I covered regenerative viticulture in a previous post, but I just came across this article which explains the different methods of growing vines brilliantly. Essentially, it's about farming the soil, not the crops. If the soil is complete and healthy as it was intended by the earth, then it takes care of the things growing in it by itself. It stays in balance and everything coexists happily.
When the soil is tilled for monoculture crops, its basic structure is unrecoverably altered. The fungi are disturbed, the insects and microorganisms die off, the composition is changed by the addition of nutrients and foreign composts, herbicides kill supporting plants, and so on. It becomes artificial and unsustainable. So the Monsantos of the world just keep selling you more stuff to replace what's missing and kill what takes over.
If you left what was already there and healthy and introduced a few new species that work hard to join the neighbourhood, then you have a chance of true sustainability without needing additional support. That makes sense to me. It ties in with the idea of permaculture, which was introduced in the book One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, first published in the late 1970s, which I just ordered.
The hardest thing about regenerative farming is that few understood what to measure and how to measure it to define what's actually regenerating. That's why it died out when first introduced. In comes an NGO, the Savory Institute, that implements holistic grassland management and saves 30 million acres, and they find the resources to measure results. Called Land to Market, it's a certification system that applies a scientific protocol to deliver a verified seal of approval.
The first wine to come from a certified regenerative farming vineyard, Mariah, has just hit the market. It was certified by the Land to Market EOV protocol which "scientifically measures regenerative outcomes on the land." Land to Market is the world’s first outcomes-based verified regenerative sourcing solution for meat, dairy, wool and leather - and now wine. The Land to Market Verified seal has attracted some of the world’s leading consumer packaged goods companies, apparel brands and retailers - naturally searching for ways to impress sustainability on consumers. To see the full list of Land to Market members, visit http://landtomarket.com.
