You don't need a bulldozer to fix rock-hard volcanic soil—you just need a bunch of earthworms to stop the "biological starvation."
March 13, 2026
Original Paper
Smallholders as agents of ecosystem repair: Agroecological habilitation of Andean cangahua drives rapid carbon and trophic recovery
SSRN · 6410083
The Takeaway
Standard agricultural policy treats degraded, cemented volcanic ash as a physical barrier requiring heavy machinery and chemicals. This 25-year study shows that 'biological plows'—specifically earthworms and regenerative planting—can restore the land's carbon capacity far faster than industrial methods, essentially 'feeding' the rocks back to life.
From the abstract
The habilitation of cangahua (indurated volcanic ash) in the high Andes is conventionally viewed as a physical challenge. Consequently, reclamation efforts prioritize mechanical tillage and external inputs, or degraded land is simply abandoned, often resulting in arrested successional states. This paper presents a 25-year chronosequence of regenerative agroecology at the Ilaló Volcano, Ecuador, demonstrating that the primary constraint of cangahua is biological starvation rather than physical ha