Regenerative Agriculture and The Rewilding Stick

Regenerative agriculture is a growing movement in agriculture as the need to improve or maintain the quality of topsoil has come to the fore. Soil health has a vital impact on not only improving the quality and quantity of the food produced, but also healthy soil makes the plants more resilient against extreme weather and pests. Taking care of the soil can reduce the level of inputs required for a given amount of quality produce.

As part of this regenerative agriculture or Regenerative farming approach, some farms adopt a “no-till” or “reduced till” approach to soil management with the idea being to reduce the amount of disruption to the soil. There is evidence that reduced tilling provides many benefits such as reduced soil erosion, Improved soil structure, helps build soil organic matter and so on. Also it reduces the cost of labor, fuel and equipment that would otherwise go into the tilling process.

An innovative method of planting which can fit very well with the “no-till” or “reduced till” approach of regenerative agriculture is to use what is called a “Rewilding Stick”. A Rewilding Stick is not so likely to be useful for planting large areas on a farm, however, it can be very handy on a smaller jobs. A Rewilding Wand lets you plant around 500 seeds per hour directly into rough ground, while walking upright at a normal pace. There is no need to bend over while planting with a Rewilding Stick, so less chance of a sore back at the end of it.

The Rewilding Stick was originally developed with the idea of planting tree seeds, and also seeds of under-story plants, out in the wild to help with forest regeneration. However, as it is intended to offer minimal disruption to the ground it can be an ideal contender for some situations and can make be a useful addition to the range of techniques used within regenerative agriculture. The Rewilding Stick could be very useful for planting strips of trees around the edges of fields for shelter and so on.

Have a look at the links to the videos on this page for more information about the Rewilding Stick.

-William
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William Fergus Martin, Founder: The Global Rewilding Initiative.