What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative Agriculture is all of the buzz in farm, ranching, and food system circles, but what is it?

Author

Mitch Hinrichs
May 14, 2024

Regenerative Agriculture is all the buzz in farm, ranching, and food system circles, but what is it exactly? It is probably easiest to begin with the dictionary definition of regeneration.

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Regeneration – “The action or process of regenerating or being regenerated - bring into renewed existence; generate again - bring new and more vigorous life to something - revive.“

As clear as that definition appears when applying it to farming and agriculture, it is equally important to realize that regenerative agriculture is dynamic. It is an evolving framework that aims to create a net-positive food and farming system ecologically, economically, and socially.

Regenerative agriculture is multidisciplinary. It draws from many principles, philosophies, practices, and industries to create regenerative outcomes on the farm and beyond. 

Principles versus Practices

Implementing a particular practice or technique on the farm is not simple enough to consider your farm regenerative. Regenerative agriculture, at its core, is a principle-driven and outcome-based approach to farming. It is a new way of making decisions, approaching farming as a business, and rethinking the supply chain after the food leaves the farm. These principles are focused on improving various outcomes—more resilience against weather and climate, more above and below ground biodiversity, higher nutrient density of the food, less reliance on external inputs, and better underlying economic profitability.

Outcome Based Thinking

The first principle of regenerative agriculture is viewing farming outcomes through a lens of consistent improvement over time. We can’t be confident that regeneration is occurring unless we determine which outcomes are worth measuring and compare results season after season. 

These outcomes can then guide the decision-making process. These results guide which agricultural practices, products, and actions are actually delivering results.

Third-party verification ensures that the outcomes and measurements gathered are accurate and without bias, which helps farmers receive the clearest data from what’s happening season after season. 

Various emerging regenerative certifications provide seasonal on-farm testing to verify what is happening. Their verification frameworks and definitions of regeneration agriculture vary slightly, but all aim to set standards for what it means to be “regenerative.” 

This is important for the farmer, the farm’s brand, and consumers to ensure that any claims being made are backed up with unbiased measurements and transparent outcomes.

Regenerative Certifications & Their Frameworks

Ecosystem Health Begins with Healthy Soils

The Six Soil Health Principles

All farms depend on the soil to grow their crops. Soil is a living, breathing, and vibrant ecosystem with its own entire food web. The health of the soil food web depends on various conditions, many of which farms can purposely create by following the six principles of soil health. 

Understand Context:

The practices and techniques vary depending on whether a farm is along the coast, in the desert, or the tropics–raising livestock, growing vegetables, or tending a coconut grove. Understanding the context of the farm is the most important starting point, as each circumstance–being geographical, crop-specific, climate, access to markets, etc–will determine the limitations and parameters each farm must abide by to cause regeneration. 

Minimize Soil Disturbance:

Maintaining healthy soil structure allows the soil food web to thrive. Every time the soil is tilled or disturbed, the populations of bacteria and fungi living in the soil are disrupted and destroyed. Whatever the farm’s context, minimizing soil disturbance is vital to regeneration.

Keep the Soil Covered:

Keeping soils covered with living plants or residues reduces erosion, conserves moisture, moderates soil temperature, and provides habitat and food for soil organisms. Cover crops are useful tools for maintaining soil cover during non-growing seasons, can be grazed with livestock, and help control weeds.

Maximize Biodiversity:

Increasing above and below ground biodiversity through crop rotations or intercropping enhances soil biodiversity, breaks pest and disease cycles, and improves nutrient cycling and soil structure. 

Maintain Living Roots:

Keeping living roots as long as possible feeds the soil food web, improves soil structure, increases water infiltration, and enhances nutrient cycling. This can be achieved with cover crops, perennial crops, or sequential plantings. If your context doesn’t allow for cover crops after your cash crop, then minimizing soil disturbance and covering your soil residue is next best. 

Integrate Livestock:

Incorporating livestock into the farm’s rotation can help recycle nutrients, improve soil organic matter, and stimulate plant growth. Livestock can help manage cover crops and crop residues and provide diversity in income and product offers. If a farmer can’t manage livestock independently, they can collaborate with a neighbor who does. Managing livestock regeneratively involves rotational grazing, holistic management, and ethical welfare.

Ecosystem Processes That Drive All Life

Nestled into ecosystems, farms depend on ecological processes to function, soil being one. Improving ecological outcomes appears different across the various expressions of agriculture, but they all share these cycles. When these cycles function properly, there is resilience and a sense of harmony across the ecosystem.

Energy Cycle

All life depends on photosynthesis, which starts with plants’ ability to capture the sun's energy and turn it into sugars. This process drives life below and above the surface. Measuring Brix using a refractometer can give farmers an inside look at how efficient plants are at photosynthesizing. The healthier the plant, the more sugars it can produce.

Water Cycle

The water cycle is the continuous water movement within the Earth and atmosphere. There is the big water cycle and the small water cycle. Farms can affect the small water cycle on their farm by increasing the infiltration rate, increasing soil organic matter, and reducing erosion. For every percentage of soil organic matter increase, 25,000 gallons of water can be stored. That’s a tremendous amount of water, especially for areas with relatively low rainfall. 

Nutrient Cycle

Healthy soils help decompose non-living materials to make the energy and nutrients available for living organisms. Regeneration of this cycle helps reduce residues and allows bound nutrients to become bioavailable for living plants. Soils are full of nutrients and minerals, but without living soil biology making them available, they will remain unavailable to plants. 

Carbon Cycle

Carbon is what life on Earth is based upon. The cycle, in reference to regenerative agriculture, starts with photosynthesis, where plants take in carbon dioxide and turn that carbon into sugars they use for themselves. The cycle also involves root exudates, where plants exchange sugars with soil biology in exchange for nutrients and minerals they need. This carbon is then stored in the soil, increasing the soil organic matter and future food for the soil food web.

Essential Farmer & Consumer Outcomes

Economics

All of these principles are important, but the adoption of regenerative agriculture will remain slow unless the economics work in favor of the farmers adopting it. Regenerative agriculture is more profitable than conventional farming for many reasons, but one major reason is the decreasing dependence on external inputs and access to more premium markets. 

Nutrient Density

For consumers, regenerative agriculture promises to increase the nutrient value and density of the raised foods. There is tremendously important research and development unfolding, touching on how farming practice influences food quality and how that impacts human health. 

Is Regenerative, Organic or Organic, Regenerative?

This question is often presented when regenerative agriculture is introduced. The answer is yes and no. To become certified organic, there is usually a list of products one can and cannot use. Organic agriculture, in its simplest form, typically excludes harmful chemicals and synthetic fertilizers, but that alone doesn’t ensure a farm is improving its land. 

Regenerative does not have to be organic. Organic does not automatically equal regenerative. Organic can be degenerative to landscapes, but it can also be regenerative. Organic agriculture often uses heavy tillage for weed control, which, done in excess, is degenerative to landscapes. 

Once again, outcomes must be observed and measured over time to determine whether or not a farm is regenerating and improving the right criteria.

Additional Regenerative Resources

Understanding regenerative agriculture is a continual educational and experiential adventure. I have gathered resources and articles from individual leaders and leading organizations in regenerative agriculture to help you jumpstart your learning journey and fuel understanding.

Regenerative agriculture is becoming more discussed amongst farmers and consumers alike. Whether you are a farmer, in food service, or a consumer, our food system is going through a radical shift for the better.

This dynamic approach to producing food, fiber, and fodder is reshaping the world’s food and farming system, ensuring that the impacts on the land leave them better for future generations.

Books to Read and Documentaries to Watch

If you have any suggestions for additional resources or want me to add anything to this article, DM me on LinkedIn.

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