Regenerative Agriculture

Introduction

A reader asked me to explain Regenerative Agriculture. However, because this is one of those very large topics that books, academic journals, and web authors have written about for years, there is no way to give it proper coverage in just one post. So I will attempt to limit myself to an overview, point out its basic principles, detail the critical changes it requires, mention its importance, give a few of obstacles in the way of its implementation, and provide some resources. In short, I want to explain enough, so if it comes up in a conversation, you will be able to hold your own.

Regenerative Ag Definitions

Wikipedia writes a good, broad definition: 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.

Regeneration Agrictulture Definition states a bit more details: regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that … aims to capture carbon in soil and aboveground biomass, reversing current global trends of atmospheric accumulation. At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming and ranching communities. The system draws from decades of scientific and applied research by the global communities of organic farming, agroecology, Holistic Management, and agroforestry.

Regenerative Ag Principles

Medium has a post that lays out four principles related to regenerative agriculture.

• Progressively improve whole agro-ecosystems.
• Create context-specific designs and make holistic decisions that express the essence of each farm (plants or tree farms, animal-based farms, ocean or lake farming, etc.)
• Ensure and develop just and reciprocal relationships amongst all stakeholders (people, plants, animals, microbes, etc.).
• Continually grow and evolve individuals, farms, and communities to express their innate potential.

Regenerative Ag Practices

There are some very specific practices that Regenerative Agriculture is looking at, from organic farming and forestry, towards a broad environmental conservation. This new view towards agriculture emphasizes:

• Importance of understanding indigenous peoples historical farming techniques, instead of assuming the modern technological-oriented, chemical laden farming, is automatically superior.
• Advantages of no-till farming, essentially leaving the soil as undisturbed as possible, thereby eliminating bare soil.
• Need for plant and seed diversity, where the seeds that are not owned by any corporation or genetically modified into unnatural states.
• Using organic farming techniques, such as mulching (1), but limited to no pesticide or insecticide use.
• Reliance on composting (2) so all waste is used to feed the soil, instead of using chemical nitrogen or other such products. Wikipedia, explains further, that the goal is to recycle as much farm waste as possible and adding composted material from sources outside the farm.
• Using cover crops and crop rotation (3), perennial plants and diverse crops (4). These actions are specifically taken to improve soil health, but can also play a part in the reduction of nitrogen pollution, and may create climate benefits.
• Manage animal grazing as part of a holistic system (5) involving plants, insects, and the animals.
• Agroforestry: which integrates trees and shrubs on farmland, and can sequester carbon in soils and vegetation as a co-benefit, and/or practices aimed at regenerating lands that no longer produce food (e.g., reforestation, peatland restoration, riparian buffer zones). 

Regenerative Ag Importance

RegenerationInternational reports that the loss of the world’s fertile soil and biodiversity, along with the loss of indigenous seeds and knowledge, pose a mortal threat to our future survival. 

According to many soil scientists, at current rates of soil destruction (i.e. decarbonization, erosion, desertification, chemical pollution), within 50 years we will not only suffer serious damage to public health due to a qualitatively degraded food supply characterized by diminished nutrition and loss of important trace minerals, but we will literally no longer have enough arable topsoil to feed ourselves. Without protecting and regenerating the soil on our 4 billion acres of cultivated farmland, 8 billion acres of pastureland, and 10 billion acres of forest land, it will be impossible to feed the world, keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, or halt the loss of biodiversity.

We already are firmly on the path of self-destruction as shown by these realities:

• The loss of insects (NationalGeographic), birds (NPR), and bees (EarthDay);
• Extinction of many other animals (ScientificAmerican);
• The dramatic general loss of biodiversity and ecosystems (NYT);
• Loss of soil (TheGuardian), forests (NationalGeographic) and habitat (WWF);
• The loss of potable water for the worlds population (TheGuardian);
• Surrounding these losses is negative changes in the global climate (NYT) and harmful weather (CarbonBrief) changes.

The Regenerative Agricultural movement is critical to the survival of all life on this planet and may be providing us plans with which to address all of these issues.

Regenerative Ag Results

According to all that I read, the list below details realistic, achievable actions Regenerative Agriculture can provide to support our world, and all of life.

• Feed the world’s growing population: Through better land and grazing management and use practices that protects soil, forests, streams, and land (6).
• Preserve topsoil: AgFunderNews writes that One-third of the world’s topsoil is already acutely degraded, and the United Nations estimates a complete degradation within 60 years if current practices continue
• Decrease greenhouse gas emissions: The current large scale industrial food system produces 44% – 57% of all global greenhouse emissions (7). Much of this is from the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers and nutrients.
• Reverse climate change: Emissions reduction will not reverse climate change, but increasing soil carbon stocks might (8, 9).
• Improve yields: As we experience extreme weather and climate change, data shows that yields on organic farms are higher than conventional farms (10).
• Improve farm animals lives: Improvements will be seen by decreasing numbers of animals per acre, allowing for “pasture raised” to mean something reducing chemicals in their bodies and putting them back into their natural ecosystem that values their contribution to soil, and croplands.
• Create drought-resistant soil: Adding organic matter to soil increases its water holding capacity and in turn builds more organic matter (11). In fact, NRDC writes that each 1 percent increase in soil organic matter helps soil hold 20,000 gallons more water per acre.
• Revitalize local economies: Supporting family farming, in many parts of the world, is an economic opportunity to support local economies (12).
• Preserve traditional knowledge: Indigenous farming systems reveal ecological clues that can inform the development of regenerative organic agricultural systems (13).
• Nurture biodiversity: Biodiversity is fundamental to life, farming, and thus food security (14).
• Restore grasslands: Earth’s surface, nearly a third, is grassland, and 70% of that has been degraded; estimates are it can be restored by holistic planned grazing (15) .
• Improve nutrition: A diverse agro-ecosystem ensures a diversified nutrient output from our farming systems.

Regenerative Ag Obstacles

1. People and businesses who are benefitting from the current agricultural systems will fight changes that they believe will adversely affect them. For instance, the top pesticide producers fight better food labeling (they lost).

2) With a growing population, there are growing pressures on farms to produce more food. So the concerns are laid out as a gambling decision, an either/or proposition. Either use the systems we have with years of experience that can guarantee farming inputs and outputs, or, try the new method that “purportedly” will produce more and better, with less damage, but also at a high cost.

• What is missed is that regenerative agriculture has been around since humans started farming and is part of our early practices, so there are data to prove the point of Regenerative Ag value.
• The only issue is that Regerative Ag takes time to implement.

3) The cost of this change is large and needs to be phased in, so for each farm making the change, the costs will not be recouped quickly. The current Big Agricultural systems have been built quickly over a handful of decades. They focus on profits, not often paying attention to the other impacts. Often people say they are cost efficient, but that is only true if seen in isolation of its greater harms.

Making changes includes teaching people how to farm in new ways. For example, Medium writes, Genetic modification and inorganic fertilizers promote fast crop growth. With a shift away from these shortcuts, more laborers and sustainable innovations will be required.

4) Farming requires lots of nitrogen, but how can that be realistically achieved without chemicals? “Return to batshit”, is my quick answer. But more politely, we can use sources that we have used before, by relying on nature to provide what nature needs.

But if using a farm as a carbon sequester, a balance must be achieved between the twin goals of carbon reduction in the environment and nitrogen in the soil (14).

5) Big governmental subsidies and tax cuts are involved with big agricultural companies. Thus there is a large financial incentives to not change current practices. WRI writes about these subsidies and how they can be allocated in a way to better our agricultural systems. For instance the public money could be conditional on the protection of forests, streams, and other natural areas; or on specific environmental practices like composting, growing cover crops, using bio fertilizers, etc.; perhaps by enticing farmers using graduated payments as rewards for better performances; or maybe supporting better restoration of farm lands to natural forest, peat, or native vegetation.

Regenerative Ag Resources

Here is a map that will refer you to the closest officially designated regenerative farm located nearby: Regenerative Farms Map.

Google has a site for academic articles that have been published on a given topic: Google. A bibliography of items recommended by Regeneration International:  click here to view the document via Google Drive. Other reports include Rodale Institutes document on regnerative ag.

Organizations include Green America, Food and Land Coalition, and here is a list of international organizations.

Hope this answers the question I was sent, “what is regenerative agriculture all about?”

—Patty

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News: The World Food Programme, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian organizations, has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work providing life-saving assistance to tens of millions of people around the globe.

Hydrology: (2/2020) Cuba’s rivers run clean after decades of sustainable farming. The island’s waterways have lower levels of fertilizer-linked pollution than the Mississippi River in the United States