Part of the series “Quest for Drawdown”. For anyone who has walked around farming areas, you’ll be aware that ploughing is an integral part of agriculture as we know it — widespread throughout many countries. However, what you might not know is that it has a very big negative impact on biodiversity and global warming.
There are many different processes involved in modern-day conventional agriculture. Ploughing (which comes in many forms) is a process whereby the top layer of soil is overturned — like flipping a pancake [1]. Tilling is another process, similar to ploughing, whereby soil is cut and broken into smaller pieces; like pulling a comb through the soil [1]. What these two processes have in common is that they both break up and disturb the soil causing a lot of disruption and problems — let me explain…