10. Ivy McDermott CBF Regenerative Agriculture (outside reading)


I recently did a presentation on riparian buffers and regenerative agriculture practices in place of sustainable farming. Sustainable farming aims to attain a net balance of zero in farming and polluting the soil. Meanwhile, regenerative agriculture aims to find ways to improve the quality of the soil and life in a variety of ways. Chesapeake Bay Foundation is the organization I ended up researching. They do many things, including educating the community and employing a good amount of people across several states and a huge watershed. One of the main sources of water pollution stems from agricultural runoff. Here and in many coastal areas around the world we are dealing with harsher weather patterns associated with global warming and seeing an increase in erosion and flooding, coupled with intensive and damaging amounts of agriculture, can cause detrimental effects to soil and thus water quality and ecological health all around— not just in the immediate vicinity. I learned that water is very important and we need to find ways to protect it, but this can be hard when constituents surrounding the entire catchment area can influence the water quality flowing downstream and evidently into the ocean.

Small bodies of freshwater are also important and wetlands play a huge role in cleaning up and absorbing pollutants. Small ponds and lakes have vital roles as they capture water in the water cycle but generally enable the area to stay wet. Virginia currently has funds available for landowners with degraded land (for example at risk of flooding or erosion) to work with CBF to employ these best management practices or BMPs. For example, rain gardens, riparian buffers (strips of vegetation bordering streams), cover crops, silvopasture, and living shorelines are all BMPs that can be partially funded by the state to help invest in improving our water quality, biodiversity, ecology, and thus, way of life. You can have your property assessed to see if you qualify or what practice would best suit the area you have available.

Regenerative agriculture. Chesapeake Bay Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.cbf.org/issues/agriculture/regenerative-agriculture.html


Regenerative Agriculture's top eight conservation practices. Chesapeake Bay Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.cbf.org/issues/agriculture/eight-key-conservation-practices-used-in-regenerative-agriculture.html

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