“Healthy Foods Come From Healthy Farms” – Frank A Hilario

Food crops destroyed by floods, forests destroyed by fires – what other signs do you want from the Heavens Above? God! “Good comes from Good” says Webstaurant Store – only healthy farming can bring healthy fields and homes!

(“Good Comes” image from webstaurantstore.com, “Whatever good” from brainyquote.com)

“Climate Change“ is forcing us to redefine “Primate Change“ and I, Agriculturist and writer engaged in what today I call “Communication for Village Development in the 21st Century” (CoViD21) in the last 42 years – now preach Regenerative Agriculture (RA) in the villages. Primates, only RA will save us from climate change!

That is a CoViD21 action/reaction from my BSA Ag Edu, UP Los Baños, 1965 and continuing self-study with the advent of the Internet in PH in 1991. Wide thoughts come from wide reading.

Here now is my considered definition:

Regenerative Agriculture is any principle, process, procedure, or practice applied that repeatedly returns, revives, resuscitates, or reinforces the natural ability of the field to grow plants and animals as dictated by the laws of Old Mother Nature.

I must be able to see Science following Mother Nature – or my CoViD21 eyes will look elsewhere!

I'm coming from a personal 57-year apostleship of Organic Agriculture (OA), starting with Edward H Faulkner’s “Plowman’s Folly” in 1965.

RK Schofield says (“Plowman's Folly,” 01 April 1944, Nature, nature.com):

Where is the folly? Mr Faulkner declares it to be with plowmen who bury green manures, weeds and stubbles many inches below the surface. He [thinks] plowing places such material out of reach of crop roots…

Disc plowing buries and keeps the rich treasure our of reach of crops with their roots!

Again, from Mr Schofield:

By disking plenty of green manure into the surface, [Mr Faulkner] believes crop yields can be secured against the vagaries of the weather… such crops will not be seriously affected by drought, nor, on the other hand, will they suffer in wet seasons. Land drainage would be not merely unnecessary, it would be detrimental to such crops. They would also be practically immune from the ravages of insect pests.

I read Mr Faulkner’s books Plowman’s Folly (published 1943) and Soil Development (1952) sometime in 1966 at the open shelves of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, and was immediately convinced of the lack of wisdom of plowing and the wisdom of “disking plenty of green manure into the surface” of the soil.

At that time, the rotavator was already available locally. An Australian, Arthur Clifford Howard, had invented the rotavator (rotary cultivator), in 1920 (guymachinery.com).

Faulknerian, I thought, with the rotavator: “Why not disk the soil plus weeds plus crop refuse and simultaneously mix them right on the surface of the field?” From off the shelf, with some adjustments from me, the rotavator was perfect for the job – and I have been proven right all these years!

My fervent wish now is to reinvent the rotavator so that it automatically produces an organic mulch while cultivating the field all over. I'm looking for a financier – any takers?@517