Chemical-based agriculture is new. It started in 1945 when the chemical companies, that had been making money from the war, needed a new revenue stream. Nitrogen-based bomb materials became fertilizer and chemical warfare agents became “pesticides and herbicides.” All previous generations only had access to organic food because there was no such thing as “non-organic” before 1945.
The Problem:
- There are only 60 years left of harvests if we don’t change our farming.
- Monocropping creates erosion by killing the soil.
- Synthetic fertilizers create algae blooms and dead zones.
- Pesticides residues remain in soil and on food.
- Chemical exposures disproportionately affect people of color.
The Solution:
“Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.
Farmer’s Footprint is a coalition of farmers, educators, doctors, scientists, and business leaders aiming to expose the human and environmental impacts of chemical farming and offer a path forward through regenerative agricultural practices.
We live in the high desert of New Mexico. How can you create a regenerative agriculture farm in the desert?
Check out Regeneration International’s Billion Agave Project:
- The Billion Agave Project is a game-changing ecosystem-regeneration strategy recently adopted by several innovative Mexican farms in the high-desert region of Guanajuato.
- This strategy combines the growing of agave plants and nitrogen-fixing companion treespecies (such as mesquite), with holistic rotational grazing of livestock. The result is a high-biomass, high forage-yielding system that works well even on degraded, semi-arid lands.

At Crooked Forest Institute, we intend to:
- Increase biodiversity in the soil,
- grow high nutrient density crops
- enough to share
- that improve human and animal health
- sequester carbon
- and practice water and land management
- guided by indigenous wisdom of
- the original people on this land.



Inspo
- Regeneration International
- Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture
- Rodale Institute
- Farmer’s Footprint
- Southwest Victory Gardens and his resource page!
- Biodynamics
- Joel Salatin– The Lunatic Farmer
- Movie– Kiss the Ground
- Movie– The Need to Grow
- Community Food Resilience
- Movie — Living the Change
- Movie — The Biggest Little Farm