Regenerative agriculture

Regenerative agriculture, alternative to modern industrial agriculture that prioritizes conserving and rehabilitating the land, tailoring specific practices to local ecosystems and climates. As with sustainable agriculture, regenerative agriculture focuses on reducing the impact of production on the land, but regenerative farming goes further by also actively improving the health of the soil. According to an estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, more than half of farmland around the world is degraded. Regenerative practices help protect farmers’ livelihoods, the global food supply, biodiversity, and the health of the planet.

According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) group, if large-scale regenerative agricultural practices were applied worldwide, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture could be greatly reduced, and 5 billion hectares (about 12.4 billion acres) of land could be restored in the next three decades. More than 60 countries have pledged to work with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the UNCCD to restore 350 million hectares (about 865 million acres) by 2030.

The challenges of industrial agriculture

Nearly half of Earth’s terrestrial surface is used for agriculture in the 21st century. Modern industrial agriculture typically relies on synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and heavy farm machinery to cultivate vast monocultures of productive crops. While efficient, these practices exact a toll on the arable lands that underpin them. Loss of topsoil to erosion, depletion of the soil’s chemical profile from continuous sowing of intensive crops, and increased soil salinity from irrigation are major drivers of the degradation of farmland. Frequent tilling disrupts the physical and microbial profile of the soil and makes fields vulnerable to erosion by wind and rain. Simultaneously, the use of heavy machinery compacts the soil, making it less capable of absorbing and retaining water and rendering it less productive and more vulnerable to flooding. Fertilizers and pesticides frequently contaminate neighbouring soils and waterways, a problem that may be exacerbated by soil compaction.

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The Dust Bowl era of the 1930s in the United States serves as a stark reminder of the harm that can come from mismanagement of agricultural lands. During times of prosperity in the 1910s and early 1920s, farmers were encouraged by the U.S. government to fill the agricultural production void in Europe caused by World War I. This led to monoculture planting on a scale larger than ever before and to increased reliance on machinery, which broke down the soil and collapsed its structure. Acreage was left bare after harvest instead of being planted with beneficial cover crops and grasses that could anchor the soil. After years of drought on the Great Plains, the disaster reached its peak as winds carried off more than 1.2 billion tons of soil, causing dust blizzards that could block out the sun and cause illnesses like dust pneumonia.

History and methods of regenerative agriculture

Several movements exist under the umbrella of regenerative agriculture. The term was coined by Robert Rodale—the son of J.I. Rodale, one of the pioneers of organic farming in the United States in the 1930s—who went on to establish the Rodale Institute, dedicated to researching and promoting regenerative agriculture. Permaculture, an approach to agriculture that mimics the patterns found in nature and that was long used by Indigenous peoples around the world, is another movement that is sometimes considered to be a form of regenerative agriculture. Sustainable agriculture intersects with many of the principles and methods of regenerative agriculture, though regenerative farming practices aim not just to maintain current levels of land and soil health, as sustainable agriculture does, but to actively better them.

Each approach to regenerative agriculture has slightly different tenets, depending especially on where in the world it is being employed. Common principles include:

• minimal tilling of the soil
• using cover crops
• planting polycultural crops
• using organic fertilizers and organic methods of pest control

No-till farming, which eliminates the use of machinery and plowing, can reduce erosion and help the soil retain moisture. Since carbon that is stored deep in the soil can be released during intensive tilling and become the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, no-till methods are also an important tool in the fight against anthropogenic global warming. Although labour-intensive, no-till agriculture saves farmers the expense of costly machines and their maintenance.

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Planting nitrogen-fixing cover crops and green manures, such as vetch or alfalfa, between cash-crop growing seasons or between the rows of some crops helps to keep nutrients in the soil and further avoid erosion. Cover crops and green manures are usually fast-growing annuals that increase the general fertility of the soil, improve its physical condition, and reduce nutrient loss from leaching. They are usually planted in the fall and turned under in the spring before a summer crop is sown.

Polyculture, the planting of more than one crop in the same place, helps to diversify crops and fosters food security. It is typically more labour-intensive than monoculture, because fields are more difficult to sow and harvest mechanically. However, depending on the combination of plants grown, polyculture plantings can be fairly self-sustaining, and the diversity of the crops can reduce the vulnerability of farms (and ultimately the global food supply) to pests and diseases. Many regenerative farmers grow heirloom plants. Although such crops are generally not as productive as modern hybrids, many heirlooms are exquisitely adapted to the region in which they were developed and hold valuable genetic resources, such as drought or heat tolerance, that can be useful in the breeding of hardier varieties. As much as 75 percent of the world’s food comes from only 12 plants and five animals. The overreliance of modern industrial agriculture on so few plants and animals carries a risk that climate change, disease, or other natural disasters could lead to supply chain interruptions or famines.

As with organic farming, regenerative agriculture does not rely on chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Instead, pests and weeds are managed by using crop rotation to disrupt pest cycles, biological control to combat insect pests, and rotational animal grazing to control weeds. Livestock can eat cover crops and produce natural nutrient-rich fertilizer, and crop residues can be composted and returned to the soil.