What is Regenerative Agriculture?

As the movement leans into third-party certifications and audits to validate regenerative claims, let's explore the actual practices involved.

According to Nature United, ‘regenerative agriculture refers to a set of farming practices that promote healthier soil and fewer negative effects on the ecosystem.’ Unlike organic agriculture, small amounts of chemical crop inputs are sometimes used strategically, to avoid tillage and manage financial risks so a farm can still make money. Over time, regenerative farming restores biodiversity, improves the water cycle, and increases soil organic matter.

Background

In many ways, regenerative agriculture can seem ‘backwards’ compared to modern industrial agriculture, and ‘messy’, in that multiple species of plants are raised on a field at once and livestock manure is a primary source of fertilizer. In fact, regenerative farmers substitute biology for chemicals to create a naturally resilient business.

The industrial agriculture era began in about the 1950’s when chemical warfare was adapted into synthetic fertilizers. Agrochemicals include products like:

• Commercial fertilizer

• Herbicides that attack weeds

• Insecticides that target bugs

• Fungicides that repel disease spores

To be as commercially successful as they are, these products have to offer a net financial benefit in terms of increasing the productivity (yield) of the crop by more than the application expense. However, there has been no accounting for the toll they take on the environment.