保护农田和粮食的未来

健康的土壤, 比如干净的空气和水, is one of the fundamental support systems that sustain our lives and our communities. When we damage or neglect our soil, we threaten our future food supply.

So we should be concerned about the fact that the dominant US agricultural system is built on practices that wear out farmland, substituting chemical fertilizers and pesticides for the rich biodiversity and complex structure of healthy, 生存的土壤, and damaging 下游的社区 and fisheries with water pollution.

This approach to farming is a dead end in the long run—and thanks to climate change, 长远的前景来得太快了. 我们今天需要建设健康的土壤, so that we—and our children and grandchildren—can eat healthy food tomorrow.

幸运的是，我们知道如何做到这一点. Farmers can use science-based innovations—such as rotating multiple crops instead of just one or two, 种植覆盖作物而不是让土壤裸露, and integrating plants and animals like natural ecosystems do—to bring their soils back to life and make their farms more sustainable and resilient. There's plenty of evidence that farms using these practices can be productive and profitable. But implementing them can be a challenge—and current farm policy too often adds to the challenges.

Smarter public policies that provide incentives and support for healthy-soil practices can help move us in the right direction. But powerful interests with a big stake in the status quo are keeping us stuck at the starting line. We're working to accelerate food system reform—and you can help.

1. 提倡 at both the state and federal levels for policies and incentives that provide farmers with the tools they need to build healthy, 生存的土壤,
2. 合作 与农民组织合作, 企业, 下游的社区, and other stakeholders to build broad-based support for these policies,
3. 动员 consumers to tell their favorite food companies they want food grown in ways that build heathy soil and thriving farms for the long term.