Abe Collins

type: #person
organisation / role: LandStream - cofounder • Collins Grazing - founder
place: #usa

About

Abe Collins is a grazier and regenerative agriculture advocate based in the United States. His focus is on enhancing soil health and quantifying the water outcomes of improved soil management through monitoring and environmental data management. Collins is also known for his educational efforts, sharing insights on keyline farming and other regenerative practices.

In addition to his work with Collins Grazing, Collins co-founded LandStream, a company dedicated to developing tools and strategies for building deep, organic matter-rich topsoil. He emphasises the importance of capturing water on the land to create resilient ecosystems and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Collins has been recognised for his visionary approach to treating farmers as watershed contractors, highlighting the significant role they play in environmental stewardship.

Video

#video

Key Takeaways in this video:

• Importance of Deep Topsoil: The speaker underscores the essential role of fostering deep topsoil watersheds to restore degraded landscapes and secure a sustainable future.

• Quantifying Environmental Benefits: A novel system is in development to measure the environmental advantages (e.g., flood reduction, water purification) that come from healthy topsoil, allowing farmers to receive compensation for these services.

• Consequences of Current Practices: The focus solely on food production leads to externalised environmental costs and global challenges such as water pollution and soil degradation.

• Real-World Examples: The talk showcases initiatives like the New York City watershed programme to highlight the economic benefits of investing in topsoil regeneration.

• Regenerative Economic Model: Collins promotes a regenerative economic approach that incorporates ecological accounting, encouraging the growth of deep topsoil watersheds at multiple scales, from individual farms to larger watersheds.