b'Growing Soil for a Regenerative FutureRegenerative Ag might be the new trending phrase, but the meaning goes back to the beginning of agriculture.Laura HandkeITS HARD TO OPENan agricultural publication these days without reading the words regenerative agriculture. The words are new, but the practices are as old as agrarian civilization. The concept is easywork with nature rather than against it. The management practices, on the other hand, can be as diverse as the farms that implement them. The premise of the movement values soil health above all other components of the production agriculture equation, allow-ing that soil health is the foundation for every possible through-put and output. During her career as a Research Soil Microbiologist for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Kris Nichols spent more than 14 years working directly with farmers in central North Dakota. North Dakota was one of the first places that regenerative agriculture started. One of the main reasons it started in that area is because of the extremely stressful environment, which also made for stressful financial margins, Nichols says. Many of the farmers Nichols worked with practiced crop fallow, a practice that saw a cash crop planted on year one and the field lie barren on year two. The fallow is implemented through chemicals, with the thought being that a fallow year would store moisture and nutrients for the next years cash crop. Essentially, farms had to make enough money in one year to sustain for two.As Nichols work in the area grew, she began to work with farmers to implement new cropping strategies where the soil was never without a managed cover. The science-based trial and error was the foundation for what would become known as regenerative agriculture in the United States, and helped those who ascribed to the practices view agriculture through adifferent lens.64/ SEEDWORLD.COMJANUARY 2022'