Farming Releases Carbon From The Earth's Soil Into The Air. Can We Put It Back?

Short Wave

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🗓️ 18 August 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Traditional farming depletes the soil and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But decades ago, a scientist named Rattan Lal helped start a movement based on the idea that carbon could be put back into the soil — a practice known today as "regenerative agriculture."

NPR food and agriculture correspondent Dan Charles explains how it works and why the idea is having a moment.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.6	Hey everybody, Emily Quang here with NPR Food and Agriculture Correspondent Dan Charles.
0:11.4	Hello Dan.
0:12.4	Hi Emily.
0:13.4	Where are we starting today's episode?
0:15.4	Let's start about 50 years ago in Nigeria.
0:18.9	There's a young scientist fresh out of graduate school.
0:21.4	He's just joined an organization, a new one called the International Institute of Tropical
0:26.3	Agriculture.
0:27.3	Okay.
0:28.3	In Nigeria, it's close to the equator, very tropical climate.
0:31.8	His name is Ratan Lau.
0:33.9	I met him recently at Ohio State University.
0:36.3	That's where he now works.
0:38.0	And he was telling me this story about his experience in Nigeria where he got an assignment
0:44.7	that in hindsight seemed so ambitious as flat out ridiculous.
0:48.5	I was 25 years old in charge of a lab and given the mandate of improving quality and
0:56.2	quality of food production in the tropics.
0:59.9	Yeah, that is a big mandate for a 25-year-old.
1:03.1	Hello, please find a way to make more food and better food for the equatorial region of
1:07.0	the earth.
1:08.0	Yeah, just make the world better.
	...

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