An excerpt from ReGen: A New Future for Farming, Food, and Health by David R. Montgomery
Scientists and farmers alike thought that chemical fertilizers would solve the soil problem. At least it seemed that way when one could use synthetic fertilizers to reap impressive harvests from degraded, organic matter–poor soils. Now a century into modern agriculture and its still unfolding impacts on soil, water, biodiversity, farmers, and consumers, recognition of the need for farming and food system reform is growing. The potential for regenerative farming to reshape agriculture challenges conventional wisdom. So it is instructive to debunk key myths that shape perceptions of conventional agricultural policies.
Myth 1: We Must Choose Between Protecting the Environment and Feeding the World
In my experience, conventional views among agronomists, journalists, and policy makers tend to assume inherent conflict between sustainable farming and the challenge of feeding everyone. Yes, it’s easy to find studies and popular articles that report 10 to 20 percent higher yields in conventional crops compared with organic crops. But dig a little deeper and the takeaway becomes less clear—and more interesting. For example, yield comparisons typically use conventional crop varieties bred for producing high yields in nitrogen-rich, synthetically fertilized environments, a setup that inherently disadvantages organic systems. Even so, a 1990 study that compared organic and conventional yields found that in almost half the direct comparisons, organic yields were comparable to or exceeded conventional ones. A subsequent 2007 global study expanded the comparison and found that organic yields were less than 10 percent lower on average than conventional yields in the developed world but actually exceeded conventional yields in the developing world. In addition, the study estimated that organic farming using legumes as cover crops could supply enough nitrogen to offset synthetic fertilizer use and still meet global food demands on currently farmed land. Similarly, a 2015 review found that diversified organic crop rotations decreased the yield gap to less than 10 percent and concluded that investments in organic research could further reduce if not eliminate the difference. Moreover, a 2018 study found that yield differences declined over time, with several years of soil building in organic systems proving capable of substantially reducing or even closing the yield gap.
The key takeaway? With healthy soils rich in organic matter, the yield gap all but disappears. Yet research and support for breeding high-yielding crop varieties well suited for organic and regenerative farming systems with healthy, organic matter–rich soil have languished. Rebuilding healthy soils could sustain high yields—just not with now-conventional practices.
It is also instructive to compare the conventional view of a substantial yield gap to how much food we waste. At least a third of the food that makes it into American cities gets thrown away—it might make it onto a plate, but it goes uneaten. Also wasted of course are the fertilizer, fuel, and other inputs used to grow it. The figure of about a third amounts to far more lost food than the typically cited yield gap between conventional and organic farming. Given this, even a skeptic should concede that if we cut food waste in half, organic agriculture could, at least in principle, feed the world. We even waste the food we waste, dumping it into landfills instead of composting it to return fertility to the land on farms in and around cities. No matter how we farm, the less food we waste, the less we need to grow on farms large or small. And the more organic matter that returns to the soil, the less we need to rely on synthetic fertilizers to keep our fields productive. We don’t have to degrade soil health to feed the world.
Myth 2: Regenerative Farming Can’t Scale Up to Replace Conventional Methods
While conventional commentators tend to reflexively question whether or not regenerative farming can be done at scale, I’ve visited huge farms I’d consider regenerative. The largest covers 20,000-some-odd acres in South Dakota. On this highly mechanized farm the transition to no-till, cover crops, and diverse rotations led to dramatically improved soil health relative to neighboring farms. The effect on the soil was obvious across a dirt road at the edge of the farm. The neighboring routinely tilled conventional field was bare, cracking, and pale in comparison with the moist, mulch-covered dark earth of the regenerative field. And while this shows that large, highly mechanized farms can build healthy soils, lots of small farms present another way to scale up regenerative farming. Making small farms more profitable and economically viable could scale up—or scale out—soil-building farming systems.
Both large and small farms can regenerate healthy, fertile soil, but different approaches work best for different places and sizes of farms. Large farms are well suited for regenerative production of grains and row crops suitable for mechanized farming (such as soybeans, sunflowers, and canola), whereas small farms are well suited for regenerative vegetable production. Moreover, large farms are not inherently more efficient or productive. Indeed, small-scale vegetable farms can be more profitable and productive per acre. A 2021 global review found that smaller farms produced higher yields, grew a greater diversity of crops, and harvested more food per acre than large farms. Scaling up regenerative farming could support both large and small farms in different settings. The real question isn’t so much whether regenerative farming can scale up as it is about how to tailor practices on farms large and small to build rather than degrade soil health.
Myth 3: We Need Genetically Modified Crops to Feed the Global Population
Genetically modified (GM) crops are a well-known flash point in agriculture, and it is common to hear their proponents claim we need them to feed the world. Indeed, when first introduced GM crops were promoted as ways to boost crop yields and reduce pesticide use. Neither promise panned out.
Despite faith that GM crops would increase yields, corn yields in Europe, where GM corn is not allowed, increased at the same pace as in the United States. This means the GM character of U.S. corn was not what boosted yields. Instead, the parallel increases in Europe and North America apparently came from more conventional crop breeding that benefited farmers on both sides of the Atlantic. This raises the question of what could be achieved if we dedicated research support to breeding crops for performance under organic or regenerative farming systems comparable to what society showered on conventional agriculture and GM crops. How much could we boost yields while lowering agrochemical inputs? Probably a lot.
Among the most commercially successful GM crops are those engineered to either produce an insecticide naturally made by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) or tolerate the broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate. While Bt crops did help address some pests that plagued monocultures, crops engineered for resistance to glyphosate provided farmers with an easy button for weed control, boosting adoption of no-till farming. As a result, global herbicide use increased, causing inadvertent changes to soil life that harmed soil health. At the same time, recent studies report that overuse is making Bt corn less effective against rootworm, the pest it was developed to combat.
Still, I can see potential applications for which GM crops could prove useful for building soil health. For example, GM crops might enhance drought tolerance or nutrient density if we applied the technology toward such goals. So far, however, GM crops have tended to enable and rely on the use of related products—like patented seeds and broad-spectrum pesticides that scramble soil life and enhance pest resistance, producing unintended consequences that create demand for more agrochemical products. That sounds like a better agribusiness model than agricultural strategy. While building soil health is not necessarily incompatible with GM crops, what is increasingly clear is that it matters how the technology is deployed. That’s part of why a regenerative agricultural philosophy is essential for sustainable farming.
Myth 4: Animal Agriculture Is Always Bad for the Environment and Plant-Based Diets Are Inherently Better
The separation of conventional cropping and animal husbandry that took root in the 1940s was encouraged in the name of economic efficiency. Unfortunately, this change undermined soil health as livestock manure went from on-site natural fertilizer to hazardous waste stored in feedlot sewage lagoons. Moreover, it turned out that feeding conventionally raised corn to cattle is bad for soil health, livestock health, and human health. But plant-based diets rooted in farming practices that cause soil erosion or degrade soil organic matter are not sustainable. In assessing the relative environmental impacts of animal agriculture, it matters how (and where) the crops and livestock are grown and raised.
In terms of the widely discussed climate impact of animal agriculture, consider that the number of ruminants now in North America is comparable to pre–European contact levels. Cows today, however, have very different diets than deer and buffalo, and an herbivore’s diet influences the amount of the potent greenhouse gas methane they emit. A diverse diet of pasture forages with legumes, forbs, and herbs rich in compounds like tannins can suppress methane-producing microbes in the rumen, dramatically reducing a cow’s climate impact. The key problem behind how cows impact climate lies in how and where we raise them, not that cows are inherently bad for the environment or that there are now too many of them in the world.
That’s not to say we should all eat as much meat as we do now in the Western world. Eating lower on the food chain is energetically efficient. But it turns out that 100 percent pasture-raised, or grass-fed, meat and dairy are better for the environment, cows, and human health than conventionally raised (feedlot-fed) animal products1. Moreover, the world’s grassland environments are ideally suited for grazing and cover twice the acreage of potential cropland. Water availability typically limits the potential for dryland cropping in grasslands, leading to excessive reliance on unsustainable groundwater irrigation to maintain high crop yields. This is the case, for example, in the western plains of North America where irrigation to support dryland cropping is projected to deplete the Ogallala Aquifer later this century. At that point, grazing may return to the plains whether or not we plan on it.
The bottom line is that regenerative grazing can rebuild soil organic matter and cows can convert grass and prairie vegetation into meat and milk we can eat. Naturally, the choice of whether to eat animal products is a deeply personal one. But for omnivores today, a healthier path to a more environmentally friendly diet lies in eating a regeneratively grown, plant-rich diet with better-raised meat and dairy.
Looking beyond the myths that fueled conventional thinking about agriculture for the better part of a century, we see that regenerative farming can help usher in a new, soil health–building agricultural paradigm rooted in the young science of microbial ecology. To sustain intensive farming well into a post-oil future, we need to integrate what we’ve learned about soil ecology in recent decades into soil-building farming systems. Soil degradation stems from farmers approaching soil ecology backward, undermining soil life instead of enabling and engaging trillions of tiny farmhands. We need to face up to the reality that a century of conventional thinking missed critical aspects of how farming affects soil, soil life—and us.
Agriculture will change this century as humanity confronts the collision of a shifting climate and ongoing soil loss and degradation. While serious questions remain as to how such change will unfold, business as usual risks the prosperity of future generations by further degrading soils society depends on. If we’re serious about sustaining civilization, we’ve got to do something different with our soils. If we continue as we are, something is bound to give. It’s only a matter of time. Fortunately, there’s a solution that could turn the tide of soil degradation and usher in a new era of sustained agricultural productivity.
