One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture

The crux of Anderson’s argument is that people need to “embrace the idea that one size fits none” (xiii). Conventional agriculture sharply contrasts with this idea. With a conventional agricultural management strategy, there is the assumption that “one-size-fits-all” (xiii). For example, 80% of US corn is grown in rotation with soybeans, and the remaining 20% is grown in monoculture (i.e., corn on corn). Despite poor soil, farmers don’t (or won’t) think about other management strategies. Similarly, conventional farmers do not have livestock, when in fact the addition of livestock would promote soil health and profit. Ranchers are expected to send their cattle to CAFOs, use hormones and vaccines to increase weight and control disease, and feed them corn over grass. These methods produce unhealthy cows, which results in unhealthy meat. Farmers are also expected to use pesticides and insecticides to cure disease and pests, despite these synthetic chemicals having deleterious impacts on the ecosystem. Farm-size diversity is practically non-existent with 95% of food being produced by a small number of super-farms. This lack of diversity means that if anything were to happen to these super-farms, the US food production system would be destabilized. The conventional farming system is “blind to everything but profit” (24).