FAQ

Regenerative Farming leaves the environment better than it was before – it regenerates instead of extracting.

By respecting natural processes such as the water cycle and the Carbon cycle, Regenerative Farming encourages natural balance and restores Earth’s natural abundance.

Instead of sterilizing the ground with herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides; Regenerative Farming allows the natural predator/prey balance to coexist within Living Soil. From microscopic fungi and bacteria, to visible insects and worms; Living Soil contains a balanced web of life that aerates and breaks up compacted soils while absorbing and retaining water.

Instead of tilling the ground with diesel tractors and injecting chemical fertilizers; Regenerative Farming uses natural mobile bioreactors (cattle, sheep, etc.) to till the soil with their hooves, and fertilize the soil with their droppings – while allowing the growth of grasses and other natural “cover crops” to drawn down CO2 and Nitrogen out of the atmosphere and ‘fixing’ that in the soil as natural fertilizer.

Tilling the soil not only releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, it also destroys the living web of beneficial fungi (mycorrhizal fungi) that coexists in symbiosis with healthy plants and trees. These fungi are able to search for hundreds of meters for nutrients which the plants require, and they are capable of dissolving solid rock in order to extract and deliver minerals to plants in exchange for carbohydrates and sugars.

This exchange happens below the surface of the soil, at the roots. Yet, most modern farming methods destroy this network of mycorrhizal fungi by tilling the soil, and then by spraying fungicides meant to kill parasitic fungi. This essentially destroys one of the most fundamental ecosystems upon which all life on land depends.

Regenerative Farming not only honors and cares for the Living Soil ecosystem, but it actively restores and regenerates the soil ecosystem, thereby regenerating every other ecosystem built upon the soil, restoring natural water cycles, and the Carbon cycle.

Humans need to eat, and we have to grow our food and raise our livestock somehow. Organic farming tends to reduce yields – meaning you can grow less on the same land than if you used industrial farming methods and chemicals. Regenerative Farming has shown to actually increase yields over time – reaching as high as 1,000% more yield on depleted land than what conventional farming can produce (see image)

This is such a high increase due to the poor state of the land before implementing Regenerative techniques. However, even well-managed farmland will see an increase in productivity, usually reaching around 300% greater yield by the 5th year of Regenerative Farming.

Keep in mind, this increase in yield (growing more food on less land) happens while also improving the local environment:

• Cleaner water
• Cleaner air
• Stabilized weather patterns

All of this while also increasing the nutrient density and FLAVOR of the food grown in such Living Soil. This is because the symbiotic organisms work together to find and deliver nutrients and even water to the roots of plants in exchange for the sugars produced by photosynthesis.

Think of it as the “circle of life” beneath your feet!

By utilizing living soil and maintaining optimum conditions for any crop, allows DNA to express the most desirable genetic traits, we have found that most pests will quite naturally avoid healthy plants and go directly to invade less healthy plants. So for the most part, insect populations as well as pathogenic (disease) vectors are minimized by growing robust plants at each site. In cases where there is insect problems which persist, other natural methods exist such as ‘companion crops’ or ‘companion planting’. Companion crops are planted along with a target crop which, in this case, repels pests from the target crops – similar to Uka Farms in Albania.

“The overall objective is greater net yield or quality, and different combinations achieve this in different ways. Some companion plants (e.g., marigolds in cabbage) repel insects that might damage the food crop. Unless you value marigolds greatly for their own sake, you must weigh their repellent value against any cabbage plants they may have displaced (by adjusted spacing).”

-M.O.F.G.A.1

The key is to make this scalable and viable for commercial and industrial farms where the easy and ‘inexpensive’ solution was to chemically treat the plants, starting the leaching process into our water supply. We are also developing ongoing methods which aim to produce the most nutritious plant with the least amount of input by leveraging both the surrounding ecosystem, microclimate and low impact technologies available. For instance, using pre-programmed coordinates, drones can be sent out to monitor crops with specific cameras to measure early signs of pest or pathogen problems and get out ahead of these issues before they cost the farm, and hence the consumer (or insurance) companies unnecessary capital.

The weather is driven on a global scale by the sun, the moon, and the rotation of our planet. However, microclimates (local weather patterns) are driven by terrain, heat irradiance, and water evaporation.

It’s obvious that mountains make it harder for rain to pass by – as clouds drop their moisture in the form of rain as the terrain pushes the air columns higher. But what happens when the heat of reflected sunlight creates a high-pressure heat dome (like over a desert)? As the air over a desert is heated, it rises, creating a mountain-like dome that actually drives rain away.

The bare soil of fallow farmland has a similar effect – as does the steel and concrete jungle of many modern cities. These man-made alterations to the terrain often push the rain away. Only the biggest storms are able to push through such high-pressure heat domes; so you end up with alternating cycles of drought and floods. Sound familiar?

Conversely, Regenerative Farming encourages the growth of green cover crops and symbiotic trees/bushes on the land. Not only do living plants absorb tremendous heat (they use that heat energy to perform work – called photosynthesis), but these plants also exhale water in a process called transpiration. This further cools the surrounding environment while also seeding clouds with moisture, altering weather patterns in positive ways. In fact, Living Soil emits signals into the atmosphere that literally attracts rain when the plants require it, and repels rain when they do not. Who’d have thought that Mother Nature had this all figured out before humans even noticed?

All Carbon-based life forms on this planet ( including humans) are part of the Carbon Cycle. We all need Carbon as the building block of every cell in our bodies. Carbohydrates and sugars are simply Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen atoms assembled by plants. Fats are made of the same 3 elements, and Proteins are identical with the addition of Nitrogen to the mix.

All of these building blocks of life are assembled during photosynthesis: Literally combining (synthesizing) water and air into living tissue by harnessing the power of sunshine. In a healthy living ecosystem, these sugars, starches, proteins, and fats are traded with other life forms in exchange for goods or services.

For instance, mycorrhizal fungi are able to seek out minerals underground and dissolve solid rock in order to transport these requested nutrients to nearby plants in exchange for sugars. These underground fungal networks have even been known to transport thousands of gallons of water uphill in order to nourish plants they had partnered with. These same networks fight off invasive pests, including molds, blight, and even locusts!

All of these mycorrhizal networks are made of Carbon, which the plants absorbed out of the atmosphere (CO2) and photosynthesized into nutritious and delicious carbohydrates that it sent into the soil to feed the fungi in exchange for minerals. Around 40% of all Carbon absorbed by plants is fed into the soil in this way, where it not only stays put, but it actually improves the fertility and durability of the soil in profound ways.

Every gram of Carbon absorbed by plants and stored in the soil (aka sequestered or biosequestration) allows that soil to absorb and hold 8 grams of water. This means living soil doesn’t just survive flooding, it prevents flooding by absorbing that rain like a sponge soaks up spilled milk! This stored water is then shifted as needed by the fungal networks, allowing Living Soil to also survive droughts.

Combine that with plants’ ability to create weather patterns, and you start to see how powerful farming can be for shaping a healthy and stable Climate for humans!

Finally, you have the work of Earthworms and grazing animals who turn forest litter and fire hazards into fertile droppings that sequester more Carbon back into Living Soil rather than it all going up in smoke or being “cleaned” by well-meaning but ill-advised forest managers. Forest waste and genuine fire hazards should be removed, but they should also be put into a bioreactor in order to be naturally turned back into healthy soil.

In the end, the difference between sand and soil is the rich black Carbon of Living Soil.

This is TRUE, however the specific answer to this is complex.

We should be eating LOCAL fruits and vegetables grown in LIVING SOIL, without the use of artificial fertilizers or toxic pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides.

This food should be grown in a way that improves the quality of the surrounding environment:

• filters and purifies rainwater,
• helps to break down methane and other airborne pollutants,
• and supports local bees & other pollinators.
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Honestly, the biggest problem is that most consumers don’t buy fruits or vegetables – they buy cans, jars, bottles, bags, and boxes of processed and pre-packaged foods with colorful labels. This is another issue which CCS aims to help address.

Below is further detail on WHY conventionally farmed food is not what humans should be eating:

1. The fruits and vegetables you buy at the grocery store come from a very limited pool of genetics. The WTO only allows the sale of crops grown from “Certified Seed” which is an expensive process – meaning only seeds with funding behind them get certified/can be sold on global markets.
2. Only the fruits and vegetables that “look pretty” are bought by grocery stores, since WE THE CONSUMERS tend to only buy “pretty” fruits & vegetables. This leads to farming practices the favor aesthetics over health and nutrition.
3. Most commercial crops are sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides so toxic that farmers must wear complete body protection and breathing respirators designed for chemical warfare – the same purpose these chemicals were developed for – chemical warfare. In fact ammonium nitrate was produced at industrial scale for explosives in WW1, and then it was marketed to farmers as cheap fertilizer once the war was over – the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s happened a decade later.
4. Most commercial crops are grown in soils that have been sterilized of all life, then re-fertilized with artificial chemical fertilizers, or “blood and bone” fertilizers if it’s organic (making Vegan mostly illegitimate – by design – if you buy mainstream produce). This means that most commercially grown crops are nutrient deficient, and flavor poor.
5. Most commercial crops are shipped from foreign countries (Banana Republics) using petroleum-burning planes, trains, ships, and trucks. They are often sprayed with preservatives and shipped in unsanitary conditions, and often alongside other cargo which may be toxic if any contamination were to occur.

We cannot force anything, as that would corrupt the free market and is a violation of free will choice.

The only way forward is to implement solutions that bring higher yields, more nutrient dense foods, and improve local environments in undeniable ways – while supporting small community farms and building supportive local markets for their crops.

We can drive change through market demands, and this can be achieved by cultivating conscious consumers and connecting them with Regenerative farms.

The soil must be returned to harmony, and all of our practices must be harmonized with natural processes.

Large corporations intentionally misled farmers around the world and made them dependent upon industrial chemicals. These chemicals DEPLETE the soil and pollute the environment, causing imbalance. Imbalance leads to dis-ease and pests, which normally would not threaten healthy soils and crops. Depleted soils and weakened crops then require MORE industrial chemicals to fight the diseases, fight the pests, and artificially re-fertilize the sterilized soil.

Breaking this dependence is similar to breaking a drug addiction, and Carbon Capture Shield (CCS) has been formed to help guide, encourage, and facilitate this regeneration of at least 1 Billion acres of farmland – Globally, by 2030 or sooner!