Page 45 - Grapevine July-Aug 2020

Around The Vineyard

Carbon Farming for Successful

Vineyard Systems By: Becky Garrison
A Portland, Oregon from February 11-12, Nation’s 2015 State of the Soil Assessment, which
t the Oregon Wine Symposium held in
presented a global review of the world’s soils.
2020, Dr. David Montgomery, MacArthur
Fellow and University of Washington professor According to this assessment, each year, the world
loses 0.3% of net agricultural production capaci-ty
of geomorphology, presented his work research- to ongoing soil loss and separation.
ing and writing about farming methods that use
less fossil fuel, fertilizer and pesticides than tradi- “If we play this out for the next hundred years, we
tional farming. In his books, “Dirt: The Erosion of are slated to lose about a third of our agricultural
Civilizations” and “Growing a Revolution: Bringing production capacity at a global scale. Our popula-
Our Soil Back to Life,” Dr. Montgomery digs into tion is slated to rise by about a third,” Montgomery
the history of traditional farming methods and how said. Furthermore, about a third of the world’s
these practices negatively impact the health of cropland has been degraded to the point where it’s
vineyard workers, the vigor of the soil and profit- no longer in production.
ability.
The History of Soil Erosion
Dr. Montgomery advocates that, if we want to
feed people in the next century, we need to change While working on several continents, Dr.
agriculture in this century. He cited the United Montgomery noticed the connection between
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