140 141 Regenerating by idling Carlo Zauli To regenerate: to generate a second time, or to rebuild damaged parts. It sounds like an action bound to involve hard work, and instead, idleness can be the starting point. At least, that is how it is in agriculture. When speaking of regenerative agriculture, there is in fact an implicit message addressed to human being: «Let nature do your work – also because your way of intervening can do irreparable damage». It has indeed happened that the exploitation of resources, in this case of soil and its fertility, has led individuals to correct the effects of their imprints... with other imprints, perhaps useful in the immediate term, but unsustainable in the long run. A couple of examples: faced with the impoverishment of the soil, humankind has turned to industrial chemistry to revitalize the plants, with the result that organic matter is now an increasingly rare commodity in agricultural soil. Another example: faced with the need for more productive acreage, human being has responded by extending its control over more unspoilt nature, and now that resources are stretched to their limits, the need for a change of approach, an increase in listening, has become apparent. We must begin to consider nature's point of view, since it already has the answers to the problems we have caused it. That is why regenerative agriculture can start from idleness, from an individual who, for once, enter among its tasks the non-doing. Regenerative agriculture does not have a date of birth; rather, perhaps it is a new name given to a logical and ancient approach, from when human being interacted with nature while respecting its needs, with the awareness that without it there is little to be done and that, in a nutshell, the last word is always its own. The aim of this approach is to restore agricultural ecosystems by improving fertility, preserving biodiversity and limiting soil erosion. In short: by promoting long-term productivity. What determines the radical shift of approach in this discipline is the ambition to restore and protect natural resources. Pay attention to the verb: “to protect” means to surveil in order that the object is preserved and kept always available. To protect in order to produce in quantity, better and forever: slightly capitalist phraseology but, in this case, having nature among the business partners. This kind of ethics translates into a type of agriculture with techniques simultaneously devoted to fruit and vegetable production and to improve the area of cultivation and living, with old-fashioned customs returning as regenerative technologies. Back to idleness. If one can point to a first rule to cap all the others, it could be written that the regenerative farmer intervenes as little as possible so that natural processes intersperse with regularity. The actions that the farmer performs in the annual cycle remain the same, but in some cases it is nature performing them, while in others approaches and technologies change. Fertilisation, for example, can be done by crop rotation with alternating plant varieties capable, due to their specific characteristics, of replenishing the soil with the nutrients consumed by the previous crop. Supplementing or alternating cultivation with certain herbaceous species also promotes soil fertility, a practice that supports biodiversity and can keep out weeds and grasses that would otherwise have to be eradicated or chemically inhibited. Crop rotation, crop waste maintenance, cover-crops, intercropping, green manure; between jargon of the past and neologisms, these are some of the terms of regenerative fertilisation. Even ploughing is a process completely reconsidered by regenerative agriculture. Let’s start with the logic: soil has a precise sequence of levels, called horizons, each with its own properties, from humus to mother rock. Sectioning the soil at depth and turning it over can no longer represent a solution, both because of the impoverishment that follows and because of this technique’s capability to release the CO2 retained by the soil into the air. Beyond this kind of intervention, it is now necessary to think about soil structures and how to reduce soil erosion; here too, the culture of non-doing must take over. A further chapter of regenerative intervention is dedicated to water, which is rare and must be well managed to limit erosion with a topographical design of the cultivation area, that shall be able to evenly conserve it and distribute it. Fertility and biodiversity can be cultivated by looking beyond the field – or rather, around the field, with its surrounding area which, by reasoning appropriately, can provide fertility and protection ensuring biodiversity, a defended environment and saving on chemicals or other questionable human interventions. The paradigms of regenerative agriculture do ponder beyond the individual farmland, with an overall view of the environmental ecosystem. For example, on pastures, whose spread is key to the quality of an ecological fabric capable of regulating and improving itself, from an autonomy standpoint. The principles of regenerative agriculture involve promoting the sowing of winter cereals directly on active perennial meadows over the summer, in order to increase the annual production of pastures. This is where the practice of agroforestry comes in, a system that combines trees with crops or livestock in the same place to increase the synergies between animals, which feed on fresh pasture, and plants, which benefit from animal dung. An action that makes one think of a lot of effort, and instead it perfectly accomplishes itself, is precisely that of forestation: giving back the necessary space to woodlands means securing the best army against erosion, loss of biodiversity and hydrogeological instability. Polyface Farms are born under this sign by integrating agriculture, forestry and grazing. Therefore, what is needed is not the effort, but rather the courage to regain a certain mindset that has been lost and that, today, tastes like regeneration.
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