Chapter 2

    It was very inspiring to read about Olivia Watkins and her mission to rejuvenate her ancestral lands.  I also liked how this chapter would flip back and forth between Olivia's story and the history of black farmers in the U.S.  In my Regenerative Organic Agriculture class last semester, we talked about the fundamentals of creating farms that produce food while being one with the surrounding ecosystem, but we never went into much detail about the history of this method.  This is why the section on George Washington Carver really caught my attention.  During Carver's research, he highly emphasized the importance of the woods and how it contained a "mutual relationship of the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms."  He also stated that the forest is essentially a "natural fertilizer factory," referring to the abundance of decaying organic matter releasing valuable nutrients into the soil.  I think these two quotes do a great job of summarizing some of the most important ideas when it comes to establishing a regenerative farm system: allowing all aspects of an ecosystem to influence the operation instead of isolating them from a monoculture of non-native crops and terminating the use of chemical inputs like synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.  

    Another big idea of regenerative agriculture discussed throughout the chapter is agroforestry.  This concept also came up a lot in my Regen Ag class, so it was nice to learn about it even more.  I think if you introduced the concept of employing regenerative agriculture methods like agroforestry on a large-scale to people, most of them would think solely on its crop-yielding potential.  They may overlook some of the other extremely valuable ecosystem services provided by agroforestry such as carbon sequestration, buffering against extreme weather, providing shade-tolerant crops with a place to thrive, reducing soil erosion, attracting pollinators, among many others.  These benefits are absolutely essential towards ensuring the future sustainability of our agricultural systems.  Reading about Olivia carrying on the legacy her ancestors fought so strongly for gives me a lot of hope for the future of agriculture.