Our oil-hungry food system, with its predilection for producing ultra-processed, long-life foods, is killing more people a year than smoking. It is also wrecking the environment because of its heavy dependence on pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that can wipe out critical insect populations, pollute waterways and destroy the topsoils where we grow 95 per cent of our food.
But there is another way. Regenerative farming can break this destructive cycle. We can use a combination of practices that progressively improve the topsoil and wider ecosystem. This innovative approach would move us away from current agricultural techniques, with their huge dependency on oil and gas, not least for the production of ammonia-rich fertilisers and ’cides.
Today, around one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from food and agriculture, according to the University…
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