Overview
When we look at rapidly declining soil health, rising rates of depression and suicide in farmers, and our climate crisis, it can be easy to wonder how we got here. The answer is multifaceted, but a common theme of industrialized agriculture runs throughout.
Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy I talk to Allen Williams about how we have strayed from beneficial regenerative farming practices to adopt destructive ones, and how to find our way back. Allen and I take an in-depth look at the struggles modern farmers face. They’re stuck in a difficult cycle when it comes to trying to make a living and considering what is truly right for their land. To make matters worse, Allen says they are up against huge amounts of peer-pressure from their neighbors on the best way to farm.
Financial burdens often beat altruism, but Allen is on a mission to change that. He educates farmers on regenerative practices and how to be stable, and even successful, all while improving their land for future yields, reversing climate change, and supporting healthier generations. Allen explains where the major faults lie with conventional agriculture, the six principles of soil health to overcome common farming challenges, and how the soil microbiome relates to the human microbiome.
We also talk about the role of animals in regenerative agriculture, their benefit to carbon sequestration, and why it’s so arrogant of humans to believe we’ve created better agricultural inputs than nature designed. This episode has so much great information on a cleaner future for farming and Allen explains some of the more complicated topics of agriculture in an understandable and actionable way.