Global warming has made “carbon” a dirty word. But the problem isn’t carbon. The problem is that the carbon cycle, which for thousands of years has been in balance, is now out of balance, according to soil scientist Dr. Christine Jones.
What disturbed the balance? To a large extent, human activity.
Fortunately, humans, with a lot of help from our farmers, can rebalance the carbon cycle by putting the carbon back where it belongs. In the soil.
I think the fundamental shift in thinking that we have to make is that farming is about harvesting light. Through the process of photosynthesis we’re going to change light energy into biochemical energy, and that biochemical energy becomes our plants, our animals, the carbon compounds that are made by that process. We are fundamentally light farmers and when we make that realization, the sky’s the limit.