It’s great that we’re building stronger local food systems using organic and regenerative practices. But let’s get real. We won’t solve the climate crisis until we find ways to grow food that reduce our reliance on external inputs, garden power tools and farm machinery. We need food production systems capable of withstanding and recovering from extreme weather, not contributing to the problem.

We won’t maintain food supplies and farm incomes unless we consider our carbon and environmental footprint beyond the farm and garden gate! The greenhouse gas emissions and environmental issues from mining and processing natural resources, manufacturing, packaging, and freighting the fertilisers, minerals, and pest controls to feed and protect our crops, together with the lawnmowers, slashers, brush-cutters, mulchers, tractors and other equipment farmers and gardeners rely on in high-income countries.

The impacts of industrialised agriculture are well-known. But did you know that recent research has demonstrated that the carbon footprint of food from low-tech urban farms and gardens in the global north is six times greater than that of conventional agriculture? Due mainly to infrastructure like raised beds, compost infrastructure, and sheds.

Is there a solution? Yes – but even though it’s remarkably straightforward, we overlook it. We rely on external inputs and battle climate change with few defences because we’ve neglected the ecological systems underpinning the food production systems in our gardens. By repairing these ecological systems, we expand our efforts in restoring ecosystems beyond the corners of our fields, waterways, ponds and nature areas in the bottoms of our gardens to include the areas where we grow food.

This solution makes sense because our issues with growing food, such as crops relentlessly hammered by insects, plant nutrient deficiencies, compacted soil, and soil with insufficient organic matter, tell us that our ecosystems are no longer functioning properly. Repairing our ecosystems, we tackle the root cause of our issues with growing food. We grow food sustainably, reducing our carbon emissions within and beyond the garden gate, relying on Nature’s FREE ecological services instead of substituting for them by cultivating soil using pest controls, fertilisers, minerals, and other soil amendments. We develop gardens that are more resilient and recover quicker from droughts, flooding rains, extreme temperatures, and unusual pest and disease outbreaks.

Let’s look at a Practical Example

Imagine your soil has a phosphate or calcium deficiency. We can quickly fix the problem by buying rock phosphate, lime, or similar products from our local garden centre. In the long term, however, relying on external inputs is unnecessary if we design our vegetable gardens to provide the natural experts, our soil organisms, with the resources to repair and manage our soil ecosystems. This diverse community of invertebrates and microbes eat leaves, roots, and other plant and animal waste materials, making the nutrients they contain naturally available to our plants. They create organic matter and aggregates, improving the soil infrastructure. We solve the issues with our soil!

As farmers and food gardeners who continue to use time-honoured traditional practices that maintain functioning ecosystems and farmers and food gardeners repairing their ecosystems demonstrate, we’ll harvest healthy food with insects and birds controlling most of our pests, our soils naturally supplying nutrients to our plants, and water readily infiltrating and stored in our soil.Indigenous women growing food eco-logically

Imagine the difference – Growing Food in Functioning Ecosystems

We help solve the climate and environmental crisis using our ingenuity to create vibrant biodiverse ecosystems across our agricultural and urban landscapes, sequestrating carbon, supplying clean water, and other essential environmental services as natural by-products.

So whether you grow in a suburban backyard, community garden, or small holding, ask yourself, “Is what I am doing eco-logical?” and join the groundswell of people growing food eco-logically!

Woman growing food eco-logically

Resources on Growing Food Eco-logically

Recommended articles –

  1. What is Healthy Soil?
  2. How to Build Healthy Soil
  3. Eco-logical Principles of Regenerative Agriculture
  4. How to choose Regenerative Practices – that Work!

Click image of growing food eco-logically to watch video

See how we grow food eco-logically in our farm and food garden here or get help with applying the eco-logical principles in your garden or farm using our Eco-logical Farming and Gardening Handbooks.

Eco-logical Gardening Handbook

Front cover eco-logical farming handbook

 

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