Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming
BY LIZ CARLISLE
ISLAND PRESS, 2022
A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx and Asian-American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching
ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle
shows, is the true regenerative agriculture—not merely a set of technical tricks
for storing CO2 in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in
both plants and people.
Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our
nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement.
And it will ultimately require dismantling structures and policies that have
blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth. The task
is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we
can not only heal our planet, we can heal our communities and ourselves.