Conservation agriculture puts carbon back into the soil, not the air

To The Daily Sun,

On August 21, I posted comments about "Growing a Revolution," by David R. Montgomery* (see below). The following Saturday, a farming friend told me that 90 percent of no-till farmers in an area she knew about used Roundup.

No-till is part of a three-part system called "conservation agriculture." Without cover crops and crop rotation, herbicide is necessary. Using all three components pretty much takes care of weeds. It takes time to do it right. This is discussed in several places in the book.

This method puts carbon back into the soil, so that it doesn't go into the air and combine with oxygen to make CO2. Montgomery shows that farming this way helps control climate change — it's a very good read.

The next meeting of the Lakes Region chapter of the Citizens' Climate Lobby will be at the Meredith Community Center, 1 Circle Drive, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 18.

(*No-till agriculture is one part of a three-part strategy for farming. This is the subject of the book, "Growing a Revolution" (2017), by David R. Montgomery. All three parts are critical.)

Dick Devens

Center Sandwich