Tag: soil

By Fieke van Halder

In my role supporting Caroline with Marketing and Education, I spend many hours doing research for Root of Nature courses, Wilderculture training days, Primal Web articles and Primal Meats blogs. At the end of most of those research days, I have gathered more depressing figures on the terrible situation our planet is in and what we have done to it over the last decades.

I know it’s not just me, there is a rising awareness about the harm industrial agriculture is doing to the planet, the damage it is doing to our animals’ health and our health. The facts and figures I read around the sixth mass extinction we are currently in, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and desertification make me feel utterly desperate.

What keeps me going is that I truly believe I am supporting an answer to the crises. I believe our food systems are crippled and we need to implement a solution fast.

Regenerative agriculture is becoming more mainstream, the hordes visiting @groundswell_agriculture are a great example of that. However, with it rises the skepticism and questions. In this article we will try to explain the basics of Regenerative Agriculture, the routes that can take you there and the practices that come with it.

Regenenerative Agriculture, what?

Regenerative Agriculture (Regen Ag for short) is a growing movement under both big companies (Arla, McDonalds) and smaller farms (James Rebanks, Nikki Yoxall, Wilder Gowbarrow, FAI to just name a few).

The citizen awareness is growing as well, powered by the current climate crisis. Never before have so many of us tried to make a difference with our diet choices, may it be vegan, vegetarian, foraging or eating regenerative. Most of us choose our diets because of the same principles. We want to work on restoring our climate, preserving nature and its biodiversity and improving our health. Sadly, not all diet choices seem to have the desired effect.

Let’s explore what Regen Ag is and if it could give us the desired answers from our chosen diets.

Regenerative Agriculture has only been around since the late 1980’s. In 1983, Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute began using the term, and led the creation of the “Regenerative Agriculture Association” sometime in the 1980s. After Robert Rodale’s unexpected death in 1990, the Rodale Institute dropped the term, focusing on promoting Organic Agriculture for more than 20 years.  A couple of companies including Terra Genesis started using “Regenerative Agriculture” between 2009–2013, the Rodale Institute reclaimed the term (2014) in a modified usage that they continue today: “Regenerative Organic”. (1, 2)

For a fairly ‘new’ approach, there is a lot to still figure out. Even though many of the processes and practices of regenerative agriculture have been used for many centuries.

There are many definitions;

‘Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services.

By capturing carbon in soil and biomass, regenerative agriculture aims to reverse current trends of atmospheric accumulation. At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming communities.’
–Terra Genesis

‘Regenerative Agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle’
– Regeneration International

‘Regenerative agriculture describes holistic land management practices that leverage the power of photosynthesis in plants to close the carbon cycle and build soil health, which in turn leads to improved ecosystem health, crop resiliency, and nutrient density, among other benefits’
– Kiss the Ground

Regenerative Agriculture is a way of farming that works on improving our soil health, animal health and human health. With the fantastic side effect of sequestering more carbon into the soil by improving the photosynthesis of the meadows. The livestock in this process are actually the tool that make this whole operation work.  

Regen Ag, compared to other practices, is the only approach that has looked at the root cause of our current wicked problems. Problem solving, you may already know, is often done by not defining the root cause. We humans like to use a ‘quick fix’ instead of working a little bit harder to make sure problems don’t repeat themselves or even get worse. Pandemic? Sell a vaccine instead of working on your nation’s health. Climate crisis? Blame the cow farts and promote processed vegan junk food, instead of repairing your food systems. Health issues? Promote medication, instead of a healthy lifestyle, movement and healthy food.

I recently moved back to the Netherlands where currently our farmers are on strike (and have been striking on and off since 2019) because of new Nitrogen laws put into place by our government. A law (max use of 170kg Nitrogen per acre per year) (4) designed with, I’m sure, the right intentions but certainly not the desired effect. As the second largest export nation of agricultural goods, these laws will mean many farmers will have to shut their family businesses because they can’t afford to abide by the new legislation put into place. Vandana Shiva can put it into words much better than I can;

In modern society, we are very comfortable operating within a mechanistic (3) paradigm but often need to work on our capacity to work with the complexity of nature – this is at the heart of why we have destroyed the very ecosystems that sustain our lives.

One of the most exciting outcomes of regenerative agriculture is that it restores the very ecological functions that cooled our climate millions of years ago and created the conditions that allowed humans to emerge. We can leverage these ecological principles and processes once again to achieve carbon net-zero and beyond.

Depending on how you have ‘arrived’ at regenerative agriculture will influence how you describe it. Any definition of regenerative agriculture must evolve over time, like the whole living systems that we aim to regenerate.

Routes to Regen Ag

There are multiple ways you may discover and farmers may adopt regenerative agriculture, and the possible routes will expand as more training offerings are developed.

Below, Ethan Soloviev, a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement, describes the five most common ‘lineages’;

1. Rodale Organic: The focus is soil. “Regeneration” is a combination of 40-year-tested conservation farming practices — cover cropping, crop rotation, compost, low- or no-till.
   
2. Permaculture/Regrarians: A strong focus on small-scale design and unproven beliefs about reversing climate change, this lineage of Regenerative Agriculture tends towards ideals from the human potential movement, focusing on how to create “thriving” and “abundance” for all.
   
3. Holistic Management: Promoted by both the Savory Institute and Holistic Management International, focusing on a comprehensive decision-making framework designed for animal-centric ecosystem regeneration.
   
4. Regenerative Paradigm; Guided by the Carol Sanford Institute, a small but effective community of praxis including Regenesis, Terra Genesis International, Regen Network and others has applied the paradigm to Business, Design, Planning, Education, and Agriculture.
   
5. Soil profits/no-till/NRCS: Typified and led by Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown, and others, this lineage draws practices and inspiration from other Lineages but appeals strongly to conventional farmers by eschewing the dogmas of organic agriculture and focusing on bottom line profits through increased soil health.

Knowing from what ‘lineage’ an organisation is communicating helps to understand their language and possibly even further develop their work.

Features of Regen Ag

Soloviev describes; ‘More and more organizations, individuals, and businesses will start to claim that what they are doing is “regenerative” without changing how they are thinking or even what they are doing.’ What is fundamental to Regenerative Agriculture is that it requires a different way of thinking, a mind shift if you will. Which is exactly why a certification is not the answer for Regen Ag. As soon as we start using certifications, we risk turning Regen Ag into a box ticking exercise and miss out on understanding the root cause of the change that is needed for each individual farm.

You can be fluent in the practices and science behind regenerative agriculture. Still, until you change the way you think and adopt a wider, more holistic perspective when making decisions, then you will never be able to manage in a truly regenerative way long into the future.

Instead, we define the following 4 features;

1. Principles not practises:
   
   Regenerative agriculture is based on ecological principles.
   
   Practitioners learn ecological principles. With support, each farmer must take these principles and work out what tools and practices are appropriate for their unique context. 
   Some farmers may come into the movement from an interest in soil health or grassland productivity practices and follow a prescriptive plan. This may yield some regenerative outcomes, but if the principles and thinking behind the practices are not fully understood, results can be frustrating and limited.
   
2. Holistic paradigm:
   
   To fully understand and adopt regenerative agriculture, you must see the world as a living system of which you are part.
   
   In regenerative agriculture, decisions are made ‘holistically’ considering the social, ecological and economic impact of the choice, both short and long term. 
   
3. Outcomes not standards:
   
   The only way to measure success in regenerative agriculture is to measure the outcomes. You don’t know if your practices are regenerative until you can see they have improved the ecosystem processes.
   Ethan Soloviev (mentioned above) proposes; ‘that there is no such thing as a “Regenerative Agriculture Practice” — only systemic outcomes can confirm that regeneration is taking place.
   
   Savory’s ‘Ecological Outcome Verification’ is a great way to prove that a product has been grown from a farm that is regenerating its ecosystems. It measures the improvements in ecosystem processes which allows management to be unique and ever-changing within each farm context.
   
4. Unique to its place and people:
   
   Because regenerative agriculture is based on principles practised by individuals and communities in their unique environmental and cultural context, it will look completely different from place to place. 
   
   Regenerative agriculture should emerge from learning the principles and trying different practices to see which get the best regenerative outcomes for your unique situation. The farmers’ approach will evolve and adapt to their family’s changing needs over the generations and changes in climate and economic pressures, etc. 

Just as an ecosystem has niches, regenerative agriculture will have advisors, trainers and coaches who occupy their niche within the ecosystem, each bringing a different perspective and range of expertise. 

Conclusion

There is great potential in Regenerative Agriculture, and we are not anywhere close to achieving it.  I think streamlining the definition, principles and practises of Regen Ag could help clarify the movement. What we can do in the meantime is work on educating folk on the need for change and the tools at our disposal. 

Still unclear? Listen to this excellent podcast by FarmGate:
https://podbay.fm/p/farm-gate/e/1615828071

References;

1. Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map | by Ethan Soloviev | Medium
2. Lineages of Regenerative Agriculture (Short Version) | by Ethan Soloviev | Medium
3. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mechanistic
4. Frontiers | What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes (frontiersin.org)
5. Veranderingen mestbeleid 2022 (rvo.nl)