For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems

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For years, many of us involved in regenerative agriculture have been touting the soil health - plant health - animal health - human health connection but no one has tied them all together like Nicole does in For the Love of Soil !" (Gabe Brown, Browns Ranch, Nourished by Nature) The case studies, science and examples presented a compelling testament to the global, rapidly growing soil health movement. “These food producers are taking actions to imitate natural systems more closely,” says Masters. “... they are rewarded with more efficient nutrient, carbon, and water cycles; improved plant and animal health, nutrient density, reduced stress, and ultimately, profitability.”

She is one of a growing number of people who are facilitating a rapidly expanding world of quality food production and biological economies. The first chapter had me hooked. Nicole shared her own story about Paraquot poisoning in her teens and how it affected her health and her journey into ultimately becoming an Agro-ecologist, educator and systems thinker. She not only tells her story but weaves it beautifully into the topic of this book. She speaks of chemicals, genetics, epigenetics and more telling the story of human reliance and exposure to these things. She encourages each and every one of us to listen to our bodies, nature and our intuition to build a rich and insightful life. In so doing she builds the reason for having written the book and her love of nature and soil. I think this is one of the things that we saw come out of that Monsanto case was that they’re making up data. They know the impacts that this is having on either humans, soil, microbiology, or nutrients. They know full well what’s going on and more of these documents that are coming out. I’m not a big conspiracy theorist. I hate that stuff. Unfortunately, it’s big business at play. Why would you stop the gravy train? Unfortunately, it’s people not being connected to the integrity or wanting people in landscapes to flourish. It’s just a business model. For the Love of Soil' is a land manager’s roadmap to healthy soil, revitalized food systems in challenging times. This book equips producers with knowledge, skills and insights to regenerate ecosystem health and grow farm profits. What would you advocate instead then? If I literally came up to you and said, “Nicole, I’m going to stop eating meat. I’m going to buy all my stuff from Whole Foods.” You were like, “No,” and you explained to me that’s not very helpful. What would you suggest I do instead?

Customer reviews

What they found was all these methanotrophic organisms were gobbling away. They were like, “This is awesome.” That oil spill obviously had massive consequences at that time and impacts on everything but those organisms are going to come in. It’s food and carbon. Methane is a carbon source. It’s food for life so they’re not going to let it go to waste. Soil: Soil and water and cabin are intimately related. And as we start to break down those links, there are consequences above ground. Then, "Everybody knows" that synthetic nitrogen is not good for the soil (OK, maybe not EVERYbody), but she explains it well. Ok, so I'm struggling with how to rate this book. As a regenerative farmer myself, and an organic farming consultant with 25 years experience, I want to love this book because any helpful attempt to further the regenerative ag movement is worth 5 stars! Books like this are so badly needed, now more than ever! But, this book has it's share of problems. If I'm comparing it to other regenerative ag books that received a 5 star rating, this one would probably get a 3. But I want to be generous and give it a 4. Here are the problems. If I’m hearing you correctly, for fifteen years, you didn’t know what was the cause of your problem. Do you ever give much thought to the Earth? We walk on it, raise animals on it, build our houses on it, and depend on it for sustenance but some of us might not give it a second thought. This is an episode where we talk about why we need to. The soil is in trouble and we need to look at how we can restore its health to regenerate it and cultivate it in a way that is good for the Earth itself and for each of us. This is Episode 256 and our guest is Nicole Masters.

If all the consumers turned around tomorrow and said, “That’s it. I’m only buying regenerative foods.” Those big companies scrambled to make sure that was happening. We’re seeing that happen on a pretty big scale now. You see General Mills, Danone, Ben & Jerry’s, and all these kinds of Patagonia. These kinds of companies that provide food and fiber and now, engage with the regenerative story. The audiobook is read by Nicole herself and is like having a ridiculously knowledgeable friend walk you through the science and then engage you with fun anecdotes. As to the content, it was absolutely fabulous!! I’m not a rancher or farmer, but as a human being I found this fascinating world of soil / land stewardship to be deeply engrossing, educational, thought provoking and downright fascinating. For years many of us involved in regenerative agriculture have been touting the soil health – plant health – animal health – human health connection but no one has tied them all together like Nicole does in “For the love of Soil”! Gabe Brown, Browns Ranch, USAShe tells her personal story of how an herbicide jeopardized her health, though she did not know it at first. She goes over why monocrops are a problem (even organic monocrops), the correlation between chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies, and how personal testing meters are being developed to help us better assess the quality of our food and the health of the soil. In the end, she offers ideas to diversify and regenerate both the land, and our guts, for improved health. There are things that you can do for your own health but the major driver is, as consumers using our consumer dollars to choose better. Weston Price is looking at not eating processed foods but not eating industrially grown foods. This whole argument around meat is not around cows per se. It’s not the cow, it’s the how. It’s how are those animals being grown, produced, and raised? Together with her team of soil coaches, they work alongside producers in the U.S., Canada and across Australasia. Supporting producers who work with millions of acres to take their operations to the next level in nutrient density, profitability and environmental outcomes.