Creating Sustainable Farmland

                                                 Creating Sustainable Farmland

The soil of which everything grows upon is incredibly important to have a natural balance of minerals and nutrients for plants to grow, animals are a vital part of the system and cycle to make sure everything can continue to rely on each other even without human input. Upsetting the balance of the soil through altering even the smallest of details can have a detrimental affect on the farming system.

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Regenerative farming can be used to, firstly restore a balanced level of nutrients including nitrogen into the soil as well as sequestering carbon and then move onto a sustainable system where the land isn't losing anything. if we were to farm in a regenerative way, such as one aspect,

 

Holistic management and leaving longer rest periods for the grass in between grazing to allow increased and deeper root growth (plant roots being predominately carbon based), there will be more root matter in the ground, thus meaning more carbon "locked" into the soil.

 

Although this method of farming is "carbon negative", we won't get the rate the same of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere 5 years time as the soil can only sequester so much carbon from the atmosphere. So ultimately the levels of storing carbon through combined practices will eventually taper off and reach a balance where no more is taken in. However this is no issue, a farm may not be considered "carbon negative" anymore if it gets to this level, however if farmers maintained their practices at this point the farm could be considered sustainable, or rather carbon neutral, and it would be the best kind of sustainable farm as it would be maintaining farmland at it's healthiest.

 

If all farms in the world adopted more of these methods, there could be a big impact on reversing the effects of climate change, although only partly responsible, there are more intensive methods of agriculture that will be causing excess emissions.

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