Scaling Regenerative Agriculture

Certainly the biggest barrier to regenerative practice adoption is between the ears, but there are physical blockages too. Now, 3 sub-sectors in ag have created conditions for regeneration to scale.

The talking heads from industrial agriculture are putting up incredibly strong resistance to change these days. Do they hear themselves insisting there’s nothing wrong with removing trees, destroying wetlands, chemical runoff, residues in food, confined animal feeding operations, and deep tillage?

Behind every boldly-stated half-truth are difficult emotions being triggered around entitlement, legacy, and autonomy. Today’s producers didn’t come up with this suite of farming tools – they inherited them, along with the mentality that farming ‘just isn’t understood.’

There’s another possibility: the one that this research series exists to unpack. Maybe some consumers, and a growing segment of the markets for farm products, do understand modern agriculture and abhor what it’s doing to our lakes, forests, air quality and soil reserves.

Realizing Regeneration’s Full Potential

People often experience an ‘a-ha moment’ from a book, movie, or podcast, when the levers of change available in a regenerating state are suddenly understood all at once. ‘Getting’ regenerative agriculture is also a common response to a farmer’s traumatic life event, such as a family health scare or threat of bankruptcy.

Right now, there are far too many well-paid executives and salaried spokespeople tossing other people’s money at the term ‘regenerative,’ who have not had such a mind-opening experience. As a result, projects are being managed according to old metrics of success, such as ‘do people like and agree with me,’ and ‘are we still increasing profits?’

Some would argue that such baby-step initiatives have a role to play, and still help generate public awareness. That argument might have had merit years ago, but regenerative thought leaders around the world now agree that the time is past for ‘exploring different perspectives’ and trying little pilot projects.

Thanks to government payments and the reduction in crop input requirements made possible on fields with diverse plant growth, farmers are rapidly adopting cover cropping, managed grazing, intercropping and relay cropping. Data is tough to come by on actual acres, and what’s out there has been misrepresented by conflicting crop insurance incentives, but we can look at growth in seed sales as a proxy for new practice adoption.