Day Six Farming for the Environment

This is a rest day and tomorrow will be a short ride with some climbs. The Salinas River Valley is just gorgeous. Farming of various vegetables and fruits over great expanses. Acres of food for the multitudes. If we are going to address the concentration of carbon -C02- in the atmosphere then we need to also address our means of agriculture. Science has shown that climate changes have caused drought that have consequences including destabilizing governments. The Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa are suffering horribly right now from these effects. Climate friendly agriculture also retains more moisture in the soil making it drought resistant.

All electric vehicles and solar powered electric grids are not sufficient solutions to a stable planet, one where we can live thrive peacefully. The atmospheric carbon, already up there, will continue to disrupt our lives for many decades into the future. But there are proven means for removing the CO2. 

The Marin Carbon Project has shown one method of sequestering atmospheric carbon. Other farmers have used large amounts of compost to increase soil carbon. In a way it is fitting that fossil fuels, derived from life forms of eons ago that are now gaseous and in the atmosphere, can be returned to the soil through farming, a process that we all need to survive. 

I have a backyard farm, 300 square feet. I can barely grow enough for a meal.  When I look out at the Salinas Valley I am in awe of their ability to produce food. I am told that when I get to the Mid-West I will see whole states of one crop. I am told and most believe that this form of agriculture is required to feed the people. Our government subsidies this belief through the budget process, the farm bill. But farmers who have grown food on land made unproductive because of desertification have shown otherwise. Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser of the Singing Frogs Farm, recipients of the Leadership in Sustainability Award in Sonoma, are demonstrating a method of both reducing GHG emissions and high productivity*.

These are not simple easy changes. Millions have starved when means of production have changed. But millions will also starve when the oceans rise and flood the rich food producing deltas of the world. Once food secure countries are now struggling to feed their people and this is causing upheaval in their societies and for their neighbors. If we plan to address these issues now,

we might have time to reduce the devastating effects.

*updated 5-31-15