Book Review: The Great Regeneration – A Good Primer On A Movement Slowly, Steadily Growing Worldwide

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The Great Regeneration Book Review: Good Primer On A Movement Slowly, Steadily Growing Worldwide

 

Perhaps you’ve never heard of regenerative agriculture.  This is a type of agriculture that’s been catching on more and more in recent years, and probably the most important aspect to understand is that regenerative agriculture is all about letting agriculture care for itself by providing it with the right tools.  So there is an attempt to not add human things to an agriculture operation.  Instead you seek to add things that will care for one another.  

 

So for example, if you have a field where there might be damaging insects, instead of spraying pesticides all over the place, you might try to add beneficial insects or plants that increase the resistance to damaging insects.  Or if you have edible weeds growing in the plot drowning out the produce,  you might bring in cattle to graze the area and trim the competing weeds.  

 

The most important aspect of regenerative agriculture, though, is data.  It is driven by an understanding of the environment and agriculture that’s driven by data.  Around the globe, farmers are adding to the available data for farms in every area, which will help other farms make better decisions.  

 

The author takes a lot of time helping readers to understand the open source and open data movement.  This was pioneered many years ago, and we all benefit from it.  How?, you might ask.  The internet itself is driven by open source programs.  

 

Linux is an open source software.  No one person or company owns the copyright to it, and individuals and companies worldwide contribute to improving it on a daily basis. They do this not from a selfish point of view but from a place of sharing. Humanity all benefits from these improvements, and no one company solely benefits. That is the heart of the open source concept. 

 

Most of the software benefiting farmers, along with the sharing of data by farmers for others, is currently from an open source perspective.  Farmers decide how much info they want to share, and they keep the rest to themselves.  Everyone benefits as more info is shared. 

 

This can be seen in some of the government and small organization run data aggregators the author talks about, including Public Lab and Farm Hack.

 

These organizations exist to facilitate the sharing of data among farms and farmers, as well as governments.  Things like what the ground areas look like from above, what techniques are most effective, and how they can best be implemented based on feedback are all critical portions of these technologies and data sharing operations.  

 


The open source concept is also related to the right to repair movement, which also heavily affects farmers.  California has a new law that recently went into effect protecting the right of consumers of certain products, such as automobiles and agricultural equipment, to be allowed to repair their items and to be provided with guides and parts for doing so.

Without such laws in the near future, it will become very difficult, if not impossible, for small family farms to utilize new technologies cost effectively. If every item must be dealer repaired, costs can get out of hand very quickly. 

 

For those with an interest in this topic who haven’t been introduced to it before, this book is a great primer.  You will gain a greater understanding of the technologies being used globally to create and maintain a more sustainable food supply by figuring out which regenerative techniques are effective and which don’t work.  All of humanity will benefit from a more stable and sustainable food supply, and these technologies are definitely going to help the people of the world get to where they need to be.  

 

This book is recommended for those with an interest in the topic who haven’t been introduced to it before. It is not an in depth treatise but rather a primer on the topic.  It is well written, though not as interestingly written and fast paced as other non fiction books we’ve reviewed in the past.  

Banner Image: The Great Regeneration book cover. Image Credit – Chelsea Green Publishing


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