Episode 95: Regenerative Agriculture

Did you know that half of the world’s agricultural land is degraded? According to the World Economic Forum, this leads to farm productivity losses and is a risk to food security in the future. They define Regenerative Agriculture as a focus on improving the health of the soil that has been degraded by the use of heavy machinery, fertilizers, and can restore agricultural land and pesticides used in intensive farming. When soil is healthy, it produces more food and nutrition, stores more carbon and increases biodiversity – the variety of species. Healthy soil supports water, land and air environments and ecosystems through natural processes including the fertilization of plants.

Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, located in Tarrytown (Westchester County), NY is a nonprofit farm, education and research center with a mission to catalyze an ecological food culture in the Northeast. Since 2004, they have been working to innovate ecological farming practices and mindful food choices that benefit human health, strengthen communities, and protect the environment. Their Hudson Valley campus, shared with restaurant partner Blue Hill at Stone Barns, is a living laboratory for interdisciplinary research experiments where farmers, chefs, diners, educators, and artisans come together to push the boundaries of sustainable farming and eating.

Laura Perkins is horticulturalist at Stone Barns Center where she tends the formal gardens and develops and maintains the surrounding landscape while supplying Blue Hill with foraged edible foods, giving visitors opportunities for sensory immersion in the landscape, and enhancing wildlife habitat and the ecological resilience of the land. She joins the podcast, Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley, with fascinating insights into the work performed at the Stone Barns Center and how it is helping farmers and residents better understand successful ways to regenerate soils and farming practices.

Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas

Guest: Laura Perkins

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Production Support: Linda Aydlett, Teresa Golden and Annie Scibienski