David Johnson, 2018 EcoFarm Keynote

Regenerating our Soils: Hope for Farming & Climate—Part 2

Some 30 years ago, the late Robert Rodale challenged an EcoFarm audience to embrace his “Regenerative Agriculture” prescription. Although our movement, over the ensuing three decades, reached sig-
nificant milestones in the detoxification of production systems – staking claim to the fastest growing share of America’s food marketplace in the process – much of Rodale’s vision for a benign agroecology is yet to be realized. EcoFarm 2018’s opening keynote features one trailblazing trio – scientist, cultivator and educator – whose innovative achievements guide us towards agricultural practices in greater harmony with our planet’s
natural systems.

Late-blooming molecular biologist David Johnson is unraveling “secrets of the soil” on a microbial scale at New Mexico State University, where his Composting Bioreactor pumps out a uniquely fungal-dominant product. Experimental plots, inoculated with just a few hundred pounds per acre of this compost, are showing restored soil fertility with extraordinary biomass volumes and
regenerated microbial diversity.