Chance Cutrano is Resource Recycling Institute A researcher from Fairfax, California, he and his team are experimenting with combining two activities, rice and fish farming, to reduce emissions from rice paddies while boosting farm incomes, an ancient technique. Fishing Programis an initiative to reduce carbon-equivalent emissions from rice cultivation by up to 66% and increase biodiversity. Fish in the Fields was recently awarded a 2023 JMK Innovation Award by the JM Kaplan Institute.
Nature has an amazing trick: it makes use of everything. Wherever there is an untapped source of energy, nature fosters the differentiation of species, evolving organisms large and small that can consume that energy. Human industry has done the opposite: instead of finding ways to use the waste products left over, it has just thrown it all away. The result is a society that cannot live within the Earth’s ability to provide enough resources each year. Agriculture is an excellent testing ground for integrating previously disconnected industries. For example, last year we spoke with Bryce Lundberg of Lundberg Family Farm, who grows rice using a regenerative approach that supports migratory birds during the winter when the fields are flooded.
Agriculture, by breaking away from an industrial mindset, has the potential to be intimately connected to nature, a natural incubator for complex systems that contribute to the restoration of biodiversity while minimizing or reducing waste. Agriculture could be the place where companies learn regenerative practices. The transition to a greener, less carbon-intensive, less resource-intensive economy will break down the arbitrary silos in which many companies, communities and countries currently operate, and begin to create circular flows of resources and energy with efficiencies undreamed of in the confines of a “take, make, waste” worldview.
For more information about the Resource Recovery Institute, https://www.rri.org/fish-in-the-fields
