We use cookies to help personalize content, tailor and measure ads, and provide a safer experience. Once the reader is hooked by the story, Brown turns to the formulas of how and why his system works. Please try again. Sam Watson Jones. Reviews and Praise “Dirt to Soil confirms my belief that animals are part of the natural land. Book Review - Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. Please let us know a convenient time to call you on, (*All time slots are available in CDT zone.). He retains what Jeff Bezos would call a “day one” mentality. As thinking machines become more commonplace on farms, they will create a learning network where the cause and effect of every decision is accurately measured and then informs the future decision making of all of the machines and human beings in the network. However, the main recurring thought as I read this brilliant book was how new technologies can help Gabe’s vision for the future of farming to be replicated at scale.How can technology enable regenerative farming practices to move from a niche practice into the most widely accepted form of farm management in the world? To Brown, his carbon farming practices sustain his farm because they regenerate his soil. {My only qualm with the book was that it features almost all men’s voices - I KNOW there must be women farmers doing regenerative ag out there!! Copyright © 2020 EG Media Investments LLC. Thank you for choosing this service. Armor the soil surface, 3. The first half recounts the history of the farm, Brown’s Ranch, and how Brown arrived at his current practices, which integrate cover crops and animals with no-till methods. On his farm, after decades of regenerative management, he has grown topsoil to a depth of 29 inches — an incredible feat that many have said is impossible without 1,000 yr time spans. It is a truly inspirational in many ways. I know “sustainable” is a popular buzzword today. Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture tells this story. Everybody wants to be sustainable. How to create a new vegetable garden. But immediately this book had me hooked, falling down the “rabbit hole of soil health” and now I feel totally energized that THIS is a crucial piece of the vision for continued human life on this planet. This slim volume should be read aloud at kitchen tables and over the radio until it becomes a national legend—a legend we might then try to live up to.”. Book Review - Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. He wasn’t limited to simply sustaining his soil. However, as Gabe points out, this is hard to do: “There is no magic number [when measuring soil health]. Please enter your email below and you will be notified every time publishes a new post. Shittake mushrooms are a delicious (and potentially profitable) crop that, with some time and effort, you can cultivate on your property. Soil health is complicated, and this is where AI comes in. “We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it. Earthworms and microbiology had returned to feast on all the carbon left by the hail-beaten crop failures. He recognizes that the root of so many of our current crises - environmental, health + diet, economic - is unhealthy soil. I always leave the Groundswell conference inspired by the farmers that I meet and energised to learn more. September 20, 2019. Required fields are marked *. But there was a time when he was simply another struggling farmer in a sea of struggling farmers. Read our, “Dirt to Soil” Makes a Convincing Case for Regenerative Agriculture. (Probably Not). Over the next few decades Brown’s Farm focused intensely on cultivating a healthy soil ecosystem: one that is teeming with microbes, fungi/mycelium, nutrients, bacteria, living creatures + living roots, with the ability to absorb water in floods and hold water for droughts, protected against erosion by a thick layer of “armor” (plant matter left in the field covering the soil), that cycles nutrients from air to soil to plants + animals to us. He had an acceptance that he was not an expert and he therefore always maintained a willingness to learn from others. Whether consciously or not, this book represents a succinct and persuasive apolitical argument for carbon farming: that working to convert mere dirt to healthy soil does not necessarily have to be a sacrifice in order to save the planet. In this telling, improving the planet is a byproduct. Gabe Brown’s book and his subsequent speaking engagements have already had a huge impact on agriculture. Yet even with all that management the farm’s yields and profit were low - so low that Gabe and his family had to take off-farm jobs just to stay afloat. We instead needed to work on regenerating our ecosystems”. We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well.”—Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation. But Gabe also demonstrates that by implementing his Five Principles of Soil Health (1. And to take good care of it, we have to know it. There is no single indicator or test that will give a farmer the one number he or she needs to know to determine whether a soil is healthy.”. And to know it, and be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.” — Wendell Berry. Pheasants had returned, presumably to feast on the earthworms. What Small Robot Company is striving to achieve; is enable these leading edge forms of soil health management to be replicated and developed at scale, to make Regenerative Agriculture the most widely adopted form of farm management in the world and to increase the profitability of farming through a renewed focus on soil health. Soil tests showed serious soil degradation: lack of nutrients and minerals despite heavy inputs, compaction that lead to water runoff, erosion, poor root growth, absence of mycelia. On Brown’s ranch they use a set of holistic management questions to challenge and inform their decision making. For example, what is the impact of the decision you are about to take on sustainability? Book Reviews. February 01, 2020 by Nina Montenegro “We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it. He took the time to get really clear in his own mind what it was that he wanted to achieve for his own farm and for his family and once these had crystallised in his mind, a process which takes several years; he refused to be discouraged by the conventional wisdom of his neighbours. They used the typical pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Book Reviews. Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roughdraftfarmstead/. The first book I decided that I must read was Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown. The first thing that jumped out at me was Gabe Brown’s mindset. Jesse Frost is a writer and vegetable farmer in Southern Kentucky, where he lives with his wife and young son on their farm, Rough Draft Farmstead. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. Just write to us what you need. An inspirational focus on soil and the multiple layers of information we need to capture and nurture for the future of food production....#soil #farming #food #agriculture #AI #smallrobotcompany #change, This website uses cookies to improve service and provide tailored ads. You do not have to be a large-scale farmer to love “Dirt to Soil.” I do not farm on the same scale as Brown, with the same crops or even with some of the same livestock, and I was riveted. If you take this action will it bring you closer to or farther from the future resource base you require? They are inseparable activities. Instead it can simply be about improving quality of life and profitability as well as rescuing the family farm. It’ll be my next rabbit hole to fall down….}. Rather, he could regenerate it. AI will not replace human intelligence, but it can augment it. Then they can dig into the details of how to turn it all around—to create better, more profitable farms. February 17, 2020 But my question is: Why in the world would we want to sustain a degraded resource? Here’s a TED talk that Brown gave on the topic in 2016. The third inspiration was Gabe’s focus on his own goals. And to know it, and be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.” — Wendell Berry . Sep 30, 2019 - If you've listened to any of Gabe Brown's many Youtube videos, you can hear his voice in your head as you read through his recently released book, Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Our experts will call you on your preferred time. The Weather of the Future. A pop of fuchsia in a fall garden means radicchio is on the menu. I picked up this book, “Dirt to Soil”, with wariness — many a’times have I started a book on farming only to stall out somewhere in the middle, losing steam reading about something that really only holds my attention by doing. The focus shifted from growing crops which were reliant on what the farmer added to them to a system in which the focus was about enabling the crops to find their own nutrients, which are abundantly available in the ecosystem if we manage it the right way. Book Review Dirt to Soil - Gabe Brown Published on September 10, 2019 September 10, 2019 • 17 Likes • 1 Comments. There is such hope in knowing that we can help the soil and entire ecosystem heal, largely by stepping aside and letting nature lead the way again. Book Reviews. Brown no longer needs nor accepts government assistance or crop insurance. Dirt to Soil Book Review. Build diversity, 4. Four years and four disasters later, however, something profound happened that would dramatically change Brown’s view of farming. I also always leave with an extensive reading list. I always leave the Groundswell conference inspired by the farmers that I meet and energised to learn more. Integrate animals), soil improvements happen immediately, and a cascade of positive effects is set in motion: earthworms return to the soil improving soil structure, fungi/mycelia return to the soil, helping the plants communicate and take up vital nutrients, legumes take nitrogen out of the air rather than depending on synthetics, beneficial insects return, helping regulate pest populations, and so much more. Grow this bitter, brilliant vegetable for some cool-weather color. Limit disturbance, 2. Brown realized he was on to something big. The first half recounts the history of the farm, Brown’s Ranch, and how Brown arrived at his current practices, which integrate cover crops and animals with no-till methods. He has hosted seminars on fermentation, winemaking, mushroom production, and farming. North Dakota farmer and speaker Gabe Brown has earned the reputation as a champion of regenerative agriculture. February 27, 2020. A key point which the book returns to continually is that all progress on a farm starts with a focus on soil health. It can then rapidly accelerate best practice at scale. The key area is in using artificial intelligence (AI) to change the way we think about soil management. Multiple years of hailstorms just before harvest time, among other disasters, left the farm on the brink of financial collapse. Gabe did not grow up as a farmer and he therefore had no preconceived notions of what was right or wrong. There is a genius to this structure. On Day One, we also have an open mindedness about what the right way to complete the project might be and this is what Gabe Brown maintains throughout. Robotics, like the Tom robots being developed by Small Robot Company, can help build better decision making tools by collecting data in a much more detailed and accurate way. Your email address will not be published. Chelsea Green Publishing. In truth, this was long overdue - many farmers have recommended this book to me. The internet is full of excellent reviews of this book so I will not try to replicate any of those here, other than to say that if you have any interest in the future of food production and you have not yet had the chance to read this book, please do make the time. I also always leave with an extensive reading list. Book Reviews. This book is a gem through which a new, old way of doing things can be seen, and hopefully, realized.