Down and Dirty: How Regenerative Farming Is Digging Into Microscopic Soil Life

Nick Padwick hunches over a microscope, examining a sample of compost he has made on his Norfolk farm. “Look at that bad boy! That’s a bacteria-feeding nematode!” he exclaims. “Stunning fungal hyphae.”

Padwick, the farm manager at Wild Ken Hill since 2018, is part of a growing movement of farmers taking a deep interest in the microscopic life forms upon which their livelihoods depend. Under this approach to regenerative farming, nurturing diverse soil communities – from bacteria and fungi to microscopic animals and worms – is seen as an essential prerequisite for growing healthy foods with minimal or no use of agrochemicals or soil-damaging machinery.

For Padwick, 59, this marks a dramatic shift after nearly four decades in conventional agriculture, the very systems that experts now blame for devastating soils worldwide. “I really have been a part of it,” he admits. “I cringe every time I think of it.”