Book Review – The Regenerative Agriculture Solution

A Revolutionary Approach to Building Soil, Creating Climate Resilience, and Supporting Human and Planetary Health. 

By Ronnie Cummins and Andre` Leu. 2024, Chelsea Green Press.  195 pages. 

A great book which fits right into what the Global Earth Repair Conference is about.  The thesis of the book is that smallholder farmers (mainly in the Global South) have the capacity to green up the planet to cool the planet.  Indeed, many of them are in the process of doing so.  As the authors point out that there are many peasant-led movements for regenerative agriculture.  I also agree that small-holder farmers in Africa, South /Central America, Asia and Oceania are the best hope that humanity has that can green-up the necessary amount of land to cool the planet.  Increasing soil organic matter and perennial crops on small-holder farms can sequester enough carbon to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. A green covering on the land cools the climate through many pathways. The world’s small-holder farmers still produce 70% of the world’s food. Yes people in the North can also play a positive role by best practices in agriculture, restoration and greening cities.  The North (which has exploited The South for its wealth for centuries) could play an important part in the South by funding regenerative agriculture there. 

Regenerative agriculture is a catch-all phrase for many types of agriculture including: organic, agroecology, agroforestry, permaculture, Biodynamic, analog forestry, syntropic farming, natural farming, holistic management, adaptive multi-paddock grazing, silvopasture, pasture cropping, Korean Natural Farming, Jadam and other agricultural systems that increase soil organic matter. 

I highly recommend this book as a good overview of the climate solutions open to us.  I rate it among the top books on global climate solutions and solutions to inequality and food sovereignty. It is an easy read compared to most of the literature. I am familiar with much of the material in the book having been involved in regenerative agriculture for 54 years and am a keen student of climate and climate solutions.  Even so, I learned lots from reading this book.  Leu’s introduction to the saturated water vapor pressure (SVP) and Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) was completely new to me. 

I have deep admiration for both Andre` Leu and Ronnie Cummins. Ronnie was the co-founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, (OCA), a nonprofit, US-based network of more than two million consumers which makes it one of the largest social movement in the US centered on food.  Unfortunately Ronnie passed on in 2023. Andre` was former head of IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) and co-founder of Regeneration International. He has visited over 5,000 farms in over 60 countries that do various forms of regenerative agriculture to study what they are doing and to ground-truth claims.   

Regeneration International (RI) is the largest and most significant regenerative organization on the planet, with over 570 partners in 75 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Australasia, the Pacific, North America and Europe. 

RI’s vision: To promote, facilitate and accelerate the global transition to regenerative food, farming and land management for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger and rebuilding deteriorated social, ecological and economic systems.

Every October the RI does a round-the world online People’s Food Summit which broadcasts for 24 hours straight, rotating around the world.

RI was a sponsor of the 2019 Global Earth Repair Conference and three of their core staff attended, Ronnie Cummins, Ercilia Sahores and Precious Phiri from Zimbabwe who was one of our keynote speakers.  For the 2022 online Global Earth Repair Summit, Precious Phiri organized the Africa program with many speakers and Ercilia Sahores organized the Latin American program in Spanish, also with many speakers. Andre` was a presenter. Precious Phiri has said she would like to be involved in the 2025 Conference, but we haven’t talked about whether that means in-person or online.

Order the book straight from the publisher here: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-regenerative-agriculture-solution/?srsltid=AfmBOopT7r_KcC1PptOYGoLT8DcorNmpCcZk4mHmG3KD_SdIsXd2bWYQ or on Amazon.

Visit  Regeneration International’s website:
https://regenerationinternational.org/

Organic Consumers Association:
https://organicconsumers.org/

I also recommend OCA’s newsletter: https://advocacy.organicconsumers.org/page/8003/subscribe/1