Regenerative agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.
Regenerative agriculture is not a specific practice. It combines a variety of sustainable agriculture techniques. Practices include maximal recycling of farm waste and adding composted material from non-farm sources. Regenerative agriculture on small farms and gardens is based on permaculture, agroecology, agroforestry, restoration ecology, keyline design, and holistic management. Large farms are also increasingly adopting regenerative techniques, in particular "no-till" and/or "reduced till" practices.
As soil health improves, input requirements may decrease, and crop yields may increase as soils are more resilient to extreme weather and harbor fewer pests and pathogens.
Regenerative agriculture claims to mitigate climate change through carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and sequestration. Carbon sequestration is gaining popularity in agriculture from individuals as well as groups. However, such claims have also been subject to criticism by scientists.
History
Origins
Regenerative agriculture is based on various agricultural and ecological practices, with a particular emphasis on minimal soil disturbance and the practice of composting. Similar ideas focus on "sea minerals" and innovations in no-till practices, such as slash and mulch in tropical regions. Sheet mulching is a regenerative agriculture practice that smothers weeds and adds nutrients to the soil below.In the early 1980s, the Rodale Institute began using the term 'regenerative agriculture'. Rodale Publishing formed the Regenerative Agriculture Association, which began publishing regenerative agriculture books in 1987 and 1988.
However, the institute stopped using the term in the late 1980s, and it only appeared sporadically, until they released a white paper in 2014, titled "Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change". The paper's summary states, "we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to common and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term 'regenerative organic agriculture.'" The paper described agricultural practices, like crop rotation, compost application, and reduced tillage, that are similar to organic agriculture methods.
In 2002, Storm Cunningham documented the beginning of what he called "restorative agriculture" in his first book, The Restoration Economy. Cunningham defined restorative agriculture as a technique that rebuilds the quantity and quality of topsoil, while also restoring local biodiversity and watershed function. Restorative agriculture was one of the eight sectors of restorative development industries/disciplines in The Restoration Economy.
Developments (since 2010)
Regenerative agriculture has appeared in academic research since the early to mid 2010s in the fields of environmental science, plant science, and ecology. As the term expands in use, many books have been published on the topic and several organizations started to promote regenerative agriculture techniques. Allan Savory gave a TED talk on fighting and reversing climate change in 2013. He also launched The Savory Institute, which educates ranchers on methods of holistic land management. Abe Collins created LandStream to monitor ecosystem performance in regenerative agriculture farms. Eric Toensmeier had a book published on the subject in 2016. However, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands found there to be no consistent definition of what people referencing "regenerative agriculture" meant. They also found that most works on this topic were instead authors' attempts to shape what regenerative agriculture meant.In 2011, the Mulloon Institute was founded in New South Wales, Australia, to develop and promote regenerative practices to reclaim land as water-retentive areas by slowing the loss of water from land. The members of the Institute created a 22-weir in-stream project with neighbours over 2 kilometers of Mulloon Creek. A study indicates that the outcomes were positive but relatively unpredictable, and that suitability of ground conditions on site was a key for success. Bottom-up change in the context of Australian regenerative agriculture is a complex set of narratives and barriers to change affecting farmers. A West Australian government-funded survey of land hydration was conducted by the Mulloon Institute in June 2022, which concluded that water retention projects supported the regeneration of native plant species.
Founded in 2013, 5013 non-profit was one of the first to publicize the term to a broader audience. Today, the group runs a series of storytelling, education, farm and policy programs to raise awareness around soil health and support farmers who aim to transition from conventional to regenerative land management practices. The film Kiss the Ground, executive produced by Julian Lennon and Gisele Bündchen and narrated by Woody Harrelson, was released in 2020. A follow-up documentary, Common Ground, premiered in 2023 and was the recipient of the 2023 Human/Nature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Not all regenerative systems emphasize ruminants. In 2017, Reginaldo Haslett Marroquin published "In the Shadow of Green Man" with Per Andreeason, which detailed Haslett Marroquin's early life as a campesino in Guatemala and how these experiences led him to develop regenerative poultry agroforestry systems that are now being practiced and expanding in the United States and elsewhere.
Several large corporations have also announced regenerative agriculture initiatives in the last few years. In 2019, General Mills announced an effort to promote regenerative agriculture practices in their supply chain. The farming practices have received criticism from academic and government experiments on sustainability in farming. In particular, Gunsmoke Farm partnered with General Mills to transition to regenerative agriculture practices and become a teaching hub for others. Experts from the area have expressed concerns about the farm now doing more harm than good, with agronomist Ruth Beck stating that "Environmental marketing got ahead of what farmers can actually do". More recent debates highlight concerns that corporate actors may be co-opting regenerative agriculture, invoking the term for marketing purposes while neglecting its substantive practices.
In February 2021, the regenerative agriculture market gained traction after Joe Biden's Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made reference to it during his Senate Confirmation hearing. The Biden administration wants to utilize $30 billion from the USDA's Commodity Credit Corporations to incentivise farmers to adopt sustainable practices. Vilsack stated in the hearing, "It is a great tool for us to create the kind of structure that will inform future farm bills about what will encourage carbon sequestration, what will encourage precision agriculture, what will encourage soil health and regenerative agricultural practices." After this announcement from the Biden administration, several national and international corporations announced initiatives into regenerative agriculture. During the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture's first hearing on climate change, Gabe Brown, a proponent of regenerative agriculture, testified about the role of regenerative agriculture in both the economics and sustainability of farming.
In 2021, PepsiCo announced that by 2030 they will work with the farmers in their supply chain to establish regenerative agriculture practices across their approximately 7 million acres. In 2021, Unilever announced an extensive implementation plan to incorporate regenerative agriculture throughout their supply chain. VF Corporation, the parent company of The North Face, Timberland, and Vans, announced in 2021 a partnership with Terra Genesis International to create a supply chain for their rubber that comes from sources utilizing regenerative agriculture. Nestle announced in 2021 a $1.8 billion investment in regenerative agriculture in an effort to reduce their emissions by 95%.
Several days before the opening of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, a report was published, sponsored by some of the biggest agricultural companies. The report was produced by , an organisation of companies trying to become climate friendly, established by King Charles III. According to the report, regenerative agriculture is already implemented on 15% of all cropland. Despite this, the rate of transition is "far too slow" and must be tripled by the year 2030 to prevent the global temperature passing the threshold of 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. Agricultural practices must immediately change in order to avoid the damage that would result. One of the authors emphasised that "The interconnection between human health and planetary health is more evident than ever before." The authors proposed a set of measures for accelerating the transition, like creating metrics for measuring how much farming is sustainable, and paying farmers who will change their farming practices to more sustainable ones.