I recently read a great book called Cows Heal the Planet, by Judith Schwartz. In it, Schwartz describes how we can look to soil as a crucible for many of our current social, economic and environmental crises: desertification, biodiversity loss, water security, climate change and extreme weather events, cleaning up toxins in our environment. We are understanding more and more the critical role that microbialy rich soil plays in our general health and wellbeing, and problems such as obesity, malnutrition, violence, hunger, poverty and economic stability. At their core, these problems are all manifestations of the long-term and widespread mistreatment of our soils.

The good news is that even though these issues seem deep, intractable and overwhelming at times, there is so much hope, as soil restoration practices are healing the Earth. Thus, our food choices- the way we grow, purchase, prepare and eat our food has the ability to heal or hurt ourselves, our community and our Earth.

Consider biodiversity, which starts in the soil. Indeed, the diversity above ground is a reflection of the diversity in the soil. There are presumed to be 10 million species of soil bacteria, and three million species of soil fungi. Unfortunately, typical commodity cropland (of which there are 349 million acres in the lower 48 U.S.A.) has about 5,000 species and we need at least 25,000 for plants and ecosystems to function anywhere near their potential.

Another 45 million acres in the U.S.A. are lawns, which are also either low or devoid of soil microorganism diversity. You may be surprised that, from a soil microorganism's point of view, a suburban lawn is akin to an agricultural monoculture. Whether it is Kentucky blue grass or soy beans, one type of plant doesn’t support the wide array of soil microbiology needed for healthy soils.

It takes hundreds of years to build soil using geological processes of weathering rock, but  soil can be built rather quickly by biological processes: microbes, plants and animals all working together to fulfill their respective roles in the ecosystem. The practice of holistic planned grazing, championed by Allan Savory, where large groups of livestock are rotated through different pastures in order to mimic natural herding behavior to protect against predators so that a disturbance is created and then the land is allowed to regenerate, is remaking deserts into productive lands again, supporting and feeding people and sequestering carbon in the soil.  Soil that’s rich in carbon holds water like a sponge, buffering against droughts and floods and refilling aquifers.

Carbon also lends fertility to the soil and sustains plant and microbial life. Unfortunately, most agriculture in the U.S.A. today is soil depleting rather than soil building. Microbes are hampered by widely used chemical fertilizers purported to yield bumper crops. Chemical fertilizers have the effect of depleting soil compounds that they don’t contain, including soil organic carbon and trace minerals. Additionally, in the past 150 years, between 50 and 80% of organic carbon in the topsoil has gone airborne due to poor agricultural practices of overgrazing livestock and leaving soil bare after it has been harvested.

Without microbes, we wouldn't have oxygen to breathe. Photosynthetic microbes are responsible for about half of the photosynthesis on Earth, simultaneously increasing the amount of oxygen and decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Through this process, microbes are helping to mitigate some of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.  Some soil scientists have concluded that if we improve 50% of the world’s agricultural land, we could sequester enough carbon in the soil to bring atmospheric CO2 back to preindustrial levels in five years.

As a Natural Farmer, I spend a lot of time actively culturing mycorrhizae and other soil microbes and spreading them around to my blueberry field and crop beds. Mycorrhizae are "fungus roots" and act as an interface between plants and soil. They grow into the roots of crops and out into the soil, increasing the root system many thousands of times over. They act symbiotically, using enzymes to convert nutrients in the soil into food that plants can use and taking carbohydrates from the plants and turning them into nutrients the soil can use: sequestering carbon in the soil for later use.  Miles of fungal filament can be present in an ounce of healthy soil. Mycorrhizal inoculation of soil increases the accumulation of carbon by depositing glomalin, which in turn increases soil structure by binding organic matter to mineral particles in the soil. It is glomalin that gives soil its tilth, its texture and rich feel, its buoyancy and its ability to hold water. 

The food we eat is only as good as the soil from which it springs. Microbes living in the soil provide plants with natural protection from pests and diseases, by breaking down minerals and making them available to plants.  Plants then, take the minerals and synthesize vitamins and other essential nutrients.  If chemical agricultural inputs are used, you don’t get high levels of biological soil activity from bacteria and fungi and the minerals stay "locked up" in the soil, unavailable to plants.

Americans  spend the lowest percentage of our income on food of any nation in the history of the world, but what good is producing abundant cheap food when the food is not healthy? We are in a situation where we can buy oranges that are completely devoid of Vitamin C. Across the board, levels of key mineral nutrients- zinc, calcium, manganese, iron, phosphorus, magnesium and copper in our food crops have declined by an average of 50 to more than 100% over the last century. Some scientists believe that today’s high obesity rates are paradoxically, a symptom of malnutrition due to diets deficient in micronutrients.

So, we hear a lot about avoiding bad stuff in our food (chemical residues, GMO’s, antibiotics, etc.), but that is only part of the problem, the other part is the good stuff that is missing. What our bodies need and through our senses seek out are “plant secondary metabolites,” which depend on the presence of trace minerals – released by, microbes! These are tannins and essential oils. That which makes basil smell like basil and leeks smell like leeks.  This is why we instinctively recoil when we bite into a huge red strawberry that has absolutely no taste. Our bodies recognize that it also has no nutrition.


Foods devoid or deficient in microbes, grown on soil devoid or deficient in microbes, leads to poor health, physical and emotional. Dr. Natasha Campbell- McBride, MD in her book Gut and Psychology Syndrome has pioneered the use of probiotics, or beneficial microorganisms, in the treatment of children and adults with mental illness and behavioral and learning disabilities (ADHD, autism, etc). Our bodies, much like plants, need a wide variety of beneficial microorganisms in our gut in order to extract and make available to our bodies the minerals and vitamins in the foods that we eat.  Much like a pesticide, which indiscriminately kills all insects and microbes on a plant, whether they are beneficial or not, when we bathe in and drink chlorinated water and use antibacterial soap, we indiscriminately kill all microbes in and on our bodies, most of which, we need to be healthy.

Microbes break down plant residue and animal wastes so that they can be recycled into nutrient rich soil amendments. Because of their special adaptations, some microbes actually degrade, rendering harmless, chemicals that are extremely dangerous to humans. These microbes can help clean up gasoline leaks, oil spills, sewage, nuclear waste, heavy metals, and many other types of pollution that our modern society has created. Modern economic theory calls this pollution an "externality" and so, incredibly, our global economic system does not take the environment into account. This disconnect between the economy and the natural world is a fantasy that we continue to believe at our own peril. We need to make the link between our economic and ecological cycles. All new wealth comes from the soil and natural ecological function. When we erode our soil, we erode our ability to create wealth.  As Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself."

And so, we must consciously choose and seek out foods that are grown with a reverence for life, from microbes in the soil to chickens raised on pasture. We can choose to grow a portion of our own food and lovingly tend to the soil and thus, all that depends on it, and we can also support local, sustainable farmers, shop at farmer’s markets and local food coops, strengthening local economies and community connections.

Each action creates a ripple of love and healing, and we find that not only are we healing the Earth, but our minds, bodies and souls as well. This summer, may the beauty and nourishment of what the Earth is creating underneath your feet at this very moment and what the farmers are giving life to with their hands and hearts, grace you and those you hold dear.

Role of Mycorrhizae
Through my Natural Farming experiences, I have become much more aware of the important role that mycorrhizae play in rehabilitating soils and as an extension, native plant communities. Mycorrhizae are “fungus roots” which form a mutualistic relationship with the roots of 95% of plant species. They increase the plants root system many thousands of times over and give the plant access to nutrients and water that would otherwise be unavailable to the plant.

The same techniques that I use to culture mycorrhizae/indigenous microorganisms (IMO) on my farm can be applied to help facilitate habitat restoration projects, especially with prairies.

It turns out, that there has been some research done on this. Smith et al (1998) found that plots inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi at a roadside prairie restoration site had greater cover by native prairie species than uninoculated plots.  Mycorrhizal fungi are especially important for some very threatened prairie plants, such as the Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid, whose microscopic seeds will not germinate without the presence of species specific mycorrhizal fungi.

Unfortunately, most of the studies I have read that have used mycorrhizal fungi to inoculate prairie restoration sites have used either bulk commercial inoculum, which is relatively inexpensive, but the microorganisms are nonindigineous to the area. A few took mycorrhizal fungi from a local prairie remnant and propagated it in a laboratory facility, which was very expensive and not practical for larger areas. But there is another way- one can easily and cheaply propagate mycorrhizae/indigenous microorganisms (IMO) as I do on my farm and have described here.

Conventional Agriculture vs. Multi-functional, Regenerative Agriculture
The roots of native prairie grasses such as Big Bluestem and Switchgrass may go down 7-11 ft deep. Some of the roots die and decompose each year, and this process adds large quantities of organic matter (carbon) to the soil. The hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi produce the glycoprotein glomalin, which may be another major store of carbon in the soil (taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it in the soil helps to build fertility and reverse climate change). Native prairie soils are some of the most fertile soils on Earth and the reason why so few original prairies remain is that they have mostly been converted to conventional agriculture.

Most of what is being grown on Ohio’s former prairies are annual monocrops of corn, wheat and soybeans, using annual tilling, chemically produced fertilizers, biocides and genetically modified seeds, all which destroy beneficial soil microorganisms, including mycorrhizae. These practices also diminish wildlife diversity, cause major soil erosion and contribute greatly to atmospheric carbon deposition (resulting in global climate change). During the field trip portion of the Ohio Prairie Conference, where we visited a few remnant prairie sites, we drove by thousands of acres of this type of agriculture.

But, there are ways that farms and prairies can peacefully coexist, as a group called EcoSun Prairie Farms in South Dakota is demonstrating by re-establishing and farming diverse mixtures of native perennial grasslands (prairies). Their objectives are to demonstrate how to make a sustainable living from a variety of products produced on restored prairie, including food and fiber, as well as ecological goods and services such as clean air and water, improved soils and high biodiversity.

Over the past 6 years, they converted 350 acres of former annual corn and soybean cropland to native grassland, restored nearly half of 35 formerly drained wetlands on the property and rejuvenated 75 acres of former conventional pasture by planting native warm season grasses. Current income streams include sales of native plant seed, hay, and grass-raised beef. Future income streams may include cellulosic-based biofuels, ecotourism and fee hunting since they have had an explosion in grassland birds (like bobolinks) and game birds (such as pheasants). Other environmental benefits have also accrued including improved soil quality, increased surface water in wetlands (flood water retention), and recovery of shallow aquifers.

This is so exciting to me because I am planning on taking this same concept and doing it on a smaller scale- converting about 3 acres of my farm into productive prairie pasture. I plan to use holistic planned grazing techniques using poultry, sheep and goats to mimic the natural grazing pressures that prairies have evolved under. Grazing increases growth in prairies, animals naturally add fertility to the soil through urine and feces, and the trampling opens up habitat for plant species that prefer some disturbance of the soil.

Prairie plants are adapted to these stresses by largely being herbaceous perennials with underground storage structures, having growing points slightly below ground level, and extensive, deep root systems. These underground growing points are left unharmed by browsing animals that are managed correctly (i.e. not kept in one place for too long).

There are many possible integrated income streams that I have envisioned coming from this that would augment my blueberry, vegetable and herb products, including cut prairie flower bouquets, (increased) honey production, pastured poultry, egg and raw milk production, selling native plant seeds, eco/agrotourism (a Farm Bed and Breakfast or Farm to Table events) and selling of carbon credits. Plus, I would much rather have a beautiful prairie with animals peacefully grazing than a lawn that needs to be mowed!

I will be sure to post updates as I get this project going but in the mean time, I'd encourage you to go out and experience the vibrant, living world of prairies as they are in their full glory at this time of year.  Here is a map of publically accessible prairies in Ohio. Below are a few photos of some of the prairies that I visited near Columbus.

It's that time of year again. You have been lovingly tending your garden for a month or so and everything is looking really great. Your roses are blossoming, your fruit trees are starting to plump up and ripen and your squash and pumpkins are taking over your garden they are growing so well. You dream of all the tasty vegetables and fruits that will soon be gracing your dinner plate and the lovely hand picked rose bouquets that will adorn your kitchen table. Then, seemingly overnight, you notice some unwelcome guests have arrived en masse and your dreams have become living nightmares!

This is the scene that played out at my parents' house just a few days ago. We had finished eating our Fourth of July lunch of pasture-raised  chicken roasted with herbs and butter, my Mom's homemade gnocchi with tomato sauce that my Mom, sister and I had canned together from my garden's Roma tomatoes last summer, a mixed lettuce and herb salad from my garden, blueberries lovingly picked from my field earlier in the morning and a few glasses of my Dad's homemade wine. Yes, it was delicious! After we had cleaned up the table and washed the dishes, I told my Mom I wanted to check out her garden and fruit trees. She followed me outside, eager to point out how well the pears and grapes were doing this year. Then, as we approached the fruit trees, she moaned, "Oh no, Japanese beetles!" Yep, there they were munching away on the leaves, mating, and generally having a good ole time. My Mom was not happy as this was a bad rerun of the show that had been playing out for the last few years since she had planted her young fruit trees and she knew what would happen. In a matter of days, the beetles would quickly devour and skeletonize the plants' foliage, thereby cutting off their ability to photosynthesize and feed the growing, ripening fruits. Then, just to be sure, the beetles would also feed on any fruits that were ripening on the trees.

"Should I go out and buy those Japanese beetle traps?" she asked me. "No", I said emphatically, "they will just attract more beetles!" My Mom had tried the ubiquitous bright yellow pheromone beetle traps for many years and finally had to admit that they would not work. It's true, studies have shown that those traps just attract more beetles, many whom alight on plants in the vicinity, and end up causing more damage than may have occurred if the trap were not present.  I explained to her (again) that Japanese beetles only eat plants that are not fit for humans to eat. These "pests" are actually being loving to us by not allowing us to eat foods that are not good for us because they are lacking in essential nutrients and health promoting microbes. Today, she seemed to be more receptive to my "spirituality" and "importance of microbes" sermons than she had been in the past. Or maybe she just had tried everything else and was ready to give up. Our solution in that moment was to get a bucket of soapy water and start to gently bend over the branches to shake them and have the beetles fall into the soapy water and drown, but I told her that I would bring her some of my homemade herbal mist that I use on my plants to increase their health and vigor and also some of my cultured indigenous microorganisms (IMO) to work into the soil at the base of the trees to add beneficial microbes to the soil, which would provide both a short-term (herbal mist) and longer-term (beneficial microbes) solution to the problem.

As we continued our walk, we came upon her raised bed garden, which contained tomatoes, beans, herbs like chamomile, mint, and garlic and a huge pumpkin plant that was clearly very vigorous and healthy! It was interesting to note that we did not see one Japanese beetle in the whole garden (and Japanese beetles are known to take a liking to tomatoes, bean and pumpkins!) As I voiced this observation  to her, I asked her to consider what is different from the soil in her garden versus the lawn of mono-crop Kentucky bluegrass where her fruit trees are planted. Then, I literally saw a light bulb go off in her head. She finally got it!

The fact was that even though her bountiful and biologically diverse garden was a mere ten feet from a fruit tree infested with beetles, the soil ecology couldn't have been more different. Why? Well, a couple of my Mom's intuitive gardening practices have ensured that her garden soil is full of life and natural "pest" deterrents. Firstly, she has medicinal herbs (garlic, chamomile, mint) and companion plants (marigolds) inter planted with the other crops that naturally emit healing substances into the surrounding soil that invigorate and protect the other crops.  This is the same benefit that the herbal mist would provide, except it is more efficient since you don't have to spray it every 5-7 days! Just plant the herbs once and let nature do the work!  And secondly, she has developed a microbial rich soil because she regularly digs holes in her garden and buries all of her kitchen food wastes in these holes, which helps to colonize the soil with new microbes, feeds the ones she already has, and attracts tons of earthworms, which produce castings that are naturally super rich in nutrients. I have to admit that is ingenious! I love the idea of burying the food wastes right where you need the nutrients instead of making a separate, above ground compost pile that then needs to be managed and turned and then applied to your garden when it is done. Instead, just bury it and forget it! Finally, she also pours all of her cooking water from making pasta or cooking fresh greens into her garden, which is also choc full of good nutrients.

Right then, Mom decided she would start to dig holes around her Japanese beetle infested fruit trees and bury her kitchen food scraps, pour used cooking water around the trunks and even plant some medicinal herbs around the base of the trees just like she had been doing in her garden all these years. In fact, she took some of the soil from her garden and mixed it in with the kitchen food scraps that we had accumulated from the lunch that we had just prepared and eaten and started digging a few holes around the fruit trees and burying the scraps right then and there!

My Mom didn't realize that although she had already been practicing some of the most important philosophies of Natural Farming in her garden, there was a disconnect when it came to how she took care of her fruit trees. This disconnect was the cause of much suffering. Now she gets that the process is the same: Observe nature. Work with nature. Zero waste. Everything gets recycled and reused. Let nature do the work for you. Do less. Enjoy more. And most importantly, diverse microbes and soil life = healthy, vigorous plants impervious to pests and disease.

The same principles apply to our physical bodies and our lives. Healthy and diverse microbial communities in our bodies are essential for wellness and freedom from disease. Likewise, when there is something in our life that is not going the way we would have wanted, it is time to look closely and observe where there is a possible disconnect in our actions and what we intuitively know is healthy for us. What are we missing? Remember to always look for the lesson in the "pest", guiding you to love.

When was a time that you had an ah-ha moment, such as this? Please share your thoughts in the comments.