André Leu is the international director of Regeneration International and a leading advocate for regenerative agriculture worldwide.
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The agave-powered agroforestry and livestock management system is an example of how native desert plants, cultivated as part of an agroforestry system, can regenerate drylands and provide inexpensive animal feed, taking pressure off overgrazed rangelands.
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André Leu is the international director and a cofounder of Regeneration International, a global network of more than 540 partner organizations in 75 countries advancing regenerative agriculture, agroecology, agroforestry, permaculture, adaptive multi-paddock grazing, and other ecological farming systems. He holds a doctor of science in environmental and agricultural systems and serves as an adjunct professor of regenerative agriculture at South Seas University. Leu is the author of Growing Life, Poisoning Our Children, and The Myths of Safe Pesticides. He and his wife, Julia, live on an organic tropical fruit farm in Daintree, Australia.
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The Parent's Guide to the Myths of Safe Pesticides
Acres U.S.A., Inc. | August | 2024
Parenting was never easy. While loving, teaching and nourishing children, parents also seek to protect them from harm. The past few generations, however, have been silently attacked by thousands of manmade, poisonous chemicals carried into homes and children's bodies in our food supply. The chemical-based conventional agriculture industry claims that the synthesized concoctions they sell as pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides are safe when used as directed, but does the scientific evidence truly support their assertions? When pesticide residues are found in 77 percent of all foods in the United States, it's important to know the truth. Organic agriculturist André Leu has weeded through a wealth of respected scientific journals to present peer-reviewed evidence proving that the claims of chemical companies and pesticide regulators are not all they seem. Learn the truth behind: • The "Rigorously Tested" Myth. Are pesticides tested for safety before going on the market? • The "Very Small Amount" Myth. Can even a small amount o f chemical residue be harmful? • The "Breakdown" Myth: Do pesticides rapidly biodegrade, and are the breakdown products truly harmless? • The "Reliable Regulatory Authority" Myth. Do the regulatory authorities review unbiased evidence before declaring a product safe? • The "Pesticides Are Essential to Farming" Myth. Are pesticides the only thing keeping our planet from starvation? Sadly, parents must educate themselves on this serious danger to the health and development of our most vulnerable population, our children.
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Is it possible that the solution to the global climate emergency lies in a “waste” agricultural product?
The best-kept secret in today’s world is that solutions to some of our most pressing issues—food insecurity, deforestation, overgrazing, water scarcity, rural poverty, forced migration—lie in adopting, improving, and scaling up organic and regenerative agriculture best practices.
The Regenerative Agriculture Solution starts with the story of how two brothers—Jose and Gilberto Flores—are at the leading edge of this approach, pioneering the use of the previously discarded leaves of the prodigious agave plant to regenerate agricultural soils, reduce erosion, and improve water capture.
When Ronnie Cummins, the cofounder of Organic Consumer Association (OCA) and Regeneration International, met the Flores brothers in 2019 and witnessed their revolutionary agave agroforestry system, he knew they were onto something important.
Cummins had spent decades studying the potential and pitfalls of organic and regenerative agriculture and knew best practices when he saw them. He started to write a book about Flores’s brother and other visionary people, such as Dr Vandana Shiva, Allan Savory, and John Liu, who started landscape-scale regeneration projects. The scientific data was even more convincing, suggesting that these projects—and others like it—could revolutionize how we understand the climate catastrophe.
Sadly, Cummins passed away in April 2023, in the midst of working on the book. Not to leave this work unfinished, Ronnie’s widow and OCA cofounder, Rose, called on their friend, colleague, and collaborator, Regeneration International’s cofounder André Leu, to complete the work and place the Flores brothers’ breakthroughs in the broader context of regenerative agriculture solutions to the world’s many interlocking ecological crises.
The result isThe Regenerative Agriculture Solution, a book that shows how regenerating our forests, rangelands, and farming ecosystems can cool our planet, restore the climate, and enrich our communities.