There’s a saying that “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Usually we think of that in a bad way, as if we didn’t learn the lessons of the past so now we’re repeating the same mistakes. But it can also be about forgetting the discoveries of the past, only to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
With that in mind, I offer you this video. It’s the story of a young scientist, Hugh Hammond Bennett, who recognized 80 years ago that the United States was at risk of losing it’s most important resource – its soil. He made it his mission to change the trajectory of agriculture at a time of great crisis and to provide farmers and ranchers with the information and tools they needed to be sustainable.
This 21 minute video is the story of the conservation movement that Hugh Hammond Bennett began and includes interesting insights into the policies and structures that he set up that we continue to rely on today. His work revealed so much of what we’re rediscovering and renaming as “regenerative agriculture.”
It’s rare for one man to have such a huge impact, and to yet be forgotten. I hope you’ll enjoy this video and that it gives you new ideas about where to look for helpful information.
