What is Regenerative Agriculture and How Could it Save the Earth?

No Footprint Left Behind
Jun 23, 2020
7 min read

Regenerative (adjective): describing a process that regenerates, regrows, or replaces lost material. How does this apply to agriculture? It is essentially a way of farming that focuses on rebuilding a system from the ground (literally) up. Regenerative agriculture aims to treat a farm like an ecosystem, with all parts functioning together as a whole, which mimics the way nature would intend for a crop to be grown: with little to no human disturbance.

As mentioned in our previous post, The Historical Oppression of Black Farmers, regenerative agriculture is a new term, but its principles are actually based on many precious traditional farming methods that are rooted in African wisdom. These "Afro-indigenous" practices have been around for centuries, but are making a come back as they are needed now more than ever to maintain the viability of our food system.

Core Principles of Regenerative Agriculture

Understand the context of your farm operation: this includes knowing the land + soil and what it's needs are, as well as the climate of the area, what pests and diseases commonly affect the crop that you grow, and what your preventive maintenance options are.
Minimize soil disturbance: an essential step for long term soil productivity in order to limit stress on the soil in the form of erosion, drought, or malnutrition.
Maximize crop diversity: climate-resilient agriculture is built upon crop diversity. In the future, genetic variety will be extremely important to feed large populations and prevent crop failure.
Keep the soil covered: this protects the soil from erosion, maintains water holding capacity, allows plants to focus on recycling nutrients, and can be an effective weed management method.
Maintain living root year-round: plant roots form a symbiotic relationship with the microorganisms in the soil, which keeps the soil rich and healthy. Ripping roots from the ground each season and planting new ones can create too much disturbance and does not allow enough time for nutrient regeneration.
Integrate livestock: animals play a very important role in maintaining a healthy farm. Examples include the use of manure as compost for the soil, natural aeration of the soil through the mechanical breakage by animal hooves, and pest control (chickens are really helpful for this).

With Emphasis on Soil

The largest component of regenerative agriculture is soil health and how it connects to the overall functionality of a farming system. Soil degradation is currently a global problem, with soils all across the globe being depleted as we speak due to chemically + physically intensive, conventional farming methods. While this is something that is often overlooked, soil is actually a living system in itself. There is a whole world of organisms living in our soils that play a significant role in supporting plant growth, recycling nutrients, retaining water, and protecting crops from pests + diseases.

Did you know that there are more microorganisms in one teaspoon of soil than there are humans on Earth?

Regenerative agriculture gives soil microbes the respect that they deserve and aims to increase soil organic matter in order to preserve soil health and strive for long term sustainability.

For the next few weeks, we will be diving deep into the concept of regenerative agriculture and talking about how it may introduce promising results for the future of our food system in terms of our climate, food security, and the economy. We will start off in this post by defining some terms that we will use throughout the next few posts to build a foundation for this hefty + important topic.

Definitions within Regenerative Agriculture

Agroforestry: a farming system in which trees and/or shrubs are grown around or among the crops. Benefits include increased soil biodiversity (the more types of plants grown together, the more it mimics nature, the better), as well as decreased soil erosion and increased water retention.

Biointensive: a sustainable farming method with a goal of producing the maximum amount of food from the minimum amount of land.

CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation): an operation with more than 1000 animal units being confined on a site for more than 45 days during the year. You may have heard this referred to as "factory farming". These are very loosely regulated by the EPA, and the movement of animals is often highly restrictive with animals living in tight quarters. Diseases spread rapidly in these types of operations, so the use of antibiotics is often continuous, regardless of diagnosed sickness. Overuse of antibiotics = resistance, as we all know...not to mention that these resistant strains reach our bodies when we consume meat + dairy that has been harvested from a CAFO.

Carbon sequestration (in farm soil): carbon is the main component of soil organic matter and helps give soil its water-retention capacity, its structure, and its fertility. Sequestration aims to keep this carbon in the soil bed, rather than letting it erode away, oxidize, and enter into our water streams in the form of CO2. The more carbon we can hold in our soils (that actually need it), the less we emit.

CSA (community supported agriculture): a farming system where consumers pay for a share of a farm’s production at the start of the year and their portion is delivered on a regular basis throughout the growing season. One way to support local farmers is to join a CSA subscription!

Cover crop: a crop planted to benefit the soil, not to be harvested. It can protect against wind & water erosion, hold nutrients, or can be tilled under to increase SOM (soil organic matter). Think of it as like a juice cleanse, but for the soil. When the crop is plowed under into the soil, it's called green manure. This acts as a natural fertilizer.

Continuous cropping: when the same annual crop is grown in the same field year after year. This practice is prohibited for organic growers because it depletes soil nutrients, and increases susceptibility to disease, pests, and weeds. An alternative would be crop rotation, where different crops are planted in the same field each season in order to provide soil biodiversity.

Conventional: refers to farming with high chemical inputs, large scale livestock operations, and continuous cropping.

Conservation tillage: tillage that minimizes erosion by leaving some or all of the previous year’s crop residues on the surface so that at least 30% of the soil is covered. This is an alternative for conventional tillage where all of the soil is turned under, which greatly disturbs soil structure. It would be like a giant bulldozer coming in and demolishing the city where you live, but instead for microbes in the soil.

Erosion (of farm soil): mostly caused by excessive tillage, in which soil becomes weak in structure and is easily carried away by wind or water. Often results in sediment buildup in nearby river streams, which then affects the river flow and consequently the aquatic life. Read more about how soil erosion contributes to climate change here.

Input: any substance used in a farming system to improve fertility or control pests. Examples: fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, or could be something like compost.

MIG (management intensive grazing): subdividing pastures or range and rotating grazing livestock through the subdivisions to maintain an appropriate rate of plant growth. Ex: cows are placed on one block of pasture to graze on the grass until it reaches the desired length, and then the cows are moved to another block of pasture to graze on new grass. This prevents the cows from overgrazing and eating the grass right down to its roots, which can disrupt the soil.

Monoculture: when only a single plant species is planted over a large acreage with little or no rotation (this is commonly seen with corn, wheat & soy). Consider this: where in nature do you see only one type of plant growing in a confined area? Nowhere. This does not occur naturally, without human interference. This is why it results in little biodiversity within the soil which makes crops more susceptible to disease and pests. The concept is similar to the way in which humans build up immunity by being exposed to various kinds of sickness. The alternative would be polyculture.

Nitrogen fixation: growing plants need more nitrogen than any other nutrient. Plants can't take up nitrogen through their roots until it has been converted to a useable form by microorganisms in the soil or by other plants that are classified as "nitrogen-fixing". Legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc.) are the most common nitrogen-fixing plants and may be planted as a cover crop to healthify the soil for the next crop that will be harvested.

Nutrient cycling: retention of nutrients in an ecosystem through a continuous cycle, rather than losing the nutrients to leaching, off-gassing, or erosion. Nutrient cycling increases when there is more soil organic matter.

Silvopasture: a farming system that utilizes both managed grazing and forestry in a mutually beneficial way.

Sustainable farming system: a farming system that operates to conserve and improve diversity, health, and fertility of ALL its components (soil, animals, plants, people), so that it can continue indefinitely into the future. Analyses of sustainability often include economic viability.

Tillage: digging, stirring, or overturning of crops and soil. This is usually done before planting to prepare for a crop, or after harvest to dig up an old crop. Tillage may be necessary on some farms, but it can be detrimental to soil health if done too excessively. Regenerative farmers usually advocate for minimal or no-tillage.

How Regenerative Farms Can Help Heal the Planet

Some farmers like Charles Massy believe that regenerative agriculture is so powerful that not only can it nurse our Earth back to health, but it can also improve human health & longevity as well. Instead of controlling the land, regenerative ag empowers the land and enables it to renew itself with little reliance on human inputs.

The Nature Conservancy estimates that each 1% of cropland in the US that adopts an adaptive soil health system generates $226 million of societal value through increased water capacity, reduced erosion and nutrient loss to the environment, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, as well as $37 million of on-farm value through greater productivity.