Industrial waste and soil depletion crises obscured by consumerist composting guides: systemic solutions for regenerative agriculture
Original framing: “Still unsure about composting? Here’s why and how to make ‘black gold’ for the garden - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
Black and Indigenous farmers in the U.S. South have been systematically excluded from land ownership and composting infrastructure, yet their traditional soil-building practices (like the *Three Sisters* method) are now being co-opted by 'regenerative agriculture' brands. Urban composting programs in majority-Black and Latino neighborhoods are often underfunded or privatized, reinforcing environmental racism while middle-class white communities receive subsidies for backyard composting. The 'how-to' format assumes access to land, water, and time—privileges unavailable to many marginalized growers who are instead targeted by industrial agriculture's predatory contracts.
The 'black gold' composting narrative exemplifies how Western environmentalism individualizes systemic crises, transforming soil depletion—driven by 20th-century agrochemical monopolies and colonial land dispossession—into a consumer choice.
Indigenous soil stewardship systems, from Amazonian terra preta to Andean waru waru, offer proven alternatives that sequester carbon and restore biodiversity, yet these are sidelined by a 'how-to' industry that profits from both synthetic inputs and their 'sustainable' replacements. The solution lies not in backyard composting guides but in dismantling the agro-industrial complex through policy shifts that redirect $200 billion in subsidies to indigenous-led restoration, while building decentralized infrastructure in marginalized communities where soil degradation is most acute. This requires recognizing soil as a living ancestor (Yoruba *Àjẹ́*), a sacred entity (Japanese *tsuchi*), and a microbial commons—not a commodity to be marketed as 'black gold'. The trickster's work is to expose how this framing serves agribusiness while obscuring the true stewards of soil health: the farmers and knowledge-keepers whose practices have sustained life for millennia.