Used for centuries in Eastern Europe and Germany, hugelkultur (in German hugelkultur translates roughly as “mound culture”) is a gardening and farming technique whereby woody debris (fallen branches and/or logs) are used as a resource.

Often employed in permaculture systems, hugelkultur allows gardeners and farmers to mimic the nutrient cycling found in a natural woodland to realize several benefits. Woody debris (and other detritus) that falls to the forest floor can readily become sponge like, soaking up rainfall and releasing it slowly into the surrounding soil, thus making this moisture available to nearby plants.

Hugelkultur garden beds (and hugelkultur ditches and swales) using the same principle to:

• Help retain moisture on site
• Build soil fertility
• Improve drainage
• Use woody debris that is unsuitable for other use

Applicable on a variety of sites, hugelkultur is particularly well suited for areas that present a challenge to gardeners. Urban lots with compacted soils, areas with poor drainage, limited moisture, etc., can be significantly improved using a hugelkultur technique, as hugelkultur beds are, essentially, large, layered compost piles covered with a growing medium into which a garden is planted.

Creating a hugelkultur garden bed is a relatively simple process:

1. Select an area with approximately these dimensions: 6 feet by 3 feet
2. Gather materials for the project:

• Fallen logs, branches, twigs, fallen leaves (the “under utilized” biomass from the site). Avoid using cedar, walnut or other tree species deemed allelopathic.
• Nitrogen rich material (manure or kitchen waste work well and will help to maintain a proper carbon to nitrogen ratio in the decomposing mass within the hugelkulter bed).
• Top soil (enough to cover the other layers of the bed with a depth of 1 – 2”) and some mulching material (straw works well).

3. Lay the logs (the largest of the biomass debris) down as the first layer of the hugelkulter bed. Next, add a layer of branches, then a layer of small sticks and twigs. Hugelkultur beds work best when they are roughly 3 feet high (though this method is forgiving, and there is no fixed rule as to the size of the bed. That is where the “art” comes in!)
4. Water these layers well
5. Begin filling in spaces between the logs, twigs and branches with leaf litter and manure of kitchen scraps.
6. Finally, top off the bed with 1 – 2” of top soil and a layer of mulch.

The hugelkulter bed will benefit from “curing” a bit, so it is best to prepare the bed several months prior to planting time (prepare the bed in the fall for a spring planting, for example, in temperate northern climates), but hugelkultur beds can be planted immediately. Plant seeds or transplants into the hugelkulter bed as you would any other garden bed. Happy hugelkulturing!

One of the most transformative experiences in my life was from studying soil science many years ago. Getting something of an understanding of the inner workings of that thin skin which covers our earth created thought-connections in my mind that had me looking at the world in a profoundly new way.

Amongst the many things I realised and gained appreciation for was the myriad mechanisms in natural systems that, in concert with each other, provided incredible stability and harmony. I recognised that if only many more people would come to study and learn genuine, holistic, biological soil science (rather than the reductionist chemistry- and product-focussed ’science’ encouraged in universities today by industry) we are actually well able to mimic these systems to bring the same harmony into our own fields, and thus retain resilience whilst still providing for our needs. We could give back to the soil as much as we take. Indeed, we could even reverse our current soil inventory deficit by building soil.

I learned that the carbon cycle was a, or the, critical element. Contrary to popular belief, water soluble nitrogen applications actually depletes soil carbon, rather than builds it – because soil micro-organisms, if I am to use simplistic terminology, feed on nitrogen, and excess soluble supplies send them into a frenzy of activity. That activity is focussed on breaking down organic matter (carbon rich humus). Regular dousings of water-soluble nitrogen fertiliser (and yes, that also includes concentrated chicken litter and blood meal) turns our microscopic soil buddies into hyperactive, and short lived, soil baddies. The same thing occurs with over-aeration of soil from ploughing and other manipulations. The result is rapid plant growth, but at the expense of plant health – and, significantly, resulting in our effectively burning up the organic matter content in our soils, without which there can be no life on this earth.

I learned these things a decade and a half ago, and from reading books decades older, and yet today we still find articles titled ‘New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health‘.

The case for synthetic N as a climate stabilizer goes like this. Dousing farm fields with synthetic nitrogen makes plants grow bigger and faster. As plants grow, they pull carbon dioxide from the air. Some of the plant is harvested as crop, but the rest—the residue—stays in the field and ultimately becomes soil. In this way, some of the carbon gobbled up by those N-enhanced plants stays in the ground and out of the atmosphere.

Well, that logic has come under fierce challenge from a team of University of Illinois researchers led by professors Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth. In two recent papers (see here and here) the trio argues that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content. Why? Because, they posit, nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which feast on organic matter. Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of more crop residues.

And their analysis gets more alarming…. – Grist (emphasis ours)

This is an excellent article that I’d recommend all to read and absorb. But, the worrying aspect is that we’re calling it ‘new research‘. The things I learned years ago have been known for decades, something the article above expresses also – quoting from renowned organic pioneer, Sir Albert Howard, from the 1940s – but in a competition- and product-oriented world it has not been a popular concept, because widespread uptake and implementation of this knowledge would make most agricultural products not only redundant, but they’d also be seen as an enemy to sustainable, and healthy, human existence.

The ’self-interest’ basis of our western ‘invisible structures’ (economics, politics, etc.) is the foundational motivation that ensures extraction today with little thought for tomorrow. We create a perception of need, by creating problems that don’t, or shouldn’t, exist – so we can simultaneously create saleable ’solutions’ for them. The self-interest, economy-must-grow mindset thus either consistently ignores or, as is the case here, actively obscures important ecological truths.

How many times will we ‘discover’ these facts? How many times must we re-invent the wheel? As long as profits are the basis of our society, and private interests the controlling powers, then this information will never reach momentum. Why? Because when schools operate for the public good, unbiased, non-commercialised research can be undertaken with taxpayer dollars. When private interests reign, and schools operate without government support, then schools either close, or get funded by BigAgri.

While it’s clear that funding cash is the carrot used by agribusiness to entice researchers into asking the questions industry is most interested in having answered, there is a stick involved: corporately held patents used to block them from asking others. – Monsanto U: Agribusiness’s Takeover of Public Schools

It should be no surprise that the privatisation of our schooling systems worldwide has helped BigAgri propagandise the next generation and has leveraged their control of the world’s food systems.

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium on the Menu. Courtesy: Marc Roberts

As our soils continue to degrade through the use of Big Agri’s ‘products’, I see an explosion of social and environmental disasters coming to pass. Amongst all the obvious issues, there will also be an ever-increasing public health disaster as the nutrient density of the ‘food’ grown on ever-more-inert, ever-more-lifeless, soils continues to diminish.

We often call this an agricultural treadmill. Our use of nitrogen depletes soils, creating the need for more nitrogen applications. The resulting unbalanced, nutrient-starved plants attract legions of insects, resulting in the need for increasing pesticide applications. The land’s natural effort to restore balance causes soil-restoring plants to spring up (some call them ‘weeds’), inspiring farmers to douse their land with herbicides. In both cases we’re effectively pouring poison on our own food. That’s not smart – but we’ve somehow come to regard it as normal.

Things progressively deteriorate in a downward spiral, but instead of solving the root issue we instead move to genetic engineering to try to patch things up.

Now, you probably assume the ‘root issue’ I’m talking about is our lack of understanding of soil science. And, you’d be right. But perhaps even deeper is the root issue of the kind of economics we base our society on – the kind of economics whose existence relies on obscuring the truth, to preserve and grow a customer base. This entire agricultural treadmill is caused by ’self-interest’ perpetually expressing itself in creating desire and/or need for products that should not exist, and the genetic tinkering of plant genes is an effort to see if we can’t get nature to adapt to the economic framework we’ve built, rather than discover and build a social framework that can work harmoniously with her unchangeable laws.

Using the term treadmill is arguably increasingly inappropriate too, as it leads people to think it can continue ad infinitum. The reality is we’re now watching it collapse. Just as we’ve all but completely exhausted our soils with the fossil fuel based Green Revolution, we’re also at, or fast approaching, peak oil.

Let’s stop calling this ‘new research’. This knowledge needs to saturate and become ‘established fact’ in our school systems, and our school systems need to fulfil the needs of society, not private interests, to help transition us to a world where we recognise our place in the carbon cycle, amongst all the other interdependent elements within the biosphere.

The Dark Side of Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers

~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. If you can’t wait for a widespread transformation in our mainstream educational institutions (I’m turning blue as I hold my breath), and want to understand more about soil science now – then I’d really encourage you to take Paul Taylor’s excellent five-day course on the topic. At time of writing, his next course begins September 20, 2010. Keep an eye on our course listings for other dates.

by Christine Jones, PhD

The number of farmers in Australia has fallen 30 per cent in the last 20 years, with more than 10,000 farming families leaving the agricultural sector in the last five years alone. This decline is ongoing. There is also a reluctance on the part of young people to return to the land, indicative of the poor image and low income-earning potential of current farming practices.

Agricultural debt in Australia has increased from just over $10 billion in 1994 to close to $60 billion in 2009 (Fig.1). The increased debt is not linked to interest rates, which have generally declined over the same period (Burgess 2010).

Fig. 1. Increase in agricultural debt (AUD millions)
1994-2009 vs interest rates (%pa)

The financial viability of the agricultural sector, as well as the health and social wellbeing of individuals, families and businesses in both rural and urban communities, is inexorably linked to the functioning of the land.

There is widespread agreement that the integrity and function of soils, vegetation and waterways in many parts of the Australian landscape have become seriously impaired, resulting in reduced resilience in the face of increasingly challenging climate variability.

Agriculture is the sector most strongly impacted by these changes. It is also the sector with the greatest potential for fundamental redesign.

The most meaningful indicator for the health of the land, and the long-term wealth of a nation, is whether soil is being formed or lost. If soil is being lost, so too is the economic and ecological foundation on which production and conservation are based.

The soil carbon sink

In July 2009, the Portuguese government introduced an AUD$13.8 million soil carbon offsets scheme based on dryland pasture improvement, compliant with Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol.

The scheme will pay an estimated 400 participating farmers to establish biodiverse perennial mixed grass/legume pastures (upwards of 20 species) to improve soil carbon, soil water holding capacity and livestock productivity in an area of approximately 42,000 hectares (Watson, 2010).

The Portuguese scheme has been designed to comply with Kyoto’s strict criteria of additionality and permanence. Coordinator of Project Extensity and Terraprima project leader, Professor Tiago Domingos, has calculated that the area of agricultural land in Portugal amenable to soil carbon offsets could collectively sequester more than the current Portuguese national emissions deficit under existing Kyoto arrangements (Watson 2010).

The mediterranean-type climate of central and southern Portugal is very similar to that in many parts of south-eastern, southern and south-western Australia. The Portuguese Terraprima data illustrated in Fig.2 show that under sown perennial pasture, soil organic matter increased to a level of 3% over 10 years, from a starting point of 0.87%.

Fig. 2. Accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM), shown as percentage
by weight, in soils under three pasture types:
SG = sown perennial pasture;
FNG = fertilised annual pasture;
NG = unfertilised annual pasture
(from Watson 2010).

The Portuguese soil carbon offsets project aims to sequester 0.91 million tonnes of CO2 from 2010 to 2012 (Watson 2010). This equates to the sequestration of 10.85t CO2/ha/yr.

In addition to the carbon payments they receive, participating Portuguese farmers are reported as “enjoying the environmental spin-offs of greater biodiversity, higher soil fertility, higher water infiltration rates, less erosion, less desertification, fewer fires, less floods, improvement in water quality, less dependence on concentrated feed for their herds in protracted dry periods and better milk and meat quality” (Watson 2010).

US study on soil carbon sequestration rates under perennial grassland

Recent research by United States Department of Agriculture (Liebig et al. 2008) investigated soil carbon sequestration under a perennial native grass, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) grown for the production of cellulosic ethanol.

Despite the annual removal of aboveground biomass, low to medium rainfall and a relatively short growing season, the USDA-ARS research, averaged across 10 sites, recorded average soil carbon sequestration rates of 4t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-30 cm soil profile and 10.6t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-120 cm profile (Liebig et al 2008).

The best performing site was at Bristol, where soil carbon levels increased by 21.67 tonnes in the 0-30 cm soil profile over a 5 year period. A soil carbon increase of 21.67t C/ha equates to the sequestration of 80t CO2/ha.

At the three sites where carbon was measured to 120 cm, the USDA research found relatively high sequestration rates below 30 cm. The sequestration rate was higher for the 30-60 cm increment than for the 0-30 cm increment (18.2t CO2/ha vs 16.5t CO2/ha, respectively). A possible interpretation is that the deeper the sequestration, the greater the likelihood that the carbon be protected from oxidative and/or microbial decomposition.

There were virtually no ‘biomass inputs’ to soil in these trials, as all aboveground material was removed for ethanol production. This suggests the liquid carbon pathway (Jones 2008) as the primary mechanism for soil building.

Carbon trading in the real world

The recent demise of the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme provides an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of a carbon-based economy.

For some time, analysts have tipped carbon to become the world’s most traded commodity. The reality is that it has been the world’s most traded commodity for millennia.

A great variety of life forms require liquid carbon – referred to in the scientific literature as ‘dissolved organic carbon’ (DOC) – for their growth and reproduction. The growth of trees, crops and pastures, for example, requires the transport of dissolved carbon via sap within the plant; animal growth is dependant on the digestion of carbon containing foods and the transport of dissolved carbon to cells via the blood; the formation of topsoil is dependent on photosynthesis and the transport of dissolved carbon, via a microbial bridge, from plants to soil.

Carbon is the currency for most transactions within and between living things. Nowhere is this more evident than in the soil. Here, carbon is king. Mycorrhizal fungi, which are totally dependant on dissolved organic carbon from green plants, trade carbon with colonies of bacteria located at their hyphal tips in exchange for macro-nutrients such as phosphorus, organic nitrogen and calcium, trace elements such as zinc, boron and copper, and plant growth stimulating substances (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004).

By means of an extraordinary physiological process known as ‘bidirectional flow’ nutrients are transported to roots at the same time as dissolved organic carbon moves through fungal hyphae in the opposite direction (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Indeed, mycorrhizal roots are significant sinks for carbon, transferring as much as 15 times more carbon to soil as adjacent non-mycorrhizal roots (Killham 1994).

Impoverishment of agricultural soils

Mycorrhizal fungi and associative bacteria are very strongly inhibited by excessive soil disturbance and the high levels of water-soluble phosphorus and nitrogen commonly used in modern agriculture (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Where soils have been subjected to cultivation and/or the application of MAP, DAP, superphosphate, urea or anhydrous ammonia, the suppressed mycorrhizal colonisation of plant roots significantly reduces carbon flow. The structural degradation of agricultural soils, accompanied by mineral depletion in food, has largely been the result of the inhibition of this natural carbon pathway.

When carbon supply is limited by the loss of the primary pathway for sequestration, the physical, chemical and biological functions normally performed by healthy soil are markedly reduced.

Historical levels of soil carbon

Noted Polish explorer and geologist, Sir Paul Edmund [Count] Strzelecki, travelled widely through the colonies of south-eastern Australia during the period 1839 to 1843, collecting minerals, visiting farms and analysing soils. One of the questions Strzelecki posed was, what factors determine soil productivity? He collected 41 soil samples from farmed paddocks of either high or low productivity. The analyses revealed that the most important determinant of soil productivity was the level of soil carbon (measured as organic matter in Strzelecki’s day).

Of the 41 samples analysed, Strzelecki (1845) found …

The top 10 soils in the high productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 11% to 37.75% (average 20%). The lowest ranking 10 soils in the low productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 2.2% to 5.0% (average 3.72%)

The soils with the highest organic matter levels also had the highest moisture holding capacity, with an 18-fold difference in capacity to hold moisture between the lowest and the highest (Strzelecki 1845).

Strzelecki’s data indicate that organic matter levels in the early settlement period were around five to ten times higher than in many soils today. The soil test data from Strzelecki is consistent with the writings of first settlers, who described soils in the early settlement period as soft, spongy and absorbent. The 1840s journal of George Augustus Robinson, for example, contains numerous references to the extremely fertile and productive soils encountered by pastoralists in the mid-1800s (Presland 1970).

Soil carbon and soil moisture

In addition to enhancing nutrient availability, carbon performs many other functions in soil, including the maintenance of soil porosity, aeration and water-holding capacity.

Glenn Morris (Morris 2004) extensively researched the water holding capacity of humus (an extremely stable form of soil carbon) and concluded that within the soil matrix, one part of soil humus could, on average, retain a minimum of four parts of soil water.

From this relationship it can be calculated that an increase of 16.8 litres (almost two buckets) of extra plant available water could be stored per square metre in the top 30 cm (12”) of soil with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3, for every 1% increase (in absolute terms) in the level of soil organic carbon. This equates to 168,000 litres of water that could be stored per hectare, in addition to the water-holding capacity of the soil itself (Jones 2006).

The flip side is that the same amount of water-holding capacity will be lost when soil carbon levels fall. Low soil moisture and low levels of soil organic carbon go hand in hand.

Soil organic carbon levels in many areas have fallen by at least 3% (in absolute terms) since the time of European settlement, This reduction in soil carbon content represents the LOSS of the ability of soil to store around 504,000 litres of water per hectare.

Mycorrhizas and water

It is well known that mycorrhizal fungi access and transport nutrients in exchange for carbon from the host plant (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). What is less well known is that in seasonally dry, variable, or unpredictable environments (that is, most of Australia), mycorrhizal fungi play an extremely important role in plant-water dynamics.

Mycorrhizal fungi can supply moisture to plants in dry environments by exploring micropores not accessible to plant roots. They can also improve hydraulic conductivity by bridging macropores in dry soils of low water-holding capacity (such as sands). In these situations, external wicking along the hyphae is of greater importance than cytoplasmic flow (Allen 2007). Mycorrhizal fungi can also increase drought resistance by stimulating an increase in the number and depth of plant roots.

Soil carbon and soil nitrogen

Aside from water, nitrogen is frequently the most limiting factor to crop and pasture production. It is one of the great ironies of agriculture that the atmosphere is around 78% nitrogen, but not one single molecule is directly available to plants. There are approximately 78,000 tonnes of nitrogen gas sitting above every hectare of land. Apart from small accessions via lightning, this nitrogen cannot be accessed without a microbial bridge.

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria – be they free-living in the rhizosphere, confined to nodules on plant roots, or existing as endophytes in leaves or stems – derive most of their energy from liquid carbon fixed during photosynthesis.

Adding water-soluble nitrogen in the form of urea, anhydrous ammonia or nitrate destabilises the plant-soil ecosystem by reducing the activity of mycorrhizal fungi and free living N-fixing bacteria (Killham 1994). The presence of high levels of water-soluble nitrogen in soil sends a signal to plants to reduce the supply of liquid carbon to microbial symbionts, effectively inhibiting the microbial associations that would otherwise supply atmospheric nitrogen for free.

This contradicts the widely promoted belief that nitrogenous fertiliser needs to be added in order for stable soil carbon to form. Indeed, the opposite is true (Khan et al. 2007, Larson 2007, Mulvaney et al. 2009).

Soil test data show that as soil carbon levels increase in microbially active soils, availabilities of P, K, S, Ca, Zn and B commonly increase, while levels of nitrate nitrogen are often reduced.

If plants are mycorrhizal, they don’t require nitrogen in a mineralised form, that is, in the form of nitrate or ammonium. In order to transport mineralised nitrogen, mycorrhizal fungi have to convert it to glutamate, which represents an energy cost. For this reason, nitrogen is preferentially transported in an organic form, generally as amino acids such as glycine and glutamine (Leake et al. 2004).

Utilisation of organic nitrogen by mycorrhizal fungi closes the nitrogen loop and prevents soil acidity, as well as preventing volatilisation of nitrogen to the atmosphere and leaching to aquifers, rivers and streams. Changes to soil chemistry and nitrogen dynamics in microbially balanced soils also reduce the abundance of ‘weedy’ species such as annual ryegrass, capeweed, mustard weed and thistles. The germination of these species is stimulated by the ready availability of nitrate nitrogen.

Soil as a methane sink

Wetlands, rivers, oceans, lakes, plants, decaying vegetation (especially in moist environments such as rainforests) – and a wide variety of creatures great and small – from termites to whales, have been producing methane for millions of years. The rumen, for example, evolved as an efficient way of digesting plant material around 90 million years ago.

Ruminants including buffalo, goats, wild sheep, camels, giraffes, reindeer, caribou, antelopes and bison existed in greater numbers prior to the Industrial Revolution than are present today.

There would have been an overwhelming accumulation of methane in the atmosphere had not sources and sinks been able to cancel each other over past millennia.

Although most methane is inactivated by the hydroxyl (OH) free radical in the atmosphere (Quirk 2010), another source of inactivation is oxidisation in biologically active soils. Aerobic soils are net sinks for methane, due to the presence of methanotrophic bacteria, which utilise methane as their sole energy source (Dunfield 2007). Methanotrophs have the opposite function to methanogens, which bind free hydrogen atoms to carbon to reduce acidosis in the rumen.

Recent research undertaken by Professor Mark Adams, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Sydney University, found that one hectare of pasture land could oxidise as much methane as emitted by 162 head of cattle in an entire year (Cawood 2009). The highest methane oxidation rate recorded in soil to date has been 137mg/m2/day (Dunfield 2007) which, over one hectare, equates to the absorption of the methane produced by approximately 1000 head of cattle.

In Australia, it has been widely promoted that livestock are a significant contributor to atmospheric methane and that global methane levels are rising. However, there is no evidence to suggest that methane emissions from ruminant sources are increasing. Indeed, it would seem there has been no clear trend to changes in global methane levels, from any source, over recent decades.

The increase in global methane levels from 1930 to 1970 was due to emissions from the production, transmission and distribution of natural gas (Quirk 2010). There was a tenfold increase in the use of natural gas through the 1960s and 1970s. The source of many of the natural gas emissions, such as leakages from the Trans-Siberian pipeline, have since been rectified (Quirk 2010). Measurements over the last 25 years show concentrations of atmospheric methane are merely exhibiting natural variation, with no significant trends in any direction (Fig.3).

Fig. 3. Variations in annual changes in atmospheric methane concentrations
from 1983 to 2009, from Dlugokencky et al. (2009).
Measurements are in parts per billion per year.

There is therefore no scientific basis for selectively targeting ruminants for a ‘methane tax’, or worse, interfering with this natural process. Farming in ways that enhance, rather than inhibit, soil biological activity, would improve the capacity of agricultural soil to act as a methane sink, helping balance the greenhouse equation. The issue with today’s industrialised approach to agriculture is that methanotrophic bacteria are chemically sensitive. Their activities are reduced by nitrogenous fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, acidification and excessive soil disturbance (Dunfield 2007).

Soil carbon and human health

The nutritional status of soils, plants, animals and people has fallen dramatically in the last 50 years, due to losses in soil carbon, the key driver for soil nutrient cycles. Soil health and human health are more deeply connected than many people realise. Food is often viewed in terms of quantity available, hence ‘food scarcity’ is not seen as an issue in Australia. However, food produced from depleted soils does not contain the essential trace minerals required for the effective functioning of our immune systems.

Routine premature deaths from degenerative conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer have become prominent when they were once relatively uncommon. The cancer rate, for example, has increased from approximately 1 in 100, fifty years ago, to almost 1 in 2 today. The effectiveness of the human immune system has been compromised by increased exposure to more and more chemicals coupled with insufficient mineral density in food.

The low nutritional status of many basic food items is highlighted in data from the UK Ministry of Health. Depletion in the level of minerals in vegetables for the period 1940-1991, for example, shows copper levels reduced by 76%, calcium by 46%, iron by 27%, magnesium by 24% and potassium by 16%. Deficiencies in plants translate through to deficiencies in animals. A piece of steak now contains only half the amount of iron that it would have contained 50 years ago.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies in food indicate that the symbiotic relationship between plants and soil microbes, whereby minerals are exchanged for liquid carbon, has been disrupted.

The best national health policy would be a national soils policy. But we don’t have one.

Our hospitals are over-filled and our health system is struggling to cope with illnesses that are highly correlated to the lack of essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements in our diet. The availability of these nutrients is determined to a large extent by the integrity of the soil food-web and the microbe bridge, which in turn are dependent on active soil sequestration of dissolved organic carbon.

Food labelling and a ‘Soil Integrity Index’

Food choices can have very significant effects on the kind of food produced and how it is produced. Currently, it is not possible for consumers to choose foods high in minerals, grown on healthy soils, as there is no labelling for food quality.

It is proposed that a ‘Soil Integrity Index’ with index parameters of

1. level of microbial diversity
2. soil carbon content and
3. soil water holding capacity

be used as the basis for a food labelling system.

The labels would need to be simple, with perhaps a star system (as in one, two or three stars). If a food labelling mechanism was in place, Australia’s largely city-based population could use food choices to improve not only the health of their families, but also the function and resilience of agricultural soils, thereby actively participating and supporting biology friendly farming.

The future landscape

The challenge for the future prosperity of Australian agriculture is to convert soil from its current status as a net source of carbon, to a revitalised state as a net carbon sink.

Agricultural research tends to focus on conventionally managed crop and pasture lands where intensive use of agrochemicals has dramatically reduced the number and diversity of soil flora and fauna, including beneficial microbes such as mycorrhizal fungi. As a result, the potential contribution of microbial symbionts to agricultural productivity has been greatly underestimated (Allen 2007).

Building soil carbon does not require adding biomass to soil. While crop stubbles and mulch are important for protecting soil from wind and water erosion and buffering temperature extremes, their contribution to soil carbon is limited by eventual decomposition to CO2.

The first step to restoring soil function is ‘do no harm’. A simple change from high-analysis N and/or P fertilisers to biological products such as worm leachate (vermiliquid), compost extract, seaweed extract and/or fish emulsion, applied as a seed dressing and/or a post-emergent foliar spray, will support microbial diversity, increase plant photosynthetic rate, increase the flow of liquid carbon to soil and enhance humification.

As the soil chemistry adjusts and nitrogen is converted to an organic form (freely available to mycorrhizal fungi but not to annual weeds) the incidence of pests, weeds and diseases that are stimulated by low levels of microbial diversity and high rates of water soluble nitrogen, will decline. As a result, there will be less reliance on the use of pesticides and herbicides that reduce the ability of soil to act as a sink for carbon, nitrogen, methane and moisture.

Changing the face of agriculture

Since 1960, global food production has doubled. At the same time, the soil resource on which food production is based has become seriously degraded.

The impoverishment of agricultural soils through depleted levels of biological activity and reduced carbon flow poses a greater threat to human existence than climate change.

In many regions of Australia, the effects of lower than average rainfall over the past decade have been compounded by loss of soil resilience and reduced moisture-holding capacity (Fig.4).

Fig. 4. Cropping over an old fence-line clearly demonstrates the extent to
which soil has been depleted by conventional farming practices. Paddocks
on either side of the fence have a history of high nitrogenapplication
(Photo Richard May).

It has been calculated that in the next 50 years, the planet will need to produce as much food as it has in the entire history of humankind. The way we produce that food will require a radical departure from business as usual.

At the beginning of this paper it was noted that the level of agricultural debt in Australia had increased almost 6-fold over the last 15 years. The amount of money invested by the farming community on non-biological inputs increases every year. Many of these products inhibit microbial diversity, preventing natural carbon flow to soils. Cessation of carbon flow reduces soil integrity, the mineral density in food and human health. It also prevents the processes of humification and topsoil formation from operating to any significant extent. The end result is even greater expenditure on agrochemicals in attempts to control the pest, weed, disease and fertility problems’ that ensue.

The statement that small farmers need to ‘get big or get out’ overlooks the fact that profit is the difference between expenditure and income. In years to come we will perhaps wonder why it took so long to realise the futility of trying to grow crops in dysfunctional soils, relying solely on increasingly expensive synthetic inputs.

Economic development is only sustainable if it strengthens, rather than depletes, natural resources.

The soil’s ability to produce nutrient dense, high vitality food – which after all, is agriculture’s real purpose – depends on appropriate management. Enhancing the natural flow of carbon to soils will result in increased microbial diversity, improved nutrient cycles, enhanced soil water-holding capacity, greater resilience, improved catchment health – and a more satisfying, profitable future for farmers.

The longer we delay undertaking regenerative changes to land management based on biology friendly farming practices that rebuild carbon-rich soils, the more soil carbon and soil water will be lost, exposing an increasingly fragile agricultural sector to escalating production risks, rising input costs and vulnerability to climatic extremes.

Its time to move away from depletion-style, high emission, chemically based industrial agriculture and get serious about grass-roots biologically based alternatives.

The future of Australia depends on the future of our soil – and our willingness to look after it.

Rebuilding soil productivity via the restoration of natural carbon flow and the sequestration of stable soil carbon is the only means of saving agriculture’s bacon – and ensuring a future for human society as we know it.

Literature cited

• Allen, M.F (2007). ‘Mycorrhizal fungi: highways for water and nutrients in arid soils’. Soil Science Society of America, Vadose Zone Journal. Vol 6 (2) pp. 291-297. DOI:10.2136/vzj2006.0068.
• Burgess, N. (2010). Agricultural debt from 1994 to 2009. Sourced from Westpac Economics& Reserve Bank of Australia. nburgess@westpac.com.au
• Cawood, M. (2009). ETS lifeline: soils capable of absorbing cattle methane. The Land, 3 September 2009.
• Dlugokencky, E. J. et al. (2009). Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden. Geophysical Research Letters. 36, L18803, DOI:10.1029/2009GL039780.
• Dunfield, P. F. (2007). The soil methane sink. In D.S. Reay, C.N. Hewitt, K.A Smith and J. Grace, eds. Greenhouse Gas Sinks. pp. 152-170. Wallingford UK.
• Jones, C. E. (2006). Carbon and catchments. National ‘Managing the Carbon Cycle’ Forum, Queanbeyan, NSW, 22-23 November 2006. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Jones, C.E. (2008). Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised. Australian Farm Journal, July 2008, pp. 15-17. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Khan, S.A, Mulvaney, R.L, Ellsworth, T.R. and Boast, C.W. (2007). The myth of nitrogen fertilization for soil carbon sequestration. Journal of Environmental Quality 36:1821-1832. DOI:10.2134/jeq2007.0099
• Killham, K. (1994). ‘Soil Ecology’. Cambridge University Press.
• Larson, D. L (2007). Study reveals that nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil organic carbon. University of Illinois news, October 29, 2007. http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/internal/preview.cfm?NID=4185
• Leake, J.R., Johnson, D., Donnelly, D.P., Muckle, G.E., Boddy, L. and Read, D.J. (2004). Networks of power and influence: the role of mycorrhizal mycelium in controlling plant communities and agroecosystem functioning. Canadian Journal of Botany, 82: 1016-1045. DOI:10.1139/B04-060
• Liebig, M.A, Schmer, M.R, Vogel, K.P. and Mitchell. R.B. (2008). Soil carbon storage by switchgrass grown for bioenergy. Bioenergy Research 1: 215-222. DOI:10.1007/s12155-008-9019-5
• Morris G. D. (2004). Sustaining national water supplies by understanding the dynamic capacity that humus has to increase soil water-holding capacity. Thesis submitted for Master of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Sydney, July 2004.
• Mulvaney, R.L, Khan S.A, and Ellsworth, T.R. (2009). Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil nitrogen: a global dilemma for sustainable cereal production. Journal of Environmental Quality 38:2295-2314. DOI:10.2134/jeq2008.0527
• Quirk T. W. (2010). Twentieth century sources of methane in the atmosphere. Energy and Environment, 21(3), pp. 251-256.
• Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de, (1845). Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land: accompanied by a geological map, sections and diagrams, and figures of the organic remains / by P.E. de Strzelecki. Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London. (Note: prior to 1851 the state of Victoria was part of the colony of New South Wales).
• Watson, L. (2010). Portugal gives green light to pasture carbon farming as a recognised offset. Australian Farm Journal, January 2010, pp. 44-47.

Thanks to Darren Doherty for the head’s up on this new draft document from the Soil Carbon Coalition on measuring changes in soil carbon levels – the key indicator of soil health and fertility.

As we all (should) know well, land use changes over the last several centuries have significantly increased atmospheric CO2 levels. Soil mismanagement, which has increased in tandem with our burgeoning human population, has released mammoth amounts of carbon from the soil, where it is a positive, into the atmosphere, where it becomes, in its present excessive levels, a negative instead. Correct soil management, in contrast, can play a significant role in reversing that trend by pulling excess atmospheric CO2 out of the sky, through photosynthesis, and returning it to the soil in humus, the stable, final state of decomposition of organic matter – thus transforming excess CO2 from being a pollutant into a rich habitat for the micro- and macro-organisms that are the foundation of all life on this planet. Permaculture, through its favouring small scale, low-to-no till polycultures, and where the soil is always protected by a ’skin’ of plant or mulch cover, and maintained by appropriate naturally harvested moisture levels, is a powerful system for restoring the Gaia state of carbon balance.

If you’re building humus/carbon levels in your soil, you’re building fertility and health. More, you’re a hero – setting an example that if all were to follow, would rapidly put this planet back onto a sustainable path.

For those interested to more accurately gauge the effectiveness of their soil management, the document linked to here may prove entirely useful.

It is intended as a guide for do-it-yourselfers as well as part of the operating method for the Soil Carbon Challenge. It is also the first guide that attempts to understand and accommodate the variety of purposes or objectives people have in measuring soil carbon. Up to now, soil carbon measurement has been treated almost exclusively as a technical issue. But the main sources of risk and uncertainty in achieving the objectives are social, having to do with beliefs and attitudes.

Based on published literature and experience, this method outlines how to establish fixed plots, take samples, get them analyzed with the dry combustion method, and make calculations from the results.

Though targeted primarily at those who want to show possibility, and get feedback for their management, the guide should be helpful for those who wish to quantify carbon tonnage for "offsets" or research projects as well. How and what you measure, as well as the sources of uncertainty, depend on your purpose.

Measuring carbon change means establishing and measuring baseline plots, and then remeasuring them after 3 years or so. – Soil Carbon Coalition

What is the difference between soil and dirt?

Soil is alive. Dirt is dead. A single teaspoon of soil can contain billions of microscopic bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes. A handful of the same soil will contain numerous earthworms, arthropods, and other visible crawling creatures. Healthy soil is a complex community of life and actually supports the most biodiverse ecosystem on the planet.

Modern soil science is demonstrating that these billions of living organisms are continuously at work, creating soil structure, producing nutrients and building defence systems against disease. In fact, it has been shown that the health of the soil community is key to the health of our plants, our food and our bodies.

Why is it then, that much of the food from the conventional agricultural system is grown in dirt? The plants grown in this lifeless soil are dependent on fertilizer and biocide inputs, chemicals which further destroy water quality, soil health and nutritional content.

How did we get here? How do we turn this around? This is the Story of Soil….

Turning and Ploughing Soil

It all started about 10,000 years ago when humans started ploughing the fields in the experiment called agriculture. The settlers noticed that when they ploughed the field their crops would grow faster. Based on this positive feedback it was concluded that ploughing must be constructive and more fields were turned. However, in actual fact the bacteria, fungi and arthropods in the soil are essentially nutrient locked up in biology. For example, bacteria is almost 90% nitrogen. Ploughing the soil was killing the life in the soil resulting in an unregulated jolt of nutrient available to the surrounding plants. Over time, with the death of all soil microbes, the soil is unable to naturally support life and the farmer had to move to more fertile ground. The agricultural pattern emerged: deforest, plough, irrigate, salinate, desertify, move on.

How the Synthesis of Acid Changed the World

About one hundred and fifty years ago humans discovered how to synthesize sulphuric acid. The synthesis of acid allowed for a major advance in industrial agriculture: the ability to dissolve rock minerals into a water-soluble form. This meant that macro-nutrients such as nitrogen (N), potassium (P) and phosphorus (K) could be added to the soil in a form that could be taken up by plants.

As acid was discovered at around the same time as petroleum, this meant the advent of harder, faster and larger-scale ploughing with the use of water soluble salt-based minerals. Again, what could be wrong with a system that produces so much?

Plants and Their Roots

Plants have two main types of roots: tap roots and hair roots. Tap roots are responsible for hydrating the plant, i.e. drinking water. Soil does not freely feed or give minerals (such as calcium, magnesium, etc) to plants and so in order to get minerals a plant must make a “trade” with the soil biota – this is the primary function of the hair roots. Therefore the hair roots are the mineral traders and create an environment around themselves called the rhizosphere – a habitat for soil biota.

Through the process of photosynthesis plants produce exudates (sugars) and commit up to fifty percent of these sugars to the action of feeding and trading with the biology in the soil. When the plant needs a certain mineral, say calcium, it offers exudates to the biota that can provide calcium. This is a symbiotic process in which the plants support the biota and the biota support the plant.

And so, if you plough soil and kill off the biota and soil microorganisms, how does a plant get minerals? The industrial solution is to feed the minerals to the tap roots, i.e. put water-soluble dissolved minerals in the drinking water, otherwise known as fertilizer. The advent of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus fertilizer (NPK) meant that we did not need to rely on a bank of soil biology to make our plants grow. We could add macro-nutrients at whatever rate we desired and grow plants faster and quicker than ever before – in increasingly lifeless soil.

Have you ever salted a slug? What happens? The salt creates a large osmotic pressure on the creature’s cell wall and results in death. This analogy can be used to understand what happens to the soil biology when salt-based fertilizer is used (note that all fertilizer is based in mineral salts). So the salting of the land through broad-acre fertilization ensures that the biology is completely dead. As long as we keep applying fertilizer there is no chance for life to return.

Without life in the soil, no natural mineral exchange can occur. Also, with plants being forced to drink mineral soup through the tap root, less energy is devoted to developing an overall healthy root structure. Fertilizer has become an addictive drug. It has eliminated the soil biota, replaced that function in the ecosystem, and now must be continually applied. Whoever controls the fertilizer market secured their market share the same way as the cocaine dealer.

The Downward Spiral

By the late fifties farmers were using NPK at record levels, tractors were highly advanced and the soils in the world were on a fast track to doom. The use of mono-culture crops, heavy tilling, irrigation and fertilizer was killing the soil and making our plants weak and addicted to chemicals. Monocrops of these obese and sick plants became an all-you-can-eat buffet for pests and the degraded and depleted soils a great opportunity for pioneer species (i.e. weeds).

“No worries!” proclaimed the Chemical Companies, “we’ve got the solution for that too”. Let’s kill these pests and nasty weeds that are causing all the problems – and thus pesticides and herbicides were born.

Without healthy soils to support beneficial fungal population the next problem to emerge for farmers was fungal issues. The “next solution” – apply fungicide!

We are now left with dead, acidic and salted soils that are only good for holding up plants.

Weeds and What they Tell Us

Carbon is the building block of life. Any soil scientist, gardener or farmer will tell you that a soil with no carbon is a dead soil. Carbon and nitrogen like to bond together at a rate of 30:1 and most gardeners know that mixing too much carbon in (like mulch or straw) will decrease available nitrogen. The reverse is true as well and adding nitrogen (in the form of fertilizer) actually reduces carbon levels in the soil. Without carbon, fungus has no food source and dies. The soil collapses, leading to hard packed dirt and anaerobic conditions (no oxygen). What comes next are nature’s signs of a sick system trying to heal itself: weeds, pests and erosion.

It has been proven that the weeds that grow on the surface of the soil are a response to a condition in the soil. For example, pig weed and thistle grow in soils high in nitrates (i.e. fields that have had a history of fertilizer use), and bracken ferns and blady grass grow in soils deficient in potassium (i.e. soils that have burned). Therefore, most of the agricultural weeds that we spray with herbicides actually have an ecological function. Club root, dandelion, knapweed, chickweed and amaranth all indicate too much nitrogen and anaerobic conditions – they are trying to build the topsoil carbon levels.

Weeds such as these do not divert a lot of the photosynthesis energy into soil biology relationships and instead they produce thousands of seeds and lots of carbon – they are fast carbon pathways. As the carbon in the soil increases, the soil is able to support fungal associates and bacterial populations encouraging the next stage of succession and return to soil health. Fast growing weeds and pest attacks are mechanisms in nature to eliminate monospeciation and increase biodiversity. If we truly wanted to stop the weeds and pests, the only real solution is to first understand why they are there. Weeds give us clues as to how to repair the soil and how to prescribe techniques to speed up the repair process. For example, if thistles are trying to build soil so that biodiverse life can return to it, we can speed up the soil-building process by adding the right plants and life back into the soil.

Patterns Repeat Themselves

Instead of seeing the pattern that got us here in the first place we tend to trust in the system that misunderstood it from the beginning. The countermeasures in industrial agricultural have all been based on too narrow a definition of what is wrong. When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of the problem, second generation problems are created. It has now come to the point where we’ve invented and hybridized plants to grow in degraded soil/dirt and genetically modified our food to be tolerant of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer. However, the use of chemicals is not just stopping the natural succession of the ecosystem, it is turning the clock backward toward death or desert.

I find it particularly interesting that the soil & chemical Ag industry is the same pattern as the human & pharmaceutical industry. Treat the symptoms, patent the “cures” and profit from the lack of health. I also suspect that the slow death of the healthy soil ecology over the last hundred years of intensive agriculture could be directly correlated to the increase in disease, illness and mineral deficiency in the human species.

There is an old saying from a farmer that I am particularly fond of: “I am sick of growing things that die and killing things that want to live”. It is amazing to me how much energy and money we spend in our quest to kill when all nature wants to do is live. Imagine what the world would look like if we invested the billions of dollars that currently go into killing weeds, pests, and fungi on processes that encourage life, and work with rather than against nature. The more you look at the current system the more you realize that our quest for domination over the soil is perpetuating a system of scarcity. What we need more than ever is a new paradigm to support a system of abundance and life.

Lucky for us that new paradigm exists! It is a branch of soil science that is called the Soil Foodweb. Paul Taylor of “Trust Nature” has been an organic farmer for over 30 years and is one of many to show that the use of aerobic compost and compost tea can turn dead degraded dirt into life-giving soil in as little as three years. The cycle of biocides is being replaced with a cycle of life. When we design properties to harvest water which fix the water cycle, and apply biology through compost, the results are nothing short of miraculous. Nature wants to come back, we just have to help her out a bit. Best of all, permaculture gives us all of the design tools to make this a reality.

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If you are interested in more information on soil health, I highly recommend the book: “Teaming with Microbes, A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web”, Lowenfels & Lewis. The Soil Foodweb organization is another great resource.

Further Reading:

• Permaculture Soils DVD
• Soil – Our Financial Institution

But wait, there’s more! We’re now awaiting the soon-to-be-released Permaculture Soils DVD! This DVD gets to the very heart of what’s needed for a permanent culture, examining that magical muck that is the foundation of all the aforementioned productions. This work shares insights from Geoff Lawton’s two and a half decade’s worth of worldwide experience in soil creation – an experience gained in some of the world’s most inhospitable environments – helping to make the impossibly complex come to life in wondrously understandable ways. I personally think that holistic studies in soil science should be compulsory, foundational elements for every school syllabus – and that if they had been we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today – and we hope this DVD will go some distance in making up for this major shortfall in mainstream education.

Check out the trailer, and then stay tuned for future updates on release.

The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all. – Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977

When you put the Permaculture lens on and look at where our food comes from there are hundreds of dead canaries trying to warn us it’s time to wake up and make a change to something better.

As I look closer I realise the industrial food system is a planet destroying system that deprives people of health and well-being, putting more value on short-term profits and perfect looks than nutrient content and building resilient communities that have sustainable access to food. Not only that but it appears to be edging towards collapse as failing unproductive farms are propped up by more and more chemicals and machines that run on not-so-cheap-anymore oil.

So just as it was all looking a little bleak I was lucky enough to speak with Paul Taylor from Trust Nature. He is a true genius when it comes to understanding soil biology and restoring land back to fertility.

Through natural biological processes such as compost and compost teas, Paul is able to get a failing farm to do a complete 180 and return to abundant production in just three years without the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

Silver bullets are a rare occurrence but this is one that’s come along just at the time when we need it most. Even better, it seems evident that through movies like Food Inc. people are actually waking up and looking for the solution.

This is a very interesting conversation that gives a new perspective on land management and the future of food. I can’t recommend it more. Click play at top.

As it happens, Paul Taylor regularly teaches one-week Soil Biology courses at Zaytuna Farm. Paul helps you to come to grips with the all-important life under your feet, leaving you feeling well capable of working with these incredible biological systems to do what all people should be doing – that being to build soil!

There are still a few places on the next course, beginning June 7. Book now to secure your place.

Amazon rainforest boundary

Observing the thriving and abundant rainforest, it is hard for some to comprehend why neighboring agriculture in the region experiences quite the opposite affect, but the answer is quite simple – it’s all about the soil.

In simplistic terms, due to constant high temperature and moisture levels, and associated microorganism, fungal and insect life – the decomposition of organic matter in these regions is extremely rapid. In a healthy forest, this thin layer of organic matter is quickly cycled. In the Amazon, 80-90% of the biomass lives above ground. In the temperate regions of the world this ratio is reversed.

Source

Root systems are shallow and widely spreading, allowing the biomass above ground to grab the nutrients from this thin surface layer. Massive amounts of organic matter produced by the forest allow this cycle to be maintained as the forest is constantly mulching itself and recycling. In addition the thick canopy serves the dual role of protecting the delicate and thin soil on the forest floor from the heavy rain.

Once this biomass above ground is removed for traditional agriculture purposes, a rapid soil depleting chain of events follows. Without the humus build up due to the rapid decay, there is nowhere for nutrients to be held in the soil and structure is poor. Heavy rains, now pounding the exposed earth, leach nutrients and wash away the tiny layers of fertility that do exist. The infamous swidden (“slash-and-burn”) practices are a result. Farmers cut and then burn the forest in order to add minerals into the soil, but due to the reasons explained above, the land will only support cultivation for 1-3 years, after which time the fertility is gone and the land must be left fallow for up to 10-20 years. Farmers will continue to clear and burn land in cycles, eventually returning to their first plot too burn and plant again. Such patterns are arguably sustainable by small populations over vast areas of forest, particularly if Terra Preta practices are incorporated, however, when time cycles between cultivation shorten, the net result is forest and soil degradation.

To further aggravate the problem, when chemical or organic fertilizers are applied to these unstable tropical soils, these nutrients have no organic matter to attach to and are thus leached in to the ground water at an even higher rate, thus throwing off the delicate balance of the neighboring forest that are still intact. With populations increasing and forest rapidly decreasing (largely due to these techniques) this is clearly not a sustainable model. There’s got to be a better way and the solutions we find will be crucial to the health of our planet.

This difference between temperate and tropical soil fertilities is often seen as the reason why nations in temperate climates tend to be more advanced than tropical nations. Some tropical soil types cannot support anything but the most simple civilizations. This difference in soil fertilities, in combination with the higher population growth rates in tropical nations, probably explains why the bulk of the world’s hunger is found in tropical nations. Today about 75% of the world’s human population resides in tropical climates. This population (about 4.5 billion) is growing significantly faster than human populations in temperate climates, and about 0.8 of these 4.5 billion do not have enough to eat, and many more are malnourished. – Bruce Sundquist

The forest demonstrates the systems that work. Inspired by the abundant designs in nature, Planet People Passion has plans to develop Forest Garden techniques to create abundant systems on a recently acquired 40 acres of degraded land in the Amazon, about 60km outside of Iquitos. The Permaculture Education Center is being established in collaboration with a Peruvian based Non-Profit, The Amazonian Institute for the Preservation of the Rainforest and Indigenous Cultures which will soon be based on this land.

The project will launch, and start up cost will be funded through a Permaculture Design Certificate Course, June 22 – July 6th, lead by Andrew Jones where students will have the opportunity to collaborate in the design of the center’s early planning and at the same time immerse in the cultural treasures of the region made possible through the 10 years of shamanic apprenticeships and work by co-founder Roman Hanis.

Co-Founders, Cynthia Robinson and Roman Hanis, seek to create a model for carbon negative living, which provides abundance for the living communities on all levels. The vision is to implement a multi-layered agro-forestry model, which also incorporates and nurtures the preservation of ancestral shamanic traditions, medicinal plant, as well as exploration on ancient techniques of Terra Preta ("black earth") where ancient cultures successfully developed large areas of thick fertile soil. These ancient traditions hold the keys in both quite literally creating a sustainable foundation and then nurturing the life stemming from it.

It is crucial that we spend our energy creating small living models that are able to explore and evolve organically as we learn and live. It is through these living models that we will truly be able to collaborate with indigenous communities and pool our wisdom together. And it is through these living models that we connect to the languages of nature and develop our own intuitive knowing.

Regeneration – an Earth
Saving Evolution
How biological farming builds healthier
soils, healthier plants, healthier animals
and certain hope in an uncertain world.

In a kind of army style ‘about-face’, society is increasingly turning away from the reductionist, extractive agriculture that rushed onto the world after WWII. Today people are, thankfully, realising that you cannot convert biodiverse natural systems into monocultures – into a factory floor environment – and expect success. With the soils that support all life on this planet getting rapidly eroded and diminished in critical organic matter, people are realising that farming is far more about biology than it is about chemistry, more about feeding the soil than feeding the plant, and are realising that our futures, our very survival, depends on our coming to grips with biological processes and learning to harness them.

I’ve just uploaded the new Regeneration – an Earth Saving Revolution DVD to our online store. This DVD examines the thoughts and work of some of the many individuals who are now leading the way forward in farming techniques that are simultaneously highly productive and entirely sustainable. It’s an inspiration-packed DVD that’s worth circulating to all.

Our survival now truly depends on how fast this kind of information can be made to pervade society at all levels, and how rapidly we can rebuild society to accommodate, integrate and harmonise with it.

Trailer to follow:

But, that’s not the topic of this post. Here, instead, we offer the suggestion of taking well worn tyres not capable of such extreme feats, and putting them to other worthwhile purposes – like feeding your garden with nutrient rich worm casts.

At Zaytuna Farm we use a couple of old bathtubs for this purpose, but if you don’t have a bathtub at your disposal, this simple car tyre system (700kb PDF) looks like a great alternative.

This simple setup is the kind of thing that could be utilised pretty much anywhere. Even in extreme poverty scenarios you can normally find some worn out old tyres and a few bits of wood.

Vermicomposting is an excellent way to turn kitchen and other scraps and cycle them back into nutrient dense food. Scientists still struggle to explain the processes, but the soil that goes into a worm, and that which comes out the other end, is strikingly different and brings multiple benefits to the soil (structure, microbial activity and water retention capacity) and plants (germination, root and plant structure growth and yield). Amongst other things, the worm mucus bound up with the castings help hold nutrients and moisture.

Give it a try!

P.S.: If you have a worm farm, why not write us a short post for publishing so our readers can benefit from your experience and observations and get inspired to do similar. Write to editor (at) permaculture.org.au with some text and pictures.

Hat Tip: Thanks to Ringo for the PDF.