Regenerative Farming is the Revolution

by Jean-Martin Fortier & Kory Goldberg 

***

"Regenerative agriculture is also about the regeneration of community, the regeneration of traditional knowledge, the regeneration of native seeds and biodiversity, the regeneration of soil, the regeneration of what I call food democracy. So if we define it properly, then Roundup has no place in it, and corporations have no place in it."

JM: Our mission at Growers & Co. is to celebrate the movement of small-scale regenerative agriculture. To better understand why this movement is so important, could you explain the relationship between globalization, privatization of the commons, and industrial agriculture?

Vandana: Well, globalization, enclosure of the commons, and industrial agriculture are actually what colonialism was. It has reemerged as recolonization in the name of “free trade.” Free trade in agriculture means freedom for agribusiness corporations to control every aspect of agriculture everywhere in the world, from patenting seeds and creating seed monopolies, to imposing systems of industrial agriculture, systems of industrial processing, and systems of deregulated trade for global corporations, all while destroying small farms and local food economies. This is led by international agencies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), to name a few. 


What is globalization? It’s the global reach of an empire. What is privatization? It’s the enclosing of the commons—for example, making shared things, like land or water, exclusive to only those with access, which is typically tied to privilege. The commons by its very name means what is common, and if you look at the fact that exactly at the same time that colonialism was globalizing the economy, it was also enclosing the commons in England. They go hand in hand. We’ve been trained to think in silos. People who fight for the commons think it happened in England only. Everyone splits it into their little portion of how history impacted them, and that too is under distorted interpretation. 


Before globalization, all farms were managed ecologically on a small-scale. Today, industrial agriculture is different: first, you stop growing what you need and start growing raw materials. That’s called a plantation economy. This began with colonialism when cotton was produced by enslaved peoples on stolen land, and it is still the case today as genetically modified soy is grown for biofuel, animal feed and processed food. 


Second, due to its large scale, it is typically dependent on fossil fuels and chemicals. If I’m working on a two-acre diversified farm, I believe there are no weeds because I see everything as useful; I don’t have to spray Roundup (a common agricultural pesticide that contains the harmful chemical agent glyphosate) because the biodiversity can work synergistically to support the health of the farm. 


But when I have a 100,000-acre monoculture farm—meaning a farm that grows only one crop-then Roundup becomes an imperative. So all these things go hand in hand. It began with colonialism 500 years ago, but the patterns continue.