JODI SPRAGINS/WCT
Regenerative Farming at Rushton Growing Food While Enhancing Nature
S
ince the first day we broke ground at Rushton Farm in 2007, we have been farming with particular sensitivity to the surrounding ecosystem of the entire 86-acre Rushton Woods Preserve where the farm is located. The practices we employ contrast with conventional farming, which is detrimental to the environment with its dependence on synthetic chemicals, genetically modified organisms, heavy irrigation, intensive tillage, and monoculture production. At Rushton Farm we grow healthy food without artificial fertilizers and pesticides using a method we describe as regenerative farming. While we use organic farming methods at Rushton Farm, we have avoided using the term. This is because that official designation requires costly USDA certification. Also, organic farming is not always chemical-free. For many years, we used sustainable agriculture to describe Rushton’s practices because the term applies to farming that does not degrade
the land. But what we do at Rushton is more than that—we grow food in a way that is beneficial to the land; it improves the land. Recently regenerative agriculture has been gaining momentum as a more definitive way to describe farming practices that enrich soils, increase biodiversity, enhance the ecosystem, improve water soil retention and support biosequestration—all of which applies to Rushton Farm. Scientists agree that conventional agriculture is negatively affecting the environment and contributes significantly to climate change. As human population and demand for food grows, many countries are turning to deforestation as a way to expand agricultural lands. Because trees remove carbon dioxide from the air, deforestation exacerbates climate change. And combined with the fact that conventional farming uses petroleum-based chemicals and employs heavy use of machinery, the negative impact on the climate is twofold.
