Introducing Regenerative Agricultural Economics: The Course
Prairie Routes is now training farmers and their agribusiness partners in market development, and the shifting financial influences changing the decisions that drive farm profitability.
Over the past century, the agriculture economy in the developed world has evolved for productivity. A key component of industrial development has been efficiency, defined as maximizing the output and minimizing unit costs of primary producers and supply chain handlers and processors.
It has long been understood that negative environmental costs, i.e. externalities have been incurred and natural capital lost along the way, but stakeholders couldn’t see what to do about it until climate change became a pressing concern and the principles and practices of regenerative agriculture gained momentum as credible solutions.
Now, primary producers and agribusiness face multiple new financial influences for maximizing profits. Structural change in the rationale behind optimal farmland management decision-making is ongoing.
Are you an established commercial grain farmer wondering where the premiums are for the regeneration of landscapes that you’ve already accomplished?
Email hello@prairieroutes.ca to book a consult and explore new options in grain marketing.
Spoiler Alert: There’s No Switch to Flick Here
Global governments and corporate stakeholders have been working for years to create the financial conditions for mass adoption of soil benefitting practices such as cover cropping, intercropping and managed grazing, restoring and retaining wildlife habitat and removing marginal lands from commercial production. The financial system is finding ways over time, through markets and rate spreads, to reward farmers for figuring out how to do these things in their own context, effectively monetizing positive ecological and social outcomes.
There remain hurdles to overcome in terms of education, culture shift, and institutional barriers to widespread regenerative agriculture practice adoption. This course helps folks across ag to understand the journey of new market development, and to reimagine long-term financial resiliency in light of new risks threatening the profitability of status quo agronomy and commodity marketing.
Agenda
Regenerative Agricultural Economics are all the trends reshaping farm profit-maximization, and how they link changes underway in production agriculture, marketing, and supply chain management. Just like regenerating soils takes time and depends on context, so too are multiple components simultaneously leveraged in building markets for regenerative agriculture.
The delivery mode, depth of information, length and skill level of the content can be tailored to suit an individual group’s work and educational needs. The course moves through the 4 key areas of agribusiness that need to be addressed in strategies for adapting to regenerative economics:
Nature as a Production Model
Demand Segmentation
Brand Positioning
The Logistics of Traceability
The target audience for this course is government groups, bankers, sales representatives, insurance agents, grain marketers, agronomists, non-profits and charities interested in regenerative agriculture. It can also be tailored to train farmers in building strategies for transitioning into regenerative agriculture, marketing grain, monetizing their stories, and navigating supply chains.