Regenerative farming

Regenerative farming is an agricultural practice that goes beyond sustainability to actively restore and enhance the health of the land, ecosystems, and communities. It is a holistic approach that focuses on the long-term health of the environment, seeking to rebuild soil health, increase biodiversity, improve water cycles, and enhance ecosystem resilience.

Goals of regenerative farming

  • Produce enough nutritious food for the world’s population 
  • Help mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in soil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions 
  • Restore threatened biodiversity and enhance natural habitats 
  • Prevent further deforestation and grassland conversion by increasing productivity on existing farmland 
  • Enhance farmer livelihoods.

Principles and Practices Behind Regenerative Farming

The agricultural sector needs to transform, and regenerative agriculture can enable this transition through building up soil organic matter and nurturing its health. But it is not a one-size-fits-all solution – instead, each unique context requires a different set of farming approaches to maximize productivity while restoring soils and biodiversity. Different regenerative practices suit different regions or even individual farms depending on the conditions, although they are underlain by a common set of principles.

Minimize soil disturbance

  • Principle: Minimizing soil disturbance benefits the soil and the climate 
  • Practice: No-till or reduced-till techniques 

When soil is plowed or tilled, it’s structure is damaged, leaving it vulnerable to wind and water erosion and microbial decomposition. Tilling lessens the soil’s ability to retain water, devastating crops during increasingly frequent droughts. Farmers practicing regenerative agriculture greatly reduce or stop tillage and instead plant seeds directly into the residue of the previous crop. With this, the soil contains more organic matter and is less prone to being blown away by wind or washed away by water.

Plants in the ground year round

  • Principle: Year-round plant coverage prevents soil erosion and increases carbon inputs 
  • Practices: Growing cover crops, double cropping 

Soil health improves when crops are kept in the ground year-round. Regenerative agriculture farmers plant a different crop immediately after harvest, often alternating cash crops and cover crops. This green cover shades the soil and the roots dig into it, increasing moisture.

Diversify crops in time and space

  • Principle: Diversifying crops in space and time supports resilience, productivity, and diversity 
  • Practices: Crop rotation, interseeding, relay planting and biodiversity strips or agroforestry 

Planting the same crops on the same fields, year after year, strips soil of nutrients and allows pests and weeds to flourish. In regenerative agriculture, farmers rotate different types of crops over time. This helps limit pest infestations and nourishes beneficial microbes in the soil with a more diverse diet. Rotating between nitrogen-fixing crops like soybeans and nitrogen-hungry crops like corn can reduce the need for fertilizers. 

  • Interseeding is when cover crops are planted between commercial crop rows 
  • Relay planting means inserting the seeds of the next crop even as the first one is still growing 
  • Biodiversity strips at the margins of fields or trees and shrubs around the boundaries of farmland (agroforestry) create habitats for pollinators and other beneficial wildlife.

Optimize application of biological and chemical inputs

  • Principle: Reducing biological and chemical inputs 
  • Practice: Precision agriculture 

Data-driven precision farming is a key part of regenerative agriculture. Farmers use digital tools, like soil-scanning sensors, to create detailed field maps and tailor applications of crop protection products and fertilizers. This leads to using only the optimal amount and the right type of product needed for a productive crop.

Integrate livestock when possible

  • Principle: Livestock can help create a virtuous circle of soil health 
  • Practice: Managed grazing 

Livestock – cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and pigs – are walking bioreactors, transforming plant material into rich organic matter through manure production. Whenever it is practical to integrate livestock into crop production, there are a range of benefits including increased fertility and improved soil structure. Grazing cover crops or crop residue at the end of the season helps prepare the land for the next round of seeding, without tilling.

Can Regenerative Agriculture Feed the World?

Modern agriculture has done a remarkable job of feeding the 7.9 billion world population. Yet with the global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050, agriculture faces increasing challenges from degraded land, unprecedented weather extremes, new pests and blights migrating from other parts of the world and diminishing water resources.

Regenerative agriculture has the potential to help repopulate the surrounding ecosystem with beneficial fungi, insects, mammals, and birds. A diverse set of crop and livestock rotations progressively interrupt destructive weed cycles, and the entire ecosystem of a farm becomes more resilient to shocks such as extreme heat, drought, and floods, and to invasive weeds, pests, and fungi.

Shop Now