Organic Farming DOES Increase Carbon Sequestration!

Confession: We sell organic ingredients into the cosmetic industry because I “believe” that organic farming is better for the planet. As I often say about science, it is not a belief system, it is the pursuit of provable truth.

I am happy to report that U.C. Davis (yeah! My alma mater!) has recently published a nineteen (19) year study that proves my belief. Yeah facts!

In brief, their survey of certified organic versus other farming methods:

For their 19-year study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists dug roughly 6 feet down to compare soil carbon changes in conventional, cover-cropped and compost-added plots of corn-tomato and wheat-fallow cropping systems.

They found that:

• Conventional soils neither release nor store much carbon.
• Cover cropping conventional soils, while increasing carbon in the surface 12 inches, can lose significant amounts of carbon below that depth.
• When both compost and cover crops were added in the organic-certified system, soil carbon content increased 12.6 percent over the length of the study or about 0.7 percent annually.
  • That’s more than the international “4 per 1000” initiative, which calls for an increase of 0.4 percent of soil carbon per year.
  • Also, far more carbon stored than would be calculated if only the surface layer was measured.

I’m not going to go much further than that but…I have always struggled to explain why organic farming is important in skincare. This does it. It took nineteen years – so good, solid, long term science. (Of course, now we need replication).

Regardless – this is enough for me to say, organic farming is better for the planet than other methods. Therefore – we need to support organic farmers whenever possible!

This makes the connection: better soil, better planet, better skin. OXOX #vote #hugs