EPA Gets Moving and Indigenous Regenerative Agriculture

A couple of news briefs about agriculture, so critical to our planetary health!

First the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

After being derelict in its duty to enforce the Endangered Species Act, under the Biden administration the EPA has started to take action. From the article on the website Civil Eats:

“In fact, last year, the EPA acknowledged that over the past five decades, it has effectively ignored its responsibility to evaluate pesticides’ impacts on at-risk plants and animals in more than 95 percent of cases.

“While the EPA evaluates the basic health and environmental risks of pesticides under the country’s primary pesticide law, it weighs those risks against benefits to farmers and the security of the food supply. Under the Endangered Species Act, the agency is subject to a much stricter mandate to ensure that approving a pesticide for use doesn’t jeopardize the survival of any species on the list. As a result, the evaluations are more thorough and often require the involvement of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service.”

But as is often the case, it is complicated:

“Farmers don’t know if these pesticides will be suddenly taken off the market,” said Jake Li, deputy assistant administrator for pesticide programs for the office of chemical safety and pollution prevention at the EPA. “We could have a court decision any day that says, ‘Well, EPA, you’re in violation of the Endangered Species Act’ . . . and then we just have to start pulling pesticides off the shelf.

“That’s a scenario the EPA wants to avoid, Li said, because farmers need a “diversity of tools” to control weeds and pests. Instead, the EPA’s primary objective is identifying ways to minimize exposure to the chemicals, and many of their solutions rely on getting farmers, and others who apply pesticides, to closely adhere to complicated label instructions with very little—if any—enforcement.

“Plus, it is overwhelming. Many pesticides never fully evaluated are already out of date, and new ones pop up. But you have to start somewhere, and finally they are! “

Second, Indigenous Regenerative Agriculture in the journal Science Advances (20 Sep 2023 Vol 9, issue 38, Morgan J Schmidt et. al. report on the Intentional creation of carbon-rich soils in the Amazon.

It has long been known that there are some very rich soils in the Amazon, great for planting crops. It has been thought that these were created by Indigenous peoples, but that wasn’t accepted by everyone. However, the current practices of Indigenous peoples in some areas are clearly creating rich soils, and the investigators found that in archeological sites these soils were clustered around villages. 

The abstract:

“Fertile soil known as Amazonian dark earth is central to the debate over the size and ecological impact of ancient human populations in the Amazon. Dark earth is typically associated with human occupation, but it is uncertain whether it was created intentionally. Dark earth may also be a substantial carbon sink, but its spatial extent and carbon inventory are unknown. We demonstrate spatial and compositional similarities between ancient and modern dark earth and document modern Indigenous practices that enrich soil, which we use to propose a model for the formation of ancient dark earth. This comparison suggests that ancient Amazonians managed soil to improve fertility and increase crop productivity. These practices also sequestered and stored carbon in the soil for centuries, and we show that some ancient sites contain as much carbon as the above-ground rainforest biomass. Our results demonstrate the intentional creation of dark earth and highlight the value of Indigenous knowledge for sustainable rainforest management.”

They include observations of modern techniques:

“To determine what practices formed dark earth and whether it was intentionally created, we augmented our archaeological and soil analyses with ethnographic research in the present-day Kuikuro II village … which has documented enriched soils from contemporary Indigenous land management practices (Materials and Methods). Fishing and manioc agriculture create large quantities of nutrient-rich organic waste … much of which is deposited in trash middens mounded up to ~50 to 60 cm above the original ground surface … creating the most fertile and intensely modified soil in areas surrounding residences … Once dark earth begins to form in these midden areas, typically within a few years, residents often exploit it for planting nutrient-demanding crops …  that do not grow well on unmodified soils according to Kuikuro farmers … We also observed farmers spreading this organic refuse, particularly ash and charcoal … and manioc waste … as well as mulching … and in-field burning … in fields on the periphery of the village …”

 The practice of pyrolysis (burning organic material at high heat, low oxygen; see “biochar” on our What Can Be Done page) creates biochar, similar to the Indigenous peoples’ use of ash and charcoal. Some believe this is something that can be used more to enrich soils; to mimic the traditional techniques used in the Amazon, add compost!