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[[D R. Montgomery. Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life
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C. Meeks
5.0 out of 5 starsNow I want to be a farmer.
June 18, 2017
I've been interested in gardening for a few years now. My dad gardened when I was young, but only recently have I owned land to garden.
I first heard of this book from an Urban Farming podcast, and I was intrigued. Soil science has been a new interest of mine, and I had never heard of most of the methods and practices in this book.
I'm not a true environmentalist, I don't fight for the whales, or boycott slaughtering animals, but anyone would want to be a good steward of the Earth. The philosophies in this book demonstrate that you don't need to sacrifice profits for 'going green' on the farm. In fact, it seems it might be more profitable. Shock, shock.
I'm inspired now to not only continue gardening, but to save up and buy some land! Hope my wife agrees with this whim.
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11 people found this helpful
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AnV
2.0 out of 5 stars..
August 24, 2017
If you're trying to find some actual information on why or how-to look for some other books. If you want to read about how bad industrial agriculture and oil companies are - this is your book.
One person found this helpful
Howard L. Yarbrough
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a terrific bookApril 18, 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I have gardened all my life. This book is an eye opener to the true role of soil in food production, controlling erosion, and yes even sequestering carbon and slowing climate change. Dr. Montgomery is very skilled at explaining complex topics in a manner that can be easily followed and understood. After reading this book, I now have two garden tillers for sale, and am converting everything I do in the vegetable gardening arena to raised beds, no-till, cover crops, and rotations! Whether you are a farmer, gardener, or just someone who cares about the future of our planet, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
5 people found this helpful
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RJ
5.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent book for its purposeAugust 8, 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
This is not an academic study (although there are numerous references to many academic studies) in the book. Rather it is an effort to disseminate information to the lay reader about how conservation agriculture can reverse the degradation of soil that results from conventional agricultural practices.
Conservation agriculture, which includes three elements --
- minimal soil disturbance, i.e. no tillage,
- integration of cover crops, and
- diverse rotations of crops
-- can achieve multiple objectives.
These are restoration of soil fertility to allow increased productivity in agriculture, both in the U.S. and in other countries;
- increased soil carbon i.e. using conservation agriculture to develop an effective carbon sink; and
- the reduction in the use of agricultural chemicals (both fertilizers and pesticides).
The author makes a persuasive case through a series of case studies of farmers who are practicing conservation agriculture. I recommend it to anyone who is concerned about how we are going to simultaneously feed a growing world population and address climate change.
2 people found this helpful
Sarah
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring tale of a growing revolution in agriculture
December 13, 2018
I teach a freshman course in natural resource conservation so I am always on the lookout for books that will inspire my students. This is very readable, introduces lots of concepts in soils and agriculture, and demands nothing short of a revolution in agriculture.
What student doesn't love that? Montgomery helps us care about soil organisms like they were our favorite pets.
"Soil health is built on the backs of soil organisms" from moles to mice to earthworms, beetles, bacteria, fungi and more. These organisms have myriad jobs to perform, and conventional agriculture's heavy use of plowing, fertilizers and pesticides undermines their ability to do their jobs. You learn how greater diversity in cover crops and crop rotations improves the biodiversity below the soil. And you'll discover that fallow fields are every bit as bad as they look. Nature doesn't leave soils exposed to the elements. Why should we?
This book is packed with great ideas and examples of a new form of agriculture much more in tune with nature.
If you care about healthy food, healthy soils, sustainability, climate change and agriculture based more on ecology than industrial chemistry, this book fills the bill. My students were excited about it, and they're a hard bunch to please.
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Patti Armbrister
5.0 out of 5 starshappy for the whole worldSeptember 11, 2017
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
This needs to be read by every person in the USA. We can grow a healthier, happy for the whole world, by following the lead of the people and agriculture practices in this book. "If you want to do something positive in a very negative world," buy this book, read it and give it to a friend or a farmer you know. Together we can get people to adopt "Regenerative" agriculture and gardening practice. Start reading and gifting this book.
4 people found this helpful
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Kat Jordan
5.0 out of 5 starsThoughtful and intelligentSeptember 1, 2017
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Thoughtful and realistically written, talks more about the expense of excess chemicals instead of jumping on the organic bandwagon. Enjoyed the perspective of the farmers.
3 people found this helpful
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Terry Huggins
5.0 out of 5 starsIt was the best scientific analysis of farming produced in recent timesFebruary 16, 2018
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It was the best scientific analysis of farming produced in recent times.
It was lacking in the examination of dairy farming which is dominant in New Zealand. Nonetheless it gave a good grounding in the principles of renewing soil and bringing it back to fertility.
3 people found this helpful
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bpb
5.0 out of 5 starsThe soil is our future!January 3, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Very thorough review of steps farmers all over the world are taking to restore the skin of the earth, the soil... great follow-up to his previous book, 'Dirt.'
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tsw2
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must read for anyone who wants to eat food in the futureDecember 30, 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
With the UN's FAO saying there are 60 to 100 harvests, left for humans based on current agricultural practices, this book provides an excellent summary of the agricultural practices that build top soil, reverse agricultural environmental impacts and --if followed-- will help farmers to produce food for generations to come.
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mollyo
5.0 out of 5 starsHope for farms and farmingSeptember 27, 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
There is hope for farms and food systems worldwide if we have the courage to change our ways. A combination of traditional methods aided by modern science can help. This book describes many such ways.
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MW
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Primer on Soil HealthSeptember 28, 2017
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
As a farmer using these practices, this was a great refresher on soil biology. It also provided some new insights I could apply to my own farm. For the general public, it does an excellent job of explaining the environmental, social, and economic benefits of healthy soil.
4 people found this helpful
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pam hoskins
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsJuly 11, 2017
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Paradigm shifting book. A testimony of how Soil Health can heal our lands and it's people.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA convenient truthAugust 21, 2017
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This book outlines the only way to truly feed 9 billion people on the planet, with any sense of sustainability. Not only that, by taking care of our soils, we by default begin to slow the effects of a changing climate.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsOctober 29, 2017
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Great insights on soil management for a more sustainable and resilient future
One person found this helpful
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Gladys Love
5.0 out of 5 starsThe "Great Explainer" does it again!June 3, 2017
Format: Hardcover
I did not think that I would enjoy a book about farming, but I am a big fan of the author's other books, so I decided to read it anyway. I was quickly pulled in by the question: How can humanity feed its growing populations when so much of earth's agricultural soil is degraded? This question led the author to research new concepts and practices in farming and soil restoration. Montgomery shows that it is possible to bring biology back into the soil- fertility picture, and provides the reader with not only practical information about soil restoration but also hope for our planet's future. Once again Montgomery has explained scientific concepts and methods in terms that the general reader can understand and appreciate. The author is the "great explainer" and I highly recommend his newest book. It should be read as part of a "trilogy' that includes two of his other books;
a] Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations, and
b] The Hidden Half of Nature: the Microbial Roots of Life and Health.
c] Revolution
8 people found this helpful
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M. Hagny
5.0 out of 5 stars
the best book on food production in decades
November 4, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Montgomery’s book does a wonderful job of bringing to the fore a set of vexing questions and tentative answers about feeding humanity in truly sustainable ways. It is probably the most important writing on this subject in several decades.
As prescient as it is, I do have a few concerns.
First, is a technical point. He uses soil organic matter and soil carbon interchangeably, even in the same paragraph. If it were simply a generality, it wouldn’t be a concern, but when mentioning hard numbers (percentages), we need to be specific, since soil organic matter (OM) is only 58% carbon.
Second, while Montgomery tries mightily to be objective in the ‘war’ between permanent, continuous no-till (using herbicides) and ‘organic’ (with occasional tillage), it’s clear that he harbors some romantic notions of ‘organic’ small farms being superior, and this colors his analysis. (My quotes around organic indicate some beef with this term as used to distinguish certain types of food production methods, since ‘conventional’ farming and its product also relies on biochemistry – indeed, everything classified as food is made of chemicals, and they’re organic chemicals technically speaking, because they contain carbon.)
There are several problems with ‘organic’ farming as it is defined by governing bodies and practiced today. The reliance on tillage to control perennial weeds is a major stumbling block. While the book’s characterization of the ‘organic’ demonstration farm at Rodale as building soil and controlling erosion, this is the exception not the rule. To be building soil OM while doing tillage requires substantial inputs of organic material from outside sources – manure, etc., and Rodale uses heavy amounts of manure (which is from grain or fodder grown somewhere else) to achieve their result. There simply isn’t enough manure to go around if ‘organic’ were widely adopted. If we recycled all the human (and pet) poop and urine and brought it back to the land, we’d be closer to having the phosphorus (P) and micronutrients covered, but not enough carbon input to be wasting it with tillage.
Further, much of the world’s cropland is more perilously situated in regards to soil erosion than the Rodale’s research farm. Whether it be steeper, longer slopes, or soils inherently lower in organic matter due to being warmer climates, or in regions with stronger winds, the occasional tillage of such should not be considered an option.
Maybe the problem will go away in the near future with cheap robots to exterminate weeds, but for now, ‘organic’ shouldn’t be considered sustainable if it involves tillage – not unless it’s someplace with little wind, not much slope, and plentiful additions of manure (unnatural in their heavy rate) to offset the carbon loss from stirring the soil. Unfortunately, most of the world’s cropland doesn’t meet these criteria.
There are other issues with ‘organic.’ One of the founding principles is that anything natural is okay, but processing or human-made or human-altered is bad. But the universe doesn’t abide by these strictures. Rattlesnake venom is entirely natural. And if you’ve got a life-threatening infection, most people will accept a vaccine (unnatural, engineered). Rotenone is approved for ‘organic’ production, but is far more unsafe than many pesticides that aren’t allowed. ‘Organic’ permits any fertilizers or soil amendments that are dug out of the ground, but unaltered – so arsenic and lead should be just fine, right? The problem is that ‘organic’ grew out of armchair philosophy, rather than science. The caring for the status of the soil was most commendable, but most of ‘organic’ philosophy (now indoctrinated in rules/laws) was a suspicion of technology and a romantic yearning for a simpler time (nevermind that life back then was nasty, brutish, and short). When we look at it through a scientific lens, we see that human-made chemicals aren’t necessarily any more deleterious than natural ones, according to Bruce Ames, toxicologist (even I find this a bit surprising), once we factor in the dose. That there are hundreds of naturally occurring chemicals in, say, coffee, or apples, and some of them are harmful (while some are beneficial, and others neutral), and a great many are unknown in their effects – they certainly aren’t studied nearly to the extent that pesticides are.
This isn’t to say that conventional agriculture doesn’t have serious problems. Although I’m opposed to ‘organic’ in principle – not just because it’s destroying the world’s cropland, but also it’s not so safe itself (in addition to rotenone, it has issues with vegetables having high E.coli from manure applications) – there are some foods that I’d be willing to consider buying ‘organic,’ one of which is lettuce – because the conventional lettuce has issues with high levels of clorpyrifos (a chemical I’d like to see banned entirely; or sharply curtailed in its present use). But for grain crops, no way do I want to be buying ‘organic’ – I don’t want all the resulting soil erosion on my conscious, and the studies I’ve seen don’t show any safety or nutrition advantages to ‘organic.’ (I don’t eat potatoes either, regardless of ‘organic’ or conventional, because there’s too much ecological damage from harvesting them – severe erosion, silting of streams, etc.)
There are a few other obstacles. ‘Organic’ relies on legumes for part of its nitrogen (N) input. Some regions don’t have any reasonably well-adapted legume cash crops to include in the rotation – southwestern Kansas being one such locale. Maybe someday this could be solved with breeding (or gene-insertion technology), but it’s a serious near-term obstacle. Nor can some of these places use cover crops to help smother weeds (or supply N) every year – they’re much too arid to support both a cover crop and cash crop in the same season.
Likewise, the bringing of cattle back to the land presents issues in some of the warmer climates (areas far south of Gabe Brown in the USA) – they’re too fragile and cannot maintain enough mulch cover even without the livestock, because decomposition occurs so much more rapidly when it’s warmer. If the grazing is of perennials, then it’s no problem, but grazing on cropland in these climates can be a problem especially if the land has much slope (soils in these warmer areas are much more fragile and prone to water erosion anyway, because soil OM is lower than in cooler regions – plus the soils are geologically more ancient and weathered, i.e., usually resulting in poorer infiltration characteristics).
The polycultures and permacultures that Kofi Boa and others have implemented are amazing. Undoubtedly the most productive (by a large margin) per unit of land area. But they’re also very labor-intensive. It’s a wonderful system for parts of the world that still have lots of people on the land – micro farmers. Not so practical for huge swaths of cropland in USA, Canada, Argentina, Russia, Australia, etc. Not unless we want to move lots of city-dwellers back to the land and convince them to undertake back-breaking labor. Not only is that completely unrealistic, but also undesirable because the wealth of nations is founded on industry and technology – i.e., getting the vast majority of the population off the farms and letting them do something ‘more productive.’ (I work with farmers in my career, and am fiercely loyal to them; no slight is intended.)
Montgomery’s celebration of no-tillage cropping is recognition that’s long overdue. Consumers should be demanding it, and eschewing ‘organic’ -- at least for grain and legume crops. While astute no-tillers are ever trying to reduce their usage of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, and are succeeding at this with diverse crop rotations (more so with insecticides and fungicides than with herbicides), I doubt there’s going to be a ‘convergence’ with ‘organic.’ Not unless ‘organic’ gives up some of its more unscientific beliefs, and the public comes to accept that most herbicides can be used safely, and we undertake a massive effort to bring the poop and urine back to the cropland (and not just the cropland closest to the cities).
The book does a good job of pointing out the fallacies who think that every pesticide is safe and has no unintended side-effects, just as it takes to task some of the died-in-the-wool ‘organic’ beliefs. The book isn’t a scientific publication—it’s not the final word on which system is best, nor is it a methodic analysis of them. And there is much hard work to be done to better understand soil biology and how it might be leveraged to our benefit. But the book does a great job of highlighting some of the advances with no-tillage cropping, and pulls together diverse strands of thinking from around the world. Kudos, Dave! Job very well done.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Lucid, compelling, and optimistic: a rare hat trick.
July 10, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Found this gem at a small bookstore in Blue Hill, Maine, and spent the better part of vacation reading it. Couldn't put it down. I've long composted everything in sight and spread the finished product on my lawn since I don't have a green thumb. It's good to know that there are things even suburban-dwelling non-farmers can do to sequester carbon and improve their soil, and this book shows why both are important. A niggling observation: it didn't mention Joe Jenkins's work in the closing-the-loop chapter. Jenkins's thirty-plus years of experience in the field deserves scholarly attention, and would have helped advance the author's point about the importance of returning everything to the soil. Still, I'll refer to this book often and use it as a springboard for further reading.
3 people found this helpful
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DC
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsMarch 20, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Excellent book. Fascinating and inspiring. Highly recommended.
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AnV
2.0 out of 5 stars
If you want to read about how bad industrial agriculture and oil companies are - this is ...August 24, 2017
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
If you're trying to find some actual information on why or how-to look for some other books. If you want to read about how bad industrial agriculture and oil companies are - this is your book.
One person found this helpful
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afterenglit
2.0 out of 5 stars
SuperficialMay 30, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Well, I’ve read enough of David Montgomery’s Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life to know that it contains nothing more than a patina of generic and considerably-less-than-useful information — observations of a soil dilettante who, I’m willing to bet, has never done a day’s work with a garden tool in his entire life. (He even admits that his wife has done and still does all of the gardening around their own house.)
I suppose it’s exactly what one should expect from a guy who spent his academic years looking at landscapes to work out how the earth surface was molded (geomorphology) and who really prefers traveling, seeing and writing — not doing.
And therein lies the rub because he’s never going to be able to cross the divide that separates vague, amorphous theorizing from specific, applicable approaches. And it’s a problem that’s not unique to books about agriculture/farming/gardening. It exists in many fields.

The root of the problem, I think, lies in the natural dichotomy that exists between two types of folks: those who like to spend their time writing and those who prefer to involve themselves in a study. The former either don’t like to test their information in the field or feel they don’t have time to learn anything beyond what they can pick up secondhand or glean from a textbook, while the latter prefer to get to know a subject on a practical, firsthand, experiential level.
I'll let you guess where my fifty years of growing most of my own food organically puts me.
A little “book learning” is fine, as long as it’s coupled with live, hands-on experience so the information can be tested and assimilated, as the medievalists used to say, “cum fundamento in re” (with a foundation in reality).
4 people found this helpful
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Nov 23, 2018Stephen rated it it was amazing
Recommends it for: everone who cares about the living earth
Recommended to Stephen by: Gidon Eshel
Shelves: agriculture, natural-history-environment
Nearly everything that nourishes terrestrial biota grows in a micro-thin layer of the earth’s surface that is fast running out -- topsoil. Yet while people of good will march by the many thousands for clean air or clean water, no one marches about the ongoing loss and impending disappearance of a resource (sustainably fertile soil) as important to higher forms of life on earth as are clean air and drinkable water. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2015 that at the current rate of soil depletion, the world has only about sixty harvests left.https://www.sej.org/headlines/only-60...
While I disagree with George Monbiot on some things, everyone should study his 2015 blog post
Click on the link and read it now.
The scarcely-noticed state of the soil is as bad as the more palpable breakdown of the climate. The world needs a “man on the moon” project or a WWII type mobilization to reverse greenhouse gas buildup, and needs a parallel effort, no less important, to save our soils. “Regenerative agriculture” (RA) with its congeners (e.g. “conservation agriculture,” “permaculture”, “sustainable agriculture” ) is the best road map to that end.
What a blessing, then, that RA also has a potential role in reversing the rapid buildup of atmospheric CO2 and consequent global heating that now threatens the globe. See http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-report... RA builds and heals soils by removing (“drawing down”) CO2 from the atmosphere. Because this role, even all-out, seems second fiddle to ending GHG emissions, it is downplayed or outright ignored by many climate salvors who are preoccupied with fossil fuel flux.
Suppose, though, that to save our soil (SOS) were called as important to the living earth as to prevent an additional half -degree C of temperature anomaly. You could argue this either way. If it isn’t equally important, or is not so recognized, we still have nothing to lose and much to gain by committing to regenerative agriculture.
Discussion of RA focuses more on soil than on atmosphere, though the two interact intimately. Among the many good books in this field I have not found one better than Growing A Revolution. Compared to Call of the Reed Warbler, which I recently reviewed, it has more American figures and accounts, e.g. regenerative rancher icon Gabe Brown of North Dakota , Punjab-born Ohio State Professor Rattan Lal and Franklin B. King (d. 1911) on whose long-neglected work Jerome Rodale later drew heavily. Wes Jackson deservedly gets highlighted in both. Montgomery’s chapter “Closing the Loop” has a touching coda to the work of Justus von Liebig, known to most of us as the father of NPK chemical fertilizers. In his later writings, von Liebig espoused returning organic matter to the soil ; sad to say, by then his acolytes and the industries they worked for had stolen the show.
Growing a Revolution makes a very strong case that most farmers and ranchers, including smallholders, will benefit fiscally by shifting to RA. Its lower input costs mean more profit; its lower cultivation needs mean more discretionary time. Regenerated soil will better endure the ravages of drought and flood in a breaking climate while growing more nutrient-dense food. Biodiversity of plants, animals and insects will improve. Yields may at first go down, but so do input costs; mass of yield, in any case, should not be the marker of interest. That should be (say) yield adjusted for quality/input + labor costs. For that matter, yields can go up greatly once RA is in the saddle.
Near the end comes the best treatment I have found on the vexing question of why, if it’s such a good idea, regenerative agriculture has so few followers still. Reasons include (a) crop insurance policies (b) funding of most academic research and teaching by mono-culture and chemical oriented businesses (c) low availability of capital to support the first couple of years of transition (d) the agri-business lobby (e) too few inspiring examples close to home, easy to visit (f) ordinary human risk aversion Denial of “climate change” –this is significant--does not make the list.
I learned a lot from both books. If an American only has time for one, she or he might go first for the less discursive, less lyrical, more USA-based one that Prof Montgomery has written. . . . _ _ _ . . . . . . _ _ _ . . . . . . _ _ _ . . . SOS SOS SOS SAVE OUR SOILS (less)
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We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it
George MonbiotWar, pestilence, even climate change, are trifles by comparison. Destroy the soil and we all starve
@GeorgeMonbiot
Wed 25 Mar 2015 18.00 AEDTLast modified on Thu 30 Nov 2017 08.13 AEDT
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'While it now seems that ploughing of any kind is incompatible with the protection of the soil, there are plenty of means of farming without it.' Photograph: Lester Lefkowitz/CorbisImagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re finished if we don’t address an issue considered so marginal and irrelevant that you can go for months without seeing it in a newspaper.
It’s literally and – it seems – metaphorically, beneath us. To judge by its absence from the media, most journalists consider it unworthy of consideration. But all human life depends on it. We knew this long ago, but somehow it has been forgotten. As a Sanskrit text written in about 1500BC noted: “Upon this handful of soil our survival depends. Husband it and it will grow our food, our fuel and our shelter and surround us with beauty. Abuse it and the soil will collapse and die, taking humanity with it.”
The issue hasn’t changed, but we have. Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction so intense that, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world on average has just 60 more years of growing crops. Even in Britain, which is spared the tropical downpours that so quickly strip exposed soil from the land, Farmers Weekly reports, we have “only 100 harvests left”.
Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction
To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, 6m hectares (14.8m acres) of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12m hectares a year are lost through soil degradation. We wreck it, then move on, trashing rainforests and other precious habitats as we go. Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters, making them available to plants. That handful the Vedic master showed his disciples contains more micro-organisms than all the people who have ever lived on Earth. Yet we treat it like, well, dirt.
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The techniques that were supposed to feed the world threaten us with starvation. A paper just published in the journal Anthropocene analyses the undisturbed sediments in an 11th-century French lake. It reveals that the intensification of farming over the past century has increased the rate of soil erosion sixtyfold.
Another paper, by researchers in the UK, shows that soil in allotments – the small patches in towns and cities that people cultivate by hand – contains a third more organic carbon than agricultural soil and 25% more nitrogen. This is one of the reasons why allotment holders produce between four and 11 timesmore food per hectare than do farmers.
Whenever I mention this issue, people ask: “But surely farmers have an interest in looking after their soil?” They do, and there are many excellent cultivators who seek to keep their soil on the land. There are also some terrible farmers, often absentees, who allow contractors to rip their fields to shreds for the sake of a quick profit. Even the good ones are hampered by an economic and political system that could scarcely be better designed to frustrate them.
Why are organic farmers across Britain giving up?
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This is the International Year of Soils, but you wouldn’t know it. In January, the Westminster government published a new set of soil standards, marginally better than those they replaced, but wholly unmatched to the scale of the problem. There are no penalities for compromising our survival except a partial withholding of public subsidies. Yet even this pathetic guidance is considered intolerable by the National Farmers’ Union, which greeted them with bitter complaints. Sometimes the NFU seems to me to exist to champion bad practice and block any possibility of positive change.
Few sights are as gruesome as the glee with which the NFU celebrated the death last year of the European soil framework directive, the only measure with the potential to arrest our soil-erosion crisis. The NFU, supported by successive British governments, fought for eight years to destroy it, then crowed like a shedful of cockerels when it won. Looking back on this episode, we will see it as a parable of our times.
Soon after that, the business minister, Matthew Hancock, announced that he was putting “business in charge of driving reform”: trade associations would be able “to review enforcement of regulation in their sectors.” The NFU was one the first two bodies granted this privilege. Hancock explained that this “is all part of our unambiguously pro-business agenda to increase the financial security of the British people.” But it doesn’t increase our security, financial or otherwise. It undermines it.
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The government’s deregulation bill, which has now almost completed its passage through parliament, will force regulators – including those charged with protecting the fabric of the land – to “have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth”. But short-term growth at the expense of public protection compromises long-term survival. This “unambiguously pro-business agenda” is deregulating us to death.
There’s no longer even an appetite for studying the problem. Just one university – Aberdeen – now offers a degree in soil science. All the rest have been closed down.
This is what topples civilisations. War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the population recovers. But lose the soil and everything goes with it.
Now, globalisation ensures that this disaster is reproduced everywhere. In its early stages, globalisation enhances resilience: people are no longer dependent on the vagaries of local production. But as it proceeds, spreading the same destructive processes to all corners of the Earth, it undermines resilience, as it threatens to bring down systems everywhere.
Short-term growth at the expense of public protection compromises long-term survival
Almost all other issues are superficial by comparison. What appear to be great crises are slight and evanescent when held up against the steady trickling away of our subsistence.
The avoidance of this issue is perhaps the greatest social silence of all. Our insulation from the forces of nature has encouraged a belief in the dematerialisation of our lives, as if we no longer subsist on food and water, but on bits and bytes. This is a belief that can be entertained only by people who have never experienced serious hardship, and who are therefore unaware of the contingency of existence.
It’s not as if we are short of solutions. While it now seems that ploughing of any kind is incompatible with the protection of the soil, there are plenty of means of farming without it. Independently, in several parts of the world, farmers have been experimenting with zero-tillage (also known as conservation agriculture), often with extraordinary results.
There are dozens of ways of doing it: we need never see bare soil again. But in the UK, as in most rich nations, we have scarcely begun to experiment with the technique, despite the best efforts of the magazine Practical Farm Ideas.
Even better are some of the methods that fall under the heading of permaculture – working with complex natural systems rather than seeking to simplify or replace them. Pioneers such as Sepp Holzer and Geoff Lawtonhave achieved remarkable yields of fruit and vegetables in places that seemed unfarmable: 1,100m above sea level in the Austrian alps, for example, or in the salt-shrivelled Jordanian desert.
But, though every year our government spends £450m on agricultural research and development – much of it on techniques that wreck our soils – there is no mention of permaculture either on the websites of the two main funding bodies (NERC and BBSRC) or in any other department.
The macho commitment to destructive short-termism appears to resist all evidence and all logic. Never mind life on Earth; we’ll plough on regardless.
• A fully referenced version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com
Topics
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Opinion
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土・牛・微生物ー文明の衰退を食い止める土の話 単行本 – 2018/8/31
デイビッド・モントゴメリー (著), 片岡 夏実 (翻訳)
5つ星のうち 4.7 4件のカスタマーレビュー
ベストセラー1位- カテゴリ 農学一般関連書籍
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内容紹介
土は微生物と植物の根が耕していた――
文明の象徴である犂やトラクターを手放し、微生物とともに世界を耕す、
土の健康と新しい農業をめぐる物語。
足元の土と微生物をどのように扱えば、
世界中の農業が持続可能で、農民が富み、温暖化対策になるのか。
アフリカやアメリカで行なわれている不耕起栽培や輪作・混作、재배, 재배, 회전, 혼합 금지
有畜農業から、
アジアの保全型農業、日本のボカシまで、
篤農家や研究者の先進的な取り組みを世界各地で取材。
古代ローマに始まる農耕の歴史をひもときながら、
世界から飢饉をなくせる、輝かしい未来を語る。
深刻な食糧問題、環境問題を正面から扱いながら、希望に満ちた展望を持てる希有な本。
ベストセラー『土と内臓』『土の文明史』に続く、土の再生論。
出版社からのコメント
●毎日新聞書評掲載(2018年10月21日中村桂子氏評)
●HONZ「解説」から読む本掲載(2018年08月31日)
====================
●編集部より
古代文明から現代にいたる土と人類の関係を描いた『土の文明史』、
そして土壌中の微生物の働きと人の内臓についてまとめた『土と内臓』に続く
土3部作の完結編となる本書では、農業における土がテーマです。
著者はアメリカを中心に世界各地を訪ね、不耕起栽培を実践する農家と研究者に取材を行ないました。
そして彼らの長年の経験と豊富な科学的知見から、土と共生する農業が成功する三原則を導き出します。
第一に、微生物の定着を阻む土壌の攪乱の抑制。つまり耕さないこと。
第二に、土を覆い水分を保持する被覆作物を栽培すること。
第三に、多様性のある輪作で、土に栄養を供給しつつ病原菌を排除すること。
この原則に従わなければ、たとえ有機農業を行なっても土との共生はできず、土壌は疲弊피페し、収量수율yieldは低下すると言います。
反対に、土中の微生物の働きを理解すれば、土壌の回復が可能であるという明るい未来を提示します。
微生物から植物、人間やウシまであらゆる生命を育む土を、どう扱えば肥沃な土壌によみがえらせることができるのか。
地球の将来を考える上で、必読の一冊です。
なお本書では、日本の読者の理解を助けるために、著者に提供していただいた写真を本文中に収載しました。
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登録情報
単行本: 352ページ
出版社: 築地書館 (2018/8/31)
言語: 日本語
ISBN-10: 4806715670
ISBN-13: 978-4806715672
発売日： 2018/8/31
4件のカスタマーレビュー
5つ星のうち4.7
5つ星のうち4.7
星5つ 75%
星4つ 25%
トップレビュー
ほろのぶ
5つ星のうち5.0
知的探求心と、世界展望を考える名著
2018年10月10日
Amazonで購入
この本を読んで、著者の様に楽観的になったか、と言えばそうではない。けれど、本当の知的探求心を持つ者のみが今後の世界で生き残ると思えたとき、人は「ノアの箱舟」に乗れたという安心感を私は持てた。
この本に書かれていることは、簡単ではある。
環境保全型農業を導入することで、文明の劣化を防ぎ、同時に地球の二酸化炭素の増加からくる温暖化を食い止めることが出来るのではないかということだ。さらに土壌回復を促し、深刻な食糧問題や環境問題に展望が持てるのではないかと。今までの色々な著書を読んできたが、ここまでハッキリと、そのことを述べた本に出会ったことはない。
しかも大企業がこの環境保全型農業を導入することは、自らが今まで行ってきたビジネスモデルを覆す「思想」が含まれている為に、特に肥料メーカー等は頑強に否定の予防線を張るだろう。しかし、土壌生態学者のデイビッド・モントゴメリーの今までの著書を読んできた私としては、彼が初めての楽観的な希望を述べた論旨の方に驚いた。
ニコ・メレ「ビッグの終焉: ラディカル・コネクティビティがもたらす未来社会」を以前に読んだが、地産地消のビジネスが小さな農家が集まったコミュニティにより「規模の経済」に風穴を開ける動きも出ている。大企業であること、規模の経済が世界を動かすというビジネスモデルが20世紀の古いビジネススタイルではないかと述べている。
この本は各章が「生命」の繋がりの様に有機的に結びついているので、明確に論理的に述べるのが逆に難しい。
キーワードを列挙するので、ネットからそのキーワードのリゾーム（地下茎）を辿ると大変に面白い。
人類最悪の発明ー「犂」、「化学肥料」、「遺伝子組み換え作物」が招いたいたちごっこ、「腐植」、「微生物」、「菌根菌」、「根圏」、「根滲出液」、「土壌侵食」、「不耕起栽培」、「被覆作物」、「輪作」、「ダスト・ボウル」、「ミミズ」、「マルチ」、「有機農法」、「土壌団粒」、「有畜農業」、「短期間の集約放牧」、「マイクロバイオーム」、「バイオ炭」、「ボカシ」、「堆肥」、「バイオソリッド」などなど。この羅列した用語が「全て」理解出来る人はこの本を読む必要がないかもしれない。大抵は知らない人がほとんどだろう。ところで福岡正信「自然農法 わら一本の革命」をこの著者が読んでいることに驚いた。調べてみると、海外で翻訳も何冊かされているみたいだ。さすがだ。
日本では「有機農法」が流行しているが、土壌の中の微生物や菌根菌の存在は、専門家でもほとんど知られていない。なぜなら農学の分野でも土壌生態学はかなりマニアックな分野だからだ。しかも土壌の中にはまだ発見されていない有毒、有用なものが混在した大量の微生物や細菌、ウィルスが含まれている。
けれど、ある細菌学者に言わせれば土壌は「宝の山」だそうだ。今流通している「抗生物質」のほとんどは土壌の中から見つかっているし、細菌を退治するワクチンなども多く見つかっているからだ。だから逆に、農薬が使われてないからと安心して「寄生虫」に感染감염するケースも出ている。サン・テクジュペリが「大切なものは目に見えない」と言っていたが、この場合「物理的」かつ「時間的」にしっかり当てはまる名言である。
ユヴァル・ノア・ハラリ「サピエンス全史」を読んで、家畜を飼うことで、人類も伝染病や寄生虫に感染しだしたことを述べていた。これは半分しか当たってない。というのは、ほうぼうに放牧していた遊牧民が、なぜ伝染病や寄生虫にほとんど感染しなかったのかの理由がしっかりと述べられていなかった。
モントゴメリーのこの本によれば、牛の背丈まで大きく伸びた草木を食べさせる有畜農業の例があり、土から大きく離れた草木を食べさせると、牛は寄生虫に感染のサイクルが停止して、やがて寄生虫が体内からほとんどいなくなるという話だ。土は植物に多大な恩恵をもたらす半面、動物には有害な面もある。ハラリはこのことも述べていない。豚がなぜ寄生虫を多く持っているのかは、食糧とともに、土壌も食べているからだ。だから豚を食することを禁忌とした宗教が生まれたのだろう。
土を直接口に入れたりすれば菌根菌やバクテリア、カビ等の不明な病気に感染することもあり得るからだ。逆に土から大きく伸びた作物は、窒素固定菌や一部を除いて日光によりほとんどが「殺菌」されてしまうからだ。だから根菜などは古来より、良く洗ったり、煮込んだり、漬けたりして「殺菌」するか「醸す」とかの「処理」が必要だった。だから農薬が付いてないからといって、レタスやキャベツを「そのまま」丸かじりとかするから、寄生虫に感染するケースも出る。
現代人の方が、太古からの生活知恵に対して「無知」になっている。例えばモントゴメリーは「肥え」기름진を評価している。日本は「肥え」を止めるべきではなかったと私は思うが、やはり糞尿の「臭い」분뇨의 냄새を嫌う人が増えたせいもあるだろう。やたら消臭が流行っているし。
この場合太古からの生活の知恵を馬鹿にするものではない。「農家は自分で作れるものを時代遅れで、非科学的とみなす傾向がある」と著者は述べる。実はテクノロジーが発展することで、これは実は多くの人類がそう思い込んでいるのではないだろうか？（テクノロジー至上主義は私の大嫌い考え方だ。無根拠に信じる人間は真の意味で「馬鹿」と思う）
こと、農業に関しては、そう単純ではない。条件もある。「科学的検証」を長期的に検証を繰り返し、その土地の気候、土壌、気温、面積など、複雑に絡み合った事象の中から、最も最適な方法を求める「努力」も必要なのだ。
けれど、それは多大なコストと高いリスクを背負うという意味ではない。逆に低いコストと結果が出るまでに「数年」という低いリスクで済むからだ。だが、時代の動きはそれ以上のスピードを要求している。
これを著者は「あせると危険」조급하면 위험と考えて、前著の「土の文明史」でその短絡的結果を求めるバイアスが起こした環境破壊を警告した。実は有機農法では、肉体労働や労働時間はとても少なくてすむが、相当な知的努力と検証の努力を要する部分もあることを、この本で述べている。従って「知恵」と「知識」だけでなく、「科学的」で「常識」を「疑う知性」も要求される。その意味では甘くはない。けれど方法論は難しくない。実行することで貴方が「ノアの箱舟」に入れるかどうかだけだ。日本人は周りにやんや言われると引っ込む人が多いが、隣人を真似して普及する力は強い。最近本当に普及してきたと思えてきた。
文字通りの個人による「草の根運動」こそ世界の飢餓の問題を含めた、環境問題を解決できる展望を述べる意味では稀有な本である。私も今の仕事をリタイアしたら農業をしたいと本気で思ってしまった本であった。けれど、冷静に考えると今の私は、世界史研究の方が面白いので多分それは無いだろう。
ところで、最近起こった北海道の地震で土壌の液状化がひどかったらしいが、建物を建てる場合、柔らかい表土を取り去り、硬質な下層土や基岩まで掘ってから建設するが、日本の場合、降水量も多く、地下水を多く含む土壌の為、液状化現象が起こりやすい。特に高層建築物は日本の様な地下水が高い位置にある場所も多いことや、埋め立て地の多いところにこれまた高層建築物を建てるケースも多いので、大災害になりやすい。
いかん！この様に素人意見ながら、私もこういう一連の本を読んで、人間が変えてしまった土壌のことを前提に、ついつい考えてしまう癖がついてしまった（笑）。
北海道の場合、広大な土地の為、大規模なアメリカ型の牧畜や化学肥料による農業を営んでいるケースが多いらしいが、採算が合っているのだろうか？この本を読むと大規模な農業が短絡的で愚かな단락적이고 어리석은 ビジネスだとすぐわかる。
十勝地方で、親が農業を営む漫画家の荒川弘「百姓貴族 コミック 1-5巻セット」を読むと、悲劇を通り越して喜劇に思える。赤字に苦しむ農家に勧めたい本だ（笑）。
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Naoki
5つ星のうち5.0
草の根的な知恵が人類最大の課題を解決しつつある物語
2018年11月4日
「耕す」という言葉には、ポジティブなイメージがある。冒頭でショッキングな事実が知らされる。「えー、しかし」と思いながら、読み進める。そして、さらなる驚きに見舞われる。刺激的で、たまらなく魅力的な物語だ。
犂（すき）は人類最悪の発明だと言う。犂で耕すことで、土は年平均で1ミリ失われる。数世代にわたって耕すと、2センチ、3センチと失われる。表土は結構薄い、しかも出来るのに時間がかかる。耕すことで、もうひとつ、土中の有機物の分解が促されて、有機物の補給が追いつかず、毎年劣化していく。土は黒くまとまりがあるものから、薄い色でパサパサになっていく。
さらに驚くのは、産業革命から20世紀の終わりまでに空気中に排出された炭素の3分の1は「耕起（結果としての有機物の分解）」によってもたらされたものということ。
土の喪失と劣化は、ゆっくりと起こる。そして、空気や水の問題に比べると、目に見えにくい。その間、工業化され化学製品（肥料・除草剤）を多用する農業が、人口が増大する人類を支えてきた。が、それも「神話」だとモントゴメリーは明かす。食糧の8割は家族経営の農家が生産している。そして大規模で単一の作物をつくるより、小規模で多様な作物を育てる方が生産性は高い。また、化学製品による生産性の向上は、近年頭打ちになっている。
さて、ではどうしたらよいのか。
実は、世界中の農家は、このことを肌で感じていて、新たな農業を生み出してつつある。土地や気候によってやり方は異なるが原則はとてもシンプルだ。
1. 土壌の撹乱を最小限にする（不耕起）
2. 被覆作物の栽培
3. 多様な作物の輪作
目指す北極星は土地をよい状態にすること。これがブレなければ、有機農法でも慣行農法でもよい（ただ、使用する化学製品は激減する）。
シンプルなのだけれど、地質学者である著者が、世界の様々な地域の農家と彼らの知恵との出会いを通じて、希望の物語をつむいでいく。読んでいてワクワクする。
健康な土のモノサシをひとつ挙げるとすれば、土壌炭素だ。新しい農法によって、土壌炭素は、年に0.4パーセント増加する。炭素が土中に蓄積され、加えて、農業における化石燃料の使用が減ることで、世界の炭素放出量の3分の1を相殺する力がある。
農家の草の根の知恵と好奇心と行動力のある地質学者の知恵が合わさった希望の物語を、より多くの人に読んでほしい。
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ちちおみ
ベスト500レビュアー
5つ星のうち4.0
農業 第五革命とは？深刻な人類の未来へ一石を投じる2018年11月4日
Amazonで購入
内容は農業の第五の革命、「不耕起」について様々な知見が述べられており、大変興味深い。
解せないのが、タイトルだ。
ダイヤモンドの名著「銃・病原菌・鉄」を意識したとしか思えない邦題。
原題はGrowing a Revolution -bringing our soil black to life- なので、かなりあざとい商法が伺える。
5人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています
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大寺萌音
5つ星のうち5.0
実例に裏付けられた環境保全型農業が未来を切り拓く2018年12月22日
今は休んでいるが、以前は庭で5坪ほどだが野菜を作っていた。春になると、耕し、石灰と鶏糞や牛糞をベースにした肥料を入れ、ビニール（黒）のマルチを敷いて雑草に備えていた。本書を読むと、私がしていたことのいくつかは、しなくていいことだった。もちろん、気候などの違いもあるので全く同じとは言えないだろうが、工夫次第では、手間暇が減るだろうし、お金を節約できるようだ（規模が小さいので、たいしたことではないが）。
まず、不耕起栽培の推奨に驚いた。私のような家庭菜園レベルはもちろん、周囲で見かけるプロの農家も不耕起 쟁기질없이のところは見当たらない。不耕起栽培の例として知っていたのは、遺伝子組み換え植物と除草剤を併用する場合だが、それは手間を減らすためであって、土壌保全のためだとは聞いたことがない。
さらに、被覆作物をマルチとして使用して雑草などを抑制すると同時に、枯れた後は土壌成分を豊かにするために利用すること、かなり多くの種類の作物の輪作、牛の活用など、今の農業の“常識”を覆す事実が次々に紹介されている。にわかには信じられないが、様々な地域で奮闘する農家や指導員の成功例を知ると、未来への希望が開けてくる。
また、人間の体内（特に腸）同様、農業にとっても「微生物」が重要性を知ると、自然というものの奥深さを強く感じる。炭素の問題に関しては、温暖化対策にも影響を与えうることが分かる。
農家が従来のやり方を変えることに抵抗する可能もあるし、肥料・農薬などで収益を上げている企業による攻撃も予測されるが、著者の提唱する環境保全型農業が希望の灯であることは間違いないようだ。
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