White Clover Farm received the 2016 Cooperator of the Year Award from the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation District in Highland County. We were chosen based upon our conservation practices that improve the soil and water quality.
Our mission from the beginning has been to conserve and improve our topsoils. Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in 1937, shortly after the dust bowl, “The nation that destroys its soils, destroys itself.” Despite this warning, we have continued to destroy our soils thru the loss of soil organic matter. Worldwide we have lost 50-70% of the organic matter from our soils. This has resulted in a dysfunctional carbon and water cycle. Dr. Rattan Lal, a soil scientist at Ohio State University, states “A mere 2% increase in the carbon content of the plant’s soils could offset 100% of all greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere.”
Agriculture of the future must be regenerative. We must produce food and improve our soils. Dr. Christine Jones, PhD soil biochemistry, states “If all farmland sequestered more carbon than it was losing, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall at the same time as farm productivity and watershed function improved.”
Our planet’s future food and water security is dependent on restoring the carbon and water cycles. Regenerative agriculture can accomplish this goal. As a consumer, I hope you will support this goal by purchasing your food from farms that practice regenerative agriculture.