Our April 20th featured speaker, David Montgomery, acknowledged ‘Earth Day’ by making dirt interesting. Seattle #4 Environmental & Sustainability Chair, Eric Christensen, introduced Dr. David Montgomery, Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, as a visionary teacher, researcher and author who makes dirt interesting by describing how soil degeneration will eventually impact our ability to produce food.     

“If you don’t take care of the land you won’t last.  We’ve spent the last 10K years denigrating the soil,” he said. “There is a common thread in how people treated their land – the villain was the plow…not deforestation it was the plow that created soil erosion instead of soil building.”  

In his latest book, What Your Food Ate, he says we are losing soil fertility globally faster than we are replacing it, putting agricultural civilizations at risk.  While some areas of the world are less susceptible to erosion, farming practices have resulted in soil degradation – marked by a difference in how soil is treated.  Soil organic matter or carbon has decreased by 50% across north America since the beginning of the North American agricultural economy.  

He says life can come back when the soil is not disturbed. He interviewed successful farmers across the U.S. about how they restored degraded land and made it productive. “Famers described how soil regenerative agriculture could be achieved with cover crops in rotation to cultivate beneficial soil for growing and higher profits,” he said.    

Farmers who engage soil restoration practices can increase yields or profitability by building soil to be more fertile with minimal use of fertilizer, fossil fuel, and pesticides.  “It is a good example of how environmental and economic interests have aligned,” he said, “with more carbon in the soil increasing yields if farmed correctly.”   

Dr. Montgomery presented several slides that showed how crop health, livestock health and human health are connected.  “Regenerative farming produces crops with more vitamins that result in better human health outcomes,” he said. “What your food ate has a factor on how your body reacts to it.  There’s every reason to consider what we eat and how it is produced.  What you chose to eat matters a lot.”  He ended his presentation by encouraging Rotarians to buy food at farmer’s markets, and to encourage policy makers to put farm building higher on their list of priorities.