Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

For a useful example, consider an agrarian civilization that runs on sunlight, as every human society did until the rise of industrialism three centuries ago. In energetic terms, part of the annual influx of solar energy is collected via agriculture, stored as grain and transformed into mechanical energy by feeding the grain to human laborers and d

Biological farming manages soil ecosystems in order to increase the amount of biota and life per acre by keen knowledge of food chains, species interactions, and nutrient flows, minimizing crop losses and maximizing yields by fostering diversity.

In contrast, farmers owned and manipulated plants and animals, and could hardly degrade themselves by negotiating with their possessions.

A more subtle decline than physical soil loss, but no less dangerous, is the invisible loss of the soil’s organic richness. The ability of soil bacteria, fungi, and other tiny organisms to cycle nutrients, fight disease, and create the proper soil texture and composition to