I am drawing a long bow to make a connection between the following story and Tasmania; simply the link to this extraordinary well researched information was given to me by a Tasmanian resident and I am a Tasmanian resident also; plus the content of the film and the flow on resources will impact what I do at my Tasmanian home and when I return as a volunteer at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens.

This blog post was motivated by a free film which is being screened online: The Need to Grow

This film is about clever people finding and showing solutions to some of the soil and food problems on this planet. Memorable comments included:

• We have an estimated 60 years of farmable soil left on the planet; soil that is suitable for mass food growing.
• Earth has lost a third of its farmable soil in the last 40 years.
• You cannot feed the world from dead soil.
• We have to think about feeding the soil not feeding the plant.
• Waste is not an option and that has to be a mantra that we all develop.
• Seed security means food security; less diversity is the way towards starvation;  diversity of seeds provides for more diverse nutrition.

The film explains why tilling-style farming causes death to the soil and it advocates a regenerative agriculture. In particular it focuses on the contributions of three main people (Michael Smith’s bio-dome, Erik Cutter’s farms and Alicia Serratos’s program to change Girl Guides biscuits and establish seed banks in schools) although a host of others are interviewed and offer valuable information and insights as well.

We are shown the mechanics of the innovative Green Power House (GPH) and learn it is a closed system that produces living soil perfect for happy plants, all powered solely by sunlight and waste after diverting the waste from landfill. The end result is the attraction of essential plant microbes within a fine micro-structure. Overall the system creates biochar and uses this to accelerate the regeneration of the soil by employing the power of algae (higher in energy per pound than coal!!!).

This film offers real world solutions that are achievable, they work and they can be implemented straight away.  Regrettably the competitors are the big businesses that currently persuade the world to spend 170 billion dollars annually on ‘improvements’ to the soil which are , in fact, actually leading to the death of our soils. Regardless of your position on this topic, this film communicates important information about grand new technologies which simply involve using the natural processes of nature in a closed loop system.