Defining Regenerative and who’s doing it
From our work mapping the value chain and food system, our team narrowed in on connecting growers and buyers as an important area to build infrastructure. We thought about building an online marketplace for regeneratively grown crops, and, here, we ran into a challenge that kept cropping up as we were developing our idea:
There are a multitude of terms for sustainable agriculture, among them regenerative agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, agroecology, biodynamic, organic, conservation agriculture, soil health. In addition, there’s considerable disagreement about what these terms mean, especially in relationship to each other. How would we define regenerative? Would we incorporate some of these other terms into our marketplace platform?
In the end, we decided we wanted the marketplace to be as inclusive as possible, but we would provide structure and guidance around each of the terms and growing practices, so that buyers could make an informed decision without getting too deep in the nitty-gritty. It was an okay solution that didn’t address the underlying question.
The underlying question is an important one facing the regenerative movement: Does the movement need to unite around a common definition and vision to be effective?
My personal point of view is still evolving, but my current thinking is that yes, having one common term and definition that can be communicated to the general public will be critical to gathering enough demand for a wide-scale transition. The term “regenerative” has a lot of potential. It has an inherently hopeful and energizing message — that we can actually make things better instead of merely preventing them from getting worse. In a world where many people feel like we’re fighting a losing battle against climate change and other global economic forces, regeneration is a very attractive concept.
The challenge is that there are many schools of thought about what regenerative agriculture means and its relationship with terms like organic and soil health. I believe that the regenerative movement should embrace as many of these terms as possible to create wide-scale change. The risk with this approach is that it could easily be diluted to have less meaning than we might want it to have. To counteract this, we should measure regeneration based on outcomes rather than based on practices.
Here’s an overview of the terminology as I understand it. I encourage you to take a look at this piece by Civil Eats and these posts by Ethan Soloviev for more interesting perspectives.
Cultivating food in a way that restores ecosystems is not a new idea. The industrialization of agriculture over the last century favored monocultures specifically developed for higher yield in a mechanized environment, often at the expense of nutritional density or flavor. The concepts of agroecology, biodynamic, and organic developed in response to this.
- Agroecology is managing agricultural land as an ecosystem and creating a closed loop system that eliminates chemical inputs in favor of self-generated fertilizers, weed, and pest control
- Biodynamic is similar, but serious practitioners of biodynamic farming also incorporate the spiritual philosophies of its founder.
- Organic also originated in these philosophies, but in its current incarnation of “USDA certified organic,” organically grown food is regulated based on certain practices, such as limiting certain chemical inputs, rather than outcomes or whole ecosystem thinking. As a result, there has been a rise in “industrial organic” growing practices, which follow the guidelines for organic certification, but that degrade ecosystem health rather than restoring it.
Against this backdrop and emerging concerns about climate change, soil erosion, and nitrogen fertilizer driven oceanic dead zones, a new set of terms have emerged. Currently, there is a lot of energy and excitement around the terms regenerative agriculture, climate smart agriculture, and soil health.
- Climate-smart agriculture, as one might imagine, focuses attention on growing in a way to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and maximize carbon sequestration
- Regenerative agriculture is more focused on the concept of ecosystem renewal with carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissions as positive benefit
- Soil health is simply the idea of cultivating soil health for better profits. It is the most widely embraceable concept because it requires neither a complete change of practices nor a belief in climate change. Farmers may simply believe that better soil health is better for profits since they can have lower costs if they have healthier soil. The soil health movement is also being adopted by many big agribusinesses, which offer chemical solutions to soil health.
There are also several different points of view on what regenerative agriculture means:
- Regenerative Organic Certification (championed by Patagonia and Dr. Bronners) — regenerative should be built on top of existing certifications, namely organic, fair labor, and animal welfare certifications. Having a certification will maintain the integrity of the term and create a common definition. Opponents of this perspective think that regenerative organic certification will be too restrictive and limit the number of farmers who would adopt the practice, much as the cost of organic certification is a deterrent to some farmers.
- The Carbon Underground and Cal State Chico have a Regenerative Agriculture Definition that defines regenerative agriculture as “a holistic land management practice that leverages the power of photosynthesis in plants to close the carbon cycle, and build soil health, crop resilience and nutrient density.” This group prefers defining regenerative but not creating a new certification, in the interest of keeping the concept broad enough to allow greater participation and varying degrees of participation. Opponents of this perspective think that this definition can easily be co-opted by profit-seeking industrial agriculture, resulting in a weaker definition of regenerative, much as the term sustainability can now mean pretty much anything.
- Some prominent organizations, like Kiss The Ground and the Rodale Institute, support both the certification and the definition. Companies like Thrive Market and Guayaki also support both, so it may not be a question of of either or, but rather both.
- Terragenesis also proposes a definition of regenerative agriculture as “a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services. By capturing carbon in soil and aboveground 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.” The underlying philosophy is a conception of a living system of connection between humans and their ecosystem such that the whole system should be considered to develop unique solutions for each bio-region.
- Organic (championed by the Organic Trade Assocation) — there is also a perspective that organic was designed to evolve and be updated with more beneficial practices as they are discovered and proven. This perspective holds that rather than creating a new term or certification, we should instead update the organic certification and work to grow consumer understanding of organic. Opponents of this perspective think that this is not possible given existing consumer perception of organic and the administration of organic by the USDA.
If we expect these terms to somehow channel consumer demand, the multitude of terms is bound to be confusing and generate frustration. Thus it is in the interest of the movement to come to some level of consensus, perhaps around outcomes measurements.
That said, we can still make a lot of progress without a common definition, particularly if carbon credits or markets for cover crops can offer additional incentives and compensation for regenerative farming. See more here.
This is part 3 of a series, written in January 2019
1. Introduction: The Magic of Regenerative Agriculture
3. Defining Regenerative and who’s doing it
5. Farm-level transitions (local learning and infrastructure)
6. Financing Regenerative Agricultural Transitions
