Saving Our Soils: Texan Proponents of Regenerative Agriculture and Microalgae to the Rescue

(L) Cath Conlon, President and CEO of Blackwood (R) David Ramjohn, CEO of ALgEternal Technologies, LLC.
Photo by: AlgEternal/Blackwood

AlgEternal Technologies, LLC (AlgEternal) of La Grange, Texas and the Blackwood Educational Land Institute (Blackwood) of Hempstead, Texas, recently agreed to collaborate on solving one of the critical challenges facing humankind, soil health. AlgEternal produces a live microalgae-based soil amendment that has been creating significant improvements in quality and yield after treating soils with their product, Agtivate. Since Agtivate treats soil to rejuvenate the microbial functions in soil the product is not plant or crop specific and has been shown effective on virtually everything, such as row crops, grasses, vegetables, ornamentals, and trees.

AlgEternal is vertically integrated around its patented technology for growing microalgae at scale. Operating as a Conscious Capitalism Company, focused on demonstrating the application of microalgae to solving significant human challenges such as: sustainable and regenerative agriculture; water, air and soil pollution; and climate change. David Ramjohn, CEO of Algeternal, believes that the algae industry is critical to sustainable, ecocentric, circular economic activity while keeping planet Earth hospitable to humans. "Putting photosynthetic microalgae back into soils supports the other microbial communities in soils, which supports all other trophic levels in and on soils;" says Ramjohn; "in ecosystem Jenga, microalgae are the base--remove them and everything else collapses." Ramjohn has always held that soil as a natural resource is under-appreciated and unrecognized, pointing to recent reports that on a global scale we have less than 60 years of topsoil left. According to Ramjohn, "soil lies at the nexus of food, water, and air--fix the soil and we simultaneously fix several major environmental and health challenges facing humans."

In 2000, Cath Conlon established Blackwood Educational Land Institute as a nonprofit organization to remind students of humanity’s intrinsic bond with the land, to teach the interconnectivity of all living things, and to suggest that great things can happen only if we realize that this interdependence extends to our families and our communities as well. Today, Blackwood caters to students of all ages, providing learning opportunities through workshops, camps, the Blackwood Farm School, farm-to-table dinners, field trips, and their annual Harvest Hoedown. "Soil is alive," says Conlon; "it makes perfect sense then to ensure that we have a photosynthetic microorganism living in soils that can produce glucose for the other organisms and perform other critical ecosystem functions."

"David visited us at Blackwood on October 7th, 2019 and then I visited AlgEternal on October 16th, 2019--both events being 'Eureka' moments for me", says Conlon; "the remarkable synergies between what we were both attempting, that is to bring soil back to its natural health to generate the multitude of benefits for food, water, and carbon, were inescapable." Both recognizing their parallel paths, Ramjohn and Conlon decided to explore opportunities for collaboration, with Blackwood looking forward to being a proving ground for Agtivate under Ramjohn's scientific guidance. Mimicking the mutual symbiosis between microalgae and other organisms in soils, this collaboration will see Blackwood benefit from having an all-natural soil amendment in use on their land leading to sustainable increases in yields and quality, and AlgEternal benefit by being able to test several hypotheses and gather independent verification of the function of their microalgae in soils.

In further support of Blackwood's educational mission, Ramjohn will teach a class on soil microalgae as the unknown, unsung heroes of life on terra firma at the the second annual Blackwood Harvest Hoedown on December 14th, 2019. The Harvest Hoedown is a fun, immersive, family-friendly fall festival and farm experience celebrating the bounty of the Texas Gulf Coast Community. In addition to learning about the tremendous, yet largely unknown, roles played by soil microalgae, patrons will enjoy live music, a farmers' market full of local vendors, farmers, and artisans, curated classes and demonstrations from fermentation to chicken and beekeeping, hayrides, delicious food, and much more. AlgEternal will also be giving away samples of their Agtivate Soil Amendment to lucky attendees.