts and can save millions in health care costs. The USDA and USDHHS must use sound science, instead of pressures from special interests like biotechnology companies and the food industry, to reform policies and programs that support a healthy and sustainable food and agriculture system.

As Vilsack and Daschle assume their cabinet positions in January, they should adopt the words of author and farmer Wendell Berry who said “eating is an agricultural act,” and agree to the following resolutions that build healthy land, eaters, farms and the economy.

Work Together. It sounds easy but USDA and USDHHS do not have a strong working relationship on initiatives that focus on healthy individuals, families, farms and communities. To build this relationship and refocus attention on food that supports health, an interdepartmental Food Policy Council, led by a Food Czar, should be established to assure farm, food and nutrition policies and programs support public health goals. In addition to working with other Federal agencies like the FDA, EPA and the Interior Department, this would eliminate counteraction of programs and policies while increasing program integrity, efficiency and accountability.

Build Fertile Soil. Healthy soil grows healthy food. Soil is a critical component of the earth’s life support system, and how soil is managed determines our ability to grow food for future generations. In June 2008, Iowa experienced unprecedented flooding that destroyed land, homes, businesses and communities. According to the Iowa Daily Erosion Project, 60% of Iowa’s counties lost seven tons of soil per acre that month. Soil loss reduces our ability to grow food. Simply, without soil there would be no farms, and without farms there would be no food. And without food, our health and communities deteriorate. To retain this natural resource, agriculture and land management policies must focus on protecting, preserving and rebuilding fertile soil. Farmers should receive support or credits for decreasing use of synthetic farm chemicals, protecting natural resources, building soil, reducing fossil fuel use and capturing carbon.

Grow More Fruits and Vegetables. Healthy people need healthy food. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables maximizes health. According to the USDA, if each of us ate the recommended servings of foods according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. farms would need to produce an additional 7.6 million acres in fruit and 6.5 million additional acres in vegetables. Our agriculture system does not grow enough of the right foods that promote our health. We are forced to rely on other countries to put fruits and vegetables on our plates. As we grow fewer types of food, the variety of foods we eat decreases. This leads to lower nutritional quality of our diets, increases our risk of diet-related disease and compromises our domestic nutrition security. To boost fruit and vegetable production, we need to revitalize farm policies that support diversified small and mid-sized farms and local processors, thereby decreasing our reliance on other countries to support healthy diets.

Make Healthy Food the Easiest Choice. As we increase our consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, we lower our risk of developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Less disease means lower health care costs. Yet, healthy foods are not always the easiest choice and the cost of nutritious food or the distance one has to travel to purchase healthy food often is the deal-breaker for low-income families. The same applies to federal food and nutrition assistance programs. When food costs rise, fewer people are served or services are cut. In 2009, Congress will reauthorize the Child Nutrition and WIC Act. Administered by USDA, programs such as WIC and the National School Lunch Program offer tremendous health benefits to children. For example, USDA and USDHHS could work together to lift the severe cost constraints that limit the purchase of healthy, fresh foods within these programs. Improving the nutritional quality of the WIC food package and the foods served in schools will nourish healthy children, prepare them to learn, reduce childhood diseases, reduce food insecurity and produce healthy, productive adults. The nutritional health of our children is the foundation for community and economic development.

Leverage Food Production as Community Economic Development. On average, fresh produce travels about 1500 miles before it appears on plates in the Midwest. Approximately 90% of the food consumed in Iowa is not grown in Iowa. As supply channels lengthen, our food becomes more vulnerable. Growing more food closer to where we eat it increases our access to fresh seasonal food, cultivates a closer relationship with farmers, and builds community resiliency, economic stability, food security and health. Buying food directly from farmers generates revenue that is reinvested within communities and strengthens local economies. According to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, if Iowans ate five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and Iowa farmers supplied that produce for three months of the year, these additional crops would add $300 million and more than 4,000 jobs to the Iowa economy. Agriculture and health policies working together to leverage food production as a community asset will strengthen economic development while increasing access to fresh, seasonal and delicious food.

English agronomist Sir Albert Howard said, “Soil is the basis of the public health system.” Healthy soil grows healthy food and healthy food nourishes healthy people. Although written more than 60 years ago, the science holds true today and hopefully will become a guiding principle for both Vilsack and Daschle as they assume their positions in January.