They want to call it: 'Regenerative Agriculture'...

[Blaithin]

A couple years back I was speaking with a guy who works for a carbon program developer in Airdrie. Lots on the go in that department but he said it pays better to be practicing terrible methods; excessive tillage, farm all the potholes, don’t have a treeline, knock em all down, poor rotation type stuff, because then as you adapt the policies you’re showing great improvement and get paid. Where if you’ve been doing what the policies want for 30 years, you’ll receive less compensation.

Pretty much it’s an incentive to switch practices and if you’re already there, you don’t need an incentive!

Sustainable and Regenerative, in my mind are fairly straight forward words. However sustainable environmentally isn’t usually sustainable economically. And regenerative… well that should mean allowing regeneration but some people don’t feel that way or seem to interpret it too strictly. I recently waded into the shit of a regenerative Facebook group and got told numerous times dry lots and sacrifice areas are not regenerative practices. Of course they seemed to all be people living in less extreme climates with mostly book knowledge vs practical.

I think farming is in a unique position to be able to do better, but that doesn’t mean everything it does is rotten. And the idea that taxing us out of doing things is more likely to succeed than incentivizing us into doing things… moronic.

[TOM4CWB]

A couple years back I was speaking with a guy who works for a carbon program developer in Airdrie. Lots on the go in that department but he said it pays better to be practicing terrible methods; excessive tillage, farm all the potholes, don’t have a treeline, knock em all down, poor rotation type stuff, because then as you adapt the policies you’re showing great improvement and get paid. Where if you’ve been doing what the policies want for 30 years, you’ll receive less compensation.

Pretty much it’s an incentive to switch practices and if you’re already there, you don’t need an incentive!

Sustainable and Regenerative, in my mind are fairly straight forward words. However sustainable environmentally isn’t usually sustainable economically. And regenerative… well that should mean allowing regeneration but some people don’t feel that way or seem to interpret it too strictly. I recently waded into the shit of a regenerative Facebook group and got told numerous times dry lots and sacrifice areas are not regenerative practices. Of course they seemed to all be people living in less extreme climates with mostly book knowledge vs practical.

I think farming is in a unique position to be able to do better, but that doesn’t mean everything it does is rotten. And the idea that taxing us out of doing things is more likely to succeed than incentivizing us into doing things… moronic.

Thanks Blaithin;

The sad part is that we are not actively working to reward farmers who have worked, with great effectiveness, to become much more 'greenhouse gas' neutral in fertilizer through high efficiency methods of N application and direct placement of highly soluble low application rates of fertilizer. We on our farm are using 30% less fertilizer already over the past 10 years... Natural Air drying of grain whenever possible; High efficiency trucking low fuel use, and high R44 insulating reducing heating needs of our shop.

Doing the right thing... is important... not being paid for good C practices is secondary... being responsible to the planet, doing what is the best possible; is a very big part of why we farm with integrity...
Cheers