Teaching Bold New Methods: Arina Duvenhage and the Garden of Eden Garden School

Mineral malnutrition is a serious global issue affecting hundreds of millions of people. It is estimated that worldwide, 60% of people are deficient in iron, 30% are deficient in zinc, and approximately 15% are deficient in selenium. Calcium, magnesium, and copper deficiencies are also common in both developed and developing nations. These nutritional deficits result in widespread healthcare problems and diminish the quality of life and community resilience. Arina teaching at the Garden of Eden Garden School How do we fight global mineral malnutrition? The answer is ...

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Rockmin Composts Provides Local Solutions to the Global Soil Crisis

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:  Soils are fundamental to life on Earth but human pressures on soil resources are reaching critical limits. Careful soil management is one essential element of sustainable agriculture and also provides a valuable lever for climate regulation and a pathway for safeguarding ecosystem services and biodiversity Chris Cameron and his daughter Catriona Dale  In other words, soil degradation is one of humanity's greatest threats. Fortunately, there are experts like the father-daughter team ...

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Dennis Amoroso has a plan to end the world’s fertilizer crisis

Aerial view of large PNTI facility
When Dennis Amoroso made it his job to turn the world's mining byproducts into carbon-sinking fertilizer, he envisioned a future when his grandchildren could eat well beyond the safety of his organic orchards. A future full of flavorful, nutrient-dense fruit plucked straight off the tree — grown without toxic, carbon-emitting chemicals used in conventional farming. Dennis Amoroso of Plant Nutrition Technologies, Inc. As the world contends with record high food prices and looming threats from climate change, a fertilizer crisis propelled by the Russian invasion of ...

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Agrimagined offers promising glimpse into budding Kenyan remineralization efforts

Bryan Ollier, an agriculture specialist from a village near Coventry, England, and Joseph Kinuthia, a farmer in Kenya, formed the U.K.-based company Agrimagined last year after connecting online due to their shared interest in supporting sustainable, affordable, nutrient-rich agriculture. Once the two got to talking, they developed a vision for Agrimagined, which would help accomplish their shared goals surrounding remineralization and education. Inspiration for Agrimagined: Ollier and Kinuthia’s previous experience with remineralization Overview of Mount ...

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The Future Forest Company on OpenAir CDR: Natural approaches to CO2 removal

The Future Forest Company project in Brisbane Mains, Scotland
The Future Forest Company project in Brisbane Mains, Scotland The Future Forest Company featured on OpenAir CDR When it comes to national and international discussions of the climate crisis, so much of the focus has been on decarbonization methods: What can countries and corporations do to reduce track and reduce their carbon footprint? Experts agree that this is a necessary step in reducing future warming – and the inevitable consequences that come with a 2°C temperature increase – but this approach is inherently limited, circumventing the very real problems ...

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Study Captures Data to Turn Midwestern Farms into Carbon Sinks

(Left to right) Prof. Daniel Maxbauer, Jaren Yambing, and Ella Milliken Carleton College geologists join a growing wave of research into the carbon-trapping power of pulverized rock in America's agricultural fields No one could have predicted the severe heatwave that would swelter Ella Milliken and Jaren Yambing's first week of baseline field testing in June 2021—except maybe climate scientists. It was the longest heatwave to occur so early in a Minnesotan summer.  Under a blazing June sun, the Carleton College research assistants walked among rows of knee-high corn ...

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Peter Jackson on Natural Farming, Ecological Resilience, and the Magic of Minerals and Microbes

Over a span of nearly two decades, self-taught natural farmer Peter Jackson has transformed a plot of rural Washington land into a thriving, bountiful forest garden.  When his family first arrived on the land nearly twenty years ago, it contained only a few food-bearing plants: old heirloom apple trees, sickly pear trees, and Chinese plum trees with cherry-sized fruits. Today, the property is home to approximately three hundred fruit and nut trees, as well as assorted berry bushes, and Jackson isn’t finished yet. “I’m trying to get up to about 500 trees on the four ...

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ArtifexBalear in Mallorca: From regenerative agriculture to marine ecosystem restoration

A tour of Miquel's Farm I had the opportunity to interview Miquel Ramis, the multifaceted founder and director of ArtifexBalear, and he took me on a virtual tour of his farm. On the outskirts of Palma de Mallorca, in a forest garden brimming with raspberries and asparagus, Miquel grows around 14 varieties of different plants. They are planted and grown densely, and they are chosen for their synergy in relation to each other. In the garden, Miquel has built and installed bat houses and two prototypes of houses for insects such as ladybugs, mason bees and butterflies. The ...

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Plant Nutrition Technologies, Inc: Commercializing Remineralization while Protecting Waterways

It’s tough to teach an old dog a new trick, and the agricultural industry has relied on NPK fertilizers for almost 100 years with essentially no alternatives for large farms. That is to say that for a century, conventional fertilizers have been the only proven “trick” that could produce enough food for our swelling population, and so the consideration of other fertilizers has gained little ground within the large-scale agriculture industry. But as pollution and runoff from artificial fertilizers pose greater threats to human and environmental health, markets are ...

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Minerals and Microbes: Remineralization on the Isle of Jersey

Glyn Mitchell carrying freshly harvested hemp
Glyn Mitchell carrying hemp grown at Jersey Hemp. The island of Jersey juts out of the English Channel just off the coast of Normandy, France. The people who live there don’t consider themselves part of the UK any more than they consider themselves part of France. It should come as no surprise, then, that the people of Jersey are taking their own approach to managing the natural resources that make the island unique in fighting climate change. One of the people at the forefront of moving Jersey toward a more sustainable future is Glyn Mitchell, a carbon farmer with ...

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