Conscious stewardship of our most precious resource

Water is one of the most valuable natural resources on the planet, and is one of the main ingredients for life on Earth as we know it. About 71% of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5% of all our planet’s water. There’s no question that human beings, and the plant and animal species we share our planet with, need water to survive.

Despite its abundance on Earth’s surface, most of the water on Earth is inaccessible or is not potable. It is critical that we act to conserve and protect our available freshwater resources wherever possible. The World Wildlife Fund says it best - “of all the water on Earth, just 2.5% is fresh water, and most of that is locked up in ice or deep underground. Rivers and lakes hold only a tiny fraction – but it’s this that so much life on Earth depends on.” Of all the water available on Earth, freshwater is the only type suitable for farming and drinking water needs. It is also relied upon for industrial purposes. We need to conserve freshwater resources like our lives depend on it - because they do. Regenerative agriculture is the key to unlocking a sustainable future due to its benefits for soil health and the effects of this beneficial relationship on the environment and human health.

According to UNESCO, worldwide, agriculture accounts for roughly 70% of freshwater withdrawals. How can we limit the use of water in agriculture while maximizing commodity outputs? How can we reduce the impacts of harmful side effects like runoff? How can we support producers implementing practices that preserve water quality? Regenerative agriculture could be the answer to all of these questions. Let’s explore the relationship between regenerative agriculture and water, and how the former can benefit the quality and conservation of the latter.

Water is used in a variety of ways across agricultural operations. From irrigating to washing and cooling produce, water is a vital component in the food production system. It is important to be mindful of how water is used (in agriculture and beyond) to sustain its quality and availability. This blog is the second installment of a two-part series focusing on regenerative agriculture and water use. The theme of this blog is water conservation, and its predecessor is all about regenerative agriculture and water quality.

Before we explore the relationship between regenerative agriculture and soil health for water conservation, let’s explore where our freshwater resources come from.

Surface water includes any freshwater that is sent into wetlands, stream systems, and lakes
Groundwater exists in subterranean aquifers. Most groundwater comes from snowmelt and rainfall that gets into the bedrock via the surrounding soil.

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE & SOIL HEALTH

The principles of regenerative agriculture place an emphasis on mimicking natural processes to maximize environmental benefits (check out our blog about Regenerative Ag x Soil Health). The 5 Principles of Regenerative Agriculture include:

Minimize soil disturbance, both physical and chemical, to preserve the health and integrity of the organisms living in the soil
Keep the soil covered with living plants or a mulch of crop residue to minimize the impacts of precipitation and erosion
Maintain living roots in the soil to keep the underground ecosystem alive and well
Maximize plant diversity to improve the variety of soil creatures that can be supported
Reintegrate livestock to support the regeneration of soil while diversifying farm income as well

By placing an emphasis on soil health, regenerative agriculture can improve infiltration and soil’s water-holding capacity, essentially acting as a reservoir holding water for plant growth. This means regenerative agriculture can reduce the need for irrigation, effectively conserving the natural resource. According to UNL’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, “leaving higher levels of crop residue and doing less tillage can increase the soil water balance by increasing the amount of water that infiltrates the soil from irrigation or precipitation, and decreasing the amount of water that runs off the soil surface.”

WATER STORAGE CAPACITY & IRRIGATION

Irrigation is the process of applying water to a crop to fulfill its water requirements. Additionally, nutrients can be provided to crops through irrigation. Rather than relying on rainwater alone, water may be applied through various irrigation techniques. Irrigation can accelerate seed germination, promote crop growth, increase yields, and provide production assurance in areas with irregular or insufficient precipitation.

In 2015, irrigation accounted for 42% of America’s total freshwater withdrawals.

According to the 2018 Irrigation and Water Management Survey, more than half of all water applied as irrigation came from surface water with the remaining water obtained from groundwater sources.

According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, farms with some form of irrigation accounted for more than 54% of the total value of U.S. crop sales.

Healthy soil acts like a sponge, absorbing and retaining water with increased filtration. Unhealthy soil becomes compacted, creating surface runoff that causes a number of water quality issues. According to the NRDC, “a 1% increase in soil organic matter (an indicator of soil health) increases water storage potential on an acre by more than 20,000 gallons.” To put it simply, healthy soil is able to retain more water and is able to more efficiently deliver necessary nutrients to plants. More water retained means less water running off the surface of the soil and into local waterways. Less water running off into waterways means fewer agricultural contaminants entering the water cycle. As we learned in our Water Quality blog, agricultural contaminants are defined as nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and pesticides, including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.

NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR ECOSYSTEM RESILIENCE

We know that regenerative agriculture fortifies the soil, and that healthier soil has a more efficient water holding capacity, which equips the soil to better deliver water and important nutrients to plants and effectively reduces runoff. This also means that healthier soil makes an ecosystem more resilient to some extreme weather events, like flooding. On the other side of the same coin, healthier soil can help an ecosystem be more resilient to drought as well - by storing water in the soil, plants can rely less on natural or man-made irrigation. Some additional ecosystem benefits of healthy soil include:

Carbon sequestration - As plants photosynthesize, they pull CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their biomass. When the plant dies, its roots decompose and store the atmospheric carbon they absorbed as soil organic matter.

Soil is the second largest carbon sink after the ocean, capturing more CO2 than forests and holding three times more carbon than the Earth’s atmosphere.

Benefits to biodiversity - Healthy soil is teeming with life. Soil biodiversity is a powerful bioremediation tool, especially on agricultural land. It can also naturally reduce pests like harmful insects, weeds, etc. Read more in our Biodiversity Benefits blog.

PRODUCERS AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

According to the USDA ERS, agricultural land accounts for approximately 53% of land use in the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii). This includes cropping, grazing (on pasture, range, and in forests), and farmsteads/farm roads. Farmers and ranchers shoulder the monumental responsibility of providing food and fuel for the masses, and are positioned to be environmental stewards due to the sheer amount of land and natural resources devoted to agriculture. However, they should not have to bear these responsibilities alone. RIPE exists to empower farmers and ranchers to implement voluntary conservation practices. We work to reduce or remove barriers that producers may face in implementing regenerative practices, and to support producer livelihood. We want to see producers and rural communities thrive while championing human and environmental benefits created by regenerative agriculture.

Regenerative agriculture can create benefits for water quality (see Part 1) and water conservation alike, and some practices can reduce water needs and reduce runoff. There are many reasons why regenerative agriculture should become the norm on American farmland, including its benefits for the environment (check out our Research), human health (check out our Nutrition White Paper), and for producer livelihood. RIPE is working to reduce or remove barriers to regenerative practice adoption for producers nationwide by leveraging public policy and private markets. Learn more about Our Approach and how you can help us help producers as we scale regenerative agriculture The RIPE Way.

If you are a producer, you can also amplify your impact by becoming a FAN of RIPE - contact us to get started.