BFA Newsletter - 6/1/22

Jun 2

What Your Food Ate: An Interview with Author Anne Biklé

On June 17th, the BFA will be hosting a webinar with authors Anne Biklé and David R. Montgomery about the upcoming publication of their book, "What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health". Recently, we had the opportunity to chat with Anne about what brought them to this research and why it's so important to understand the connection between soil health and human health. Enjoy!

Tell us a little bit about the journey to writing your upcoming book, “What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health” (out June 21st!).
We never planned on writing this book. Looking back, it seems like we should have actually started with this book, but that’s not the path we ended up taking. Our 2015 book, The Hidden Half of Nature, came about after we moved to a new home and were trying to garden in really bad soil. We experimented with different processes, trying to turn the soil around, and after less than a decade of tweaking, really it was only several years, we saw the organic matter increasing, and our plants started thriving. The more I evolved as a gardener, I realized that it wasn’t as much about me, or the plant, but that the health of the whole ecosystem started deep down in the microbiome of the soil. That was the start of the journey for us on soil health.

For the 2017 book, “Growing a Revolution” we visited farmers in North America, Ghana and Costa Rica. They were obviously working with really different crops, in really different soils, and yet we were able to see that the practices they all used had a similar theme: a focus on the soil microbiome. Not surprisingly, none of the processes they used to increase microbiome health were new; cover-cropping, minimizing soil disturbance, not growing just one crop, etc.

Through all of this research, we learned about the mechanisms and processes that underpin how farmers grow plants and raise animals under conventional, regenerative, and other kinds of practices. The bread crumbs we’ve followed throughout this research have ultimately led us to wonder what all of this means for human health, and that’s the focus of the newest book, “What Your Food Ate". Everything in food, like the phytochemicals in crop plants and fat profile in farm animals, interacts in intimate and mechanistic ways with our cells and our tissues. And yet, how we farm is something we don’t really hear much about in most discussions about the factors that influence our health. The cultural emphasis has remained on calories, carbohydrates, fat, etc. And the agricultural side has largely been focused on yield, without as much thought about quality. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned with calories and yield; there’s just so much more to health than these things. We really should be orienting agriculture toward ensuring that nutrient levels are as high and as balanced as they can be in plants and animals, because that ultimately has an effect on human health.

We realized we needed a better way of marrying the functional details of what is known about the soil microbiome with knowledge from the agronomy world, and then meshing that with the understanding and evidence that comes from other areas of research. It turns out there’s actually a lot of evidence laying around in a wide assortment of journals about the effects of farming practices on human health. It just hasn't been systematically pieced together. How the crops take up nutrients, what a plant can do when it’s having a full, robust conversation with the soil microbiome - it all has a big impact on the nutritional quality of food. Ultimately, all of these different areas of research point to why farming practices influence our health. This book in particular is really heavily researched and documented, because we knew it was really important to make these connections. But it’s not just a long slog through science. We incorporate history, we tell the story of farmers and other scientists who are thinking about nutrient density. The science is there, but interspersed with other nuggets that, we hope, really weave it all together in a dynamic way for readers.

What drives you to do this work?
Once we started researching these topics, we realized how much we didn’t know that we didn’t know. Everything is so complex; the more we’ve looked, the more we see how everything is related. Each piece of information leads to more questions and insights, which is really exciting to us. I personally am also an incredibly curious person. I want to know everything about everything. I’m always asking questions: “What about that; what if; how does that work; how is that thing connected?” This keeps me pretty engaged with the work. Once I get my feet under me, and start to formulate ideas, I’m off and running.

What are some surprising or interesting findings you came upon in your research?
One surprising thing is how certain aspects of agricultural research have actually been deeply researched from the early to mid-20th century going forward. It's just that the findings are published in obscure journals hardly anyone reads. So, in some areas, the story is out there waiting to be discovered. For instance, it’s not like we don’t understand how things like nitrogen fertilizer affect plant growth and behavior. That is one of the most researched topics in agronomy. But it has only been more recently that we’re seeing research about what nitrogen does to the soil microbiome. If someone were to take the time to start reading up on both well-established and more recent research, translating it for the general public, there's a lot for the taking.

The research for this book also reminded us, again and again, just how much complexity exists in the natural world. We wanted a clear, straight line, but what we found was multiple directions, evidence, and observations from a lot of farmers and scientists, all lining up with each other, just not all in the same way. Nature and farming are neither neat and tidy, nor black and white. The whole world of life, and biology, isn’t just sitting in one place, static. Variability is the one true thing that’s out there. Without variability, there’s no evolution, no responding to climate change, or the vast differences in physical and biological environments that exist on the world's farms. There’s no resilience or adaptability. Variability is inherent to life, crucial to survival. Plants and animals are responding to their environments in different ways. It’s like a constantly moving dance, but we know that underneath it all is the soil.

Do you feel hopeful about the future of soil health, and the health of humanity as a whole?
We are hopeful. If we as a society can drop the labels and the groupthink on this or that farming system, and instead come together to focus on outcomes - healthy soil and food - I think that might garner farmers of all stripes to move in the direction of improving soil health. An overly prescriptive approach can put a damper on adapting or innovating the kinds of practices that we know build and maintain soil health. And ultimately, the farmers are the ones who are touching and working with the soil, so the real change is going to come from them.

Another piece of hope is that we can know we can breed crops and livestock for the conditions that give them the best chance at good health. We’ve been trying to breed for standardization, and that’s created nothing but buckets of problems for the health of the animals, and ultimately, us. One example is that we’ve taken grazing animals and bred them so that their metabolism and biology are no longer well-matched with a pasture lifestyle. The more we try to straitjacket biology, the more we get ourselves into trouble. But we have the option to breed these crops and animals in ways that build on their long-running biological abilities, and this in turn is a big factor influencing the nutrient density of the food we all eat.

Our BFA community is very active in participating in the health of our food supply. Can you think of any ways in which they can get involved in this topic?
It’s all about education and asking questions. Everyone has to eat. Once your eyes are opened to how variable the nutrient density of food is, and the growing and production processes that affect that variability, and in turn our health, that’s where it starts. And when you get a groundswell of people who are more educated about the topics of soil health and nutrient density, a movement grows. If consumers are educated, ask for, and buy food with higher nutrient density that's a good lever for motivating farmers and the food industry.

-------

"What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health will be out on June 21st, and is available now for preorder on Amazon and through your local bookseller. You can also learn more about David and Anne's work on their website.

Upcoming Events

Some good stuff coming up in the next month that you won't want to miss:

June 10: Carbon A List - Off The Climate Record
12-1:30 PM EST
Join Dan Kittredge to develop a greater spirit of inquiry around climate action. This event will take place on zoom and be an opportunity first to discuss nutrient density off the record, and then collectively record a podcast.
Click here to join via Zoom.

June 17: Webinar with authors David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé
1:00-2:30 PM EST
A discussion with David and Anne about their newest book, "What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health".
Click here to join via Zoom

Make sure to check the Events page on our website for a complete list of where Dan and the BFA will be in the coming months!

Join Us!

Our work depends on the support of people who are passionate about the health of our soil, food, community, and planet. People like YOU!

As a BFA member, you'll receive:

Discounts to innovative events, programming, workshops, and our annual Soil & Nutrition Conference

Periodic newsletters with regular updates about our lab testing progress.
Opportunity to lead a BFA Chapter
Invitations to join our new webinars series: Let’s Talk Bionutrient!
Option to purchase valuable tools. We offer our members access to toolkits at a discounted cost for testing, evaluating, and improving the quality of their crops, produce, and soil.

Visit our membership page or click the button below to learn more and sign up to become part of a community of citizen scientists, farmers, and businesses, all focused on increasing quality in the food supply. We look forward to having you on board!