The 6th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture was just held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. \u201cGrowing More, More Efficiently\u201d was a theme of this year\u2019s conference. One of the keynote speakers was Dr. David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and a professor at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

In his book, Dr. Montgomery says \u201cwe are running out of dirt, and it\u2019s no laughing matter.\u201d He calls soil health, or lack thereof, the least appreciated environmental crisis that humans face today. Unless we do something about it, we\u2019ll be facing a humanitarian crisis not unlike agricultural catastrophes that destroyed ancient societies and civilizations.<\/p>\n

Scary, isn\u2019t it? The good news is that we can learn from the past\u2014and from the conservation efforts of modern progressive farmers.<\/p>\n

Global Soil Restoration<\/strong><\/p>\n

To avoid the fate of previous civilizations, Dr. Montgomery says we need to focus on global soil restoration. By restoring degraded soils, the world will be in a better position to feed its rapidly expanding populations and to deal with climate change by harnessing carbon sequestration. Clean soils will also help increase environmental biodiversity.<\/p>\n

He sees the no-till techniques used by modern, progressive farmers as a step in the right direction and says that farmers can contribute to long-term soil sustainability by focusing on optimum yields instead of maximum yields.<\/p>\n

Dr. Montgomery also acknowledges that government policies and incentives are necessary to encourage growers to adopt production methods that are good for the long-term health of the soil.<\/p>\n

Lessons from the 1937 Dust Bowl<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his keynote, Dr. Montgomery cited the efforts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who famously stated \u201cthe nation that destroys its soils destroys itself\u201d in response to the devastating effects of the 1937 Dust Bowl. To deal with the crisis, Roosevelt ordered the planting of 200 million trees to prevent further soil erosion by wind and water. His administration began teaching soil preservation techniques and even paid farmers $1 per acre to comply. By the end of 1938, the amount of U.S. soil stirred up by the wind was reduced by as much as 65%.<\/p>\n

A Soil Renaissance<\/strong><\/p>\n

If nothing else, the dire situation of today\u2019s global soils has sparked a \u201csoil renaissance\u201d in which more and more people are becoming aware of the need to sustain soil health and productivity. After all, our lives (and the livelihoods of our farmers) depend on it. For more information on soil health and productivity, visit Remineralize The Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

About Cascade Minerals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cascade Minerals is committed to the restoration of our world\u2019s soils and dedicated to helping people eat more nutritious food that they grow themselves. Our Remineralizing Soil Booster<\/strong> is an all-natural soil amendment made from massive basalt stones from Central Oregon\u2019s legendary Cascade Mountains. Rocks are crushed to produce a finely milled, 100% natural product that is approved for organic production and releases the essential minerals and trace elements that plants and humans need to flourish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 6th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture was just held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. \u201cGrowing More, More Efficiently\u201d was a theme of this year\u2019s conference. One of the keynote speakers was Dr. David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations and a professor at the University of Washington. In his book, Dr. Montgomery says \u201cwe… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","category-soil-amendment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Soil.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YalT-e1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cascademinerals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}