| Please try to be more specific and accurate, as you're essentially making sweeping generalizations, while moving goalposts. It's hard to know what is hyperbole, and what do you actually mean and believe. One cannot finitely argue against a changing topic. > Every bit of plant matter we ship off our farms in the form of food is carbon and nitrogen that is no longer in our soils. Do you concede this¹ is false? To be clear, I completely agree the vast majority of agriculture is extractive. What I think we're discussing is whether (or how much) growing crops must necessarily be extractive. As I think I've said, I agree it's dishonest accounting to include imported plant matter in regenerative farming². Either way, it only reflects on current practices, as do comments about peat. Your experiences and failures, or those of your neighbors only speak of the inadequacies of specific methods. Comments about oil and plastic bear no sway in the topic at hand. I specifically take issue with the claim that carbon is a soil resource that must be depleted when growing substantial amounts of food. Yes, when taking away crops, we (necessarily) remove nutrients, and some may necessarily require replenishing, but they are not carbon (or even nitrogen). Carbon it is in fact one of few resources that comes from thin air, and plants can absorb (fix) it by themselves. Forests show that plants can fix CO₂, in substantial quantities. Conversely, forest mining shows carbon is released when you destroy the soil. When farming, carbon is the one resource that is not industrially added to the soil³. Most of the carbon is in fact burned, either biologically or physically and cannot be returned. As specific counter-example, in a discussion of soil regeneration, I've read claims of an inch of topsoil growth per year. Whatever they were doing or supplementing, I don't think they⁴ trucked in an inch of carbon/topsoil per year. Are you claiming it's impossible? ¹ As in, it was not present in soil, as your original claim seems to be. ² Imported matter does seem a good and legitimate way to quicken the process of soil regeneration, if it then becomes net-producing. ³ Carbon is only added in small, non-replenishing quantities, or small areas, not materially changing the carbon balance by itself. ⁴ I'm aware there are those that do repeatedly truck-in an inch of topsoil. |