Shifting Diets

No matter what you call them, short-chain, farm-branded, ecology-supporting foods are the way of the future.

The false narrative that regenerative agriculture ‘has no definition and therefore can’t be scaled’, creates hesitation by corporations to take steps to adapt to a future that looks very different than the past. That conversation heated up this week when the founder of Project Drawdown posted that,

“Regenerative ag … as a climate solution, it has major limitations -- especially to the amount, duration, and permanence of soil carbon storage. Plus, it is unlikely that regenerative grazing can truly offset cattle's methane emissions in the long run after soil carbon sequestration slows down and comes into equilibrium with increasing inputs.”

With compassion, it must be pointed out that this quote from Jonathan Foley reveals his lack of hands-on experience in primary agriculture. No matter what type of farmer a person is referring to, it drives them mad when people in positions of authority make grand statements about ‘agriculture’ without any real connection to their context.

It’s getting messy - regenerative farmers are outraged, and Foley is blocking folks instead of backing off. The key learning here is why not to use just dualistic carbon accounting to quantify the impacts of regenerative agriculture.

Beyond Carbon

As Raviv Turner from the Nature Tech Collective explains on the Innovation Forum podcast, carbon sequestration is just one of many important outcomes of regenerative agriculture. The Task Force for Nature-Related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) for example, requires corporations to report on 14 more metrics (related to water, pollution, biodiversity, etc.), in addition to carbon sequestration.  

And in fact, these other issues are bigger problems for people and the planet, but carbon is the one that can be measured, leading many into a state of ‘carbon tunnel vision.’ Cattle is a classic casualty, given the drastic difference in net emissions between producing beef on pasture vs. in feedlots.

Proper Communication

Ideally, thought leaders will recognize this debate as an opportunity to dig in and learn how managed grazing works. There’s no excuse for carbon tunnel vision when courses exist like this one from the experts at Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association (CFGA), that can walk anyone through the miracle of livestock integration and soil health in a matter of days.

Project Drawdown got famous by laying down a list of calls-to-action for arresting climate change, some of which rightly involve agriculture, but this week’s sinkhole was around food. 'Shifting diets' is a trigger for regenerative ag practitioners because it suggests eating more ‘plant-based’ protein, which could threaten the strong market for ‘pastured protein’ that regenerative ranchers need in order to do their part.