Webs of Connection: Rebuilding soil, talking with bees and the magic of fungi with Navona Gallegos

Regenerative Farming - or Agro-ecology - is being widely recognised as one of the best ways to mitigate the climate crisis. But how does it actually work? What can we do with our back gardens, our rooftops, our local verges to make a difference?  Navona Gallegos explains the science - and the spirit - of working with the land.

We first spoke with Navona Gallegos  in podcast #55 (here) when she had newly moved onto the land she was starting to farm in New Mexico. In this podcast, she returns to talk about how her work is progressing there - and to talk more deeply about the actual mechanisms we can use to draw carbon down into our soils.  

She says this: "Where I am called is to bring more focus on the fungi, as that really is the 'how' of soil regeneration, be it agricultural, forest, greening deserts, whatever, and I don't hear people talking about that enough. We know fungi and their glomalin are what sequester carbon (mitigate climate change, reverse ocean acidification, etc.) and cycle macro and micro nutrients thereby increasing abundance and nutrient content in foods thereby increasing the capacities of those who eat those foods. Last time I spoke about fungi in relation to the soil food web, but I'd like to really make clear how and why fungi are the keystone to soil health and therefore human health, land health, etc. and how we support them and get out of their way. Fungi are the neural network of the Earth, communicating the state of the environment to plants and giving them the tools to respond. By facilitating plant growth, fungi are also changing climate patterns; there are many examples of how revegetating an arid area brings more rainfall. And so, I have a vision I'd like to speak on (that is SO possible) of vast stretches of land, even whole continents, once again connected in mycelial webs. I think that is a goal we should set for our species for the next seven generations because if we have that, we have connected ecosystems and watersheds that are clean, abundant, biodiverse, adaptable, and full of so much food, fiber, and fuel for humans and more than humans. Just like disease is broadly described as a breakdown of communication within the body, the destruction of those mycelial networks through tillage and other harmful practices marked the start of the wetiko culture. 

The 'how' is simple: plant a wide diversity of plants, mostly annuals; bring more wood into systems via mulch and hugel culture and leaving woody debris (and I can go into how that lignin is decomposed by fungi into humic substances, which are the storehouses of the soil for carbon and other nutrients and even DNA information of other types of life forms that is stable for thousands of years as well as cleans contaminated soil by binding contaminants, AND how fungi are the gatekeepers to those stores and information, choosing when to draw on them); use fungal​ composts (not bacterial dominated); stop​ disturbing the soil (there are ample resources now for no-till and I can elaborate); rotational grazing with animals to increase plants vigor and diversity; do not pull weeds, rather create a more fungal soil and watch the 'weeds' back off on their own (ie, create what we want rather than resist what we don't want). 

As far as the 'how' socially/politically, it's all about changing our thinking and viewing the world as alive. Rather than paving over an empty lot or growing mono-crop grass lawns, let's create ordinances that promote more ground cover and diversity. This advocacy doesn't just have to be about making more human food. We need rooftop gardens everywhere possible to mitigate the heat island effect and create positive feedback loops of rainfall and temp. that allow more growth. Mulch your leaves instead of bagging and throwing them away. Everyone can find a way to promote this either in stopping destructive gardening and growing practices or by advocating for community growing spaces or by guerilla hugeling, planting, seed-saving, foraging, and buying locally. Long-lived indigenous cultures all have practices that support fungal networks. One of the main issues I see when I consult on soil building is a psychological clinging to control when the system really needs to just be left alone and supported in simple ways. The more we rewild our minds and our communities, the more we will get away from the perceived need to micro-manage, the more we can hear the voices of the land so our actions are efficient and effective, AND simultaneously build the equivalent of human mycelial networks where we can trade tools and information in an open-source way. 

"I don't have a lot of concrete ideas myself around how to build political will. Rather, where I'm at is simply the acknowledgement that we need to change our thinking fundamentally and let go of scarcity/wetiko culture by reconnecting. Fungi are literally the (re)connectors of terrestrial life. My personal path toward reconnection is by changing how we grow food in our gardens and farms so that fungi thrive and imbue us with better nutrition as well as inoculate our guts us with, well, themselves and their voices (heard through our microbiome, cravings, hormonal regulation, etc.). Personally, the more I do this, the more I am connected to my (new-to-me) land through dreams of when it will rain, when a certain plant will drop seeds, etc. Or I am visited by a honey bee who spends twenty minutes walking on my hand and I am left with the knowledge that they are there, that they need me to plant flowers to them to pollinate. The more time I spend inoculating myself with the flora around me (eating the wild plants, grasses, bark), the more I am able to safely drink the water on this land without filtration, which I couldn't do when I arrived in Dec. When I do actions like mulching, I am walking the talk of my earth-based spirituality and the land spirits take notice and support."