Soil: Climate Hero

The Regenerative Growing workshop on May 31, given by Jocelyn Molyneux of Wastenot Farms, revealed the powerful role of microorganisms in soil health and carbon sequestration. The online workshop, co-presented by Toronto Urban Growers, Access Alliance and TEECC, showed us how microorganisms create nutrient-rich soil that not only produces nutritious food but also sequesters carbon. That's because microorganisms around plant roots receive half of the glucose produced by plant photosynthesis and use it to create soil organic matter. In this way, a lot of the CO2 initially taken in by a plant ends up being stored in the soil - that is, if regenerative farming practices are followed.

In conventional agriculture, the opposite happens: carbon is released into the atmosphere. The agricultural sector is therefore a significant source of GHG emissions. There is great hope that regenerative agriculture can reverse that process and reduce the overall CO2 in the atmosphere. This requires the use of practices such as not tilling the soil and not using pesticides and chemical fertilizers (which kill microorganisms), but instead applying compost. And, as we learned in the workshop, the best compost for boosting soil microorganisms is worm compost.

So one of the solutions to our climate crisis is letting those tiny beasts in our soil do their thing.

Here is a four-minute video that explains what we can do to help the soil help us.

You can watch some or all of the Regenerative Growing workshop on the Toronto Urban Growers youtube channel.

There's also a current webinar series on the growing movement to make agriculture more earth-friendly. The next one is on July 12 - see details here.