David R. Montgomery

Anne Biklé and David are authors of the dirt trilogy—Dirt: The Erosion of CivilizationsThe Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health, and Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life.

book cover

Growing a Revolution: Excerpt

The promise of conservation agriculture to bring life back to the land and support biodiversity both above and belowground should appeal to environmentalists and farmers alike. For like it or not, a large part of nature will be what lives on farms, because we now use more than a third of the world’s ice-free land area for growing crops and raising animals.

June 22, 2022

no-till

Restoring Soil can Help Address Climate Change

I believe it’s time now for a global “soilshot” to heal the land. Rebuilding healthy fertile soil on the world’s agricultural lands would require fundamental changes to agriculture, and a new agricultural philosophy.

August 16, 2019

soil health

How to Turn Dirt Into Soil

Regenerating soil to change the piece of the planet where you live is possible at multiple scales. It might be a city yard like ours, rooftop garden, community garden, or working farm. Add up these efforts, and we can restore fertility to degraded soils, end hunger, and pull some carbon from the sky.

March 8, 2019