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Spotlight: Regenerative agriculture

The term 'regenerative agriculture' may have only recently surfaced as a popular concept, but it is gaining traction as the key solution to feeding growing populations and tackling climate change


What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative practices have been a groundswell movement in agriculture. They have recently been increasing in popularity not only with farmers and land managers, but also with scientists, policymakers and the public. High-profile media attention and the ongoing debate around the role of ruminants on climate impact has championed the cause. This Spotlight on Regenerative Agriculture sets out the basics for those interested in exploring this movement, as well as pointing to some developments and new areas of interest.

What's in a name?

Defining regenerative agriculture is not simple. There is no one universally agreed definition. In its broadest terms, regenerative agriculture refers to an approach that seeks to work with natural systems to restore and enhance the biodiversity, soil fertility and ecosystem service provision (such as carbon sequestration and water retention) of farmed land.

Regenerative models focus on increasing the resilience of ecological systems, rather than extracting from these systems solely to achieve market returns. Regenerative agriculture not only focuses on the resilience of natural capital, but social capital too, with the goal of supporting rural communities and wider supply chains.

Building resilience

Central to the regenerative agriculture model is the concept of protecting and restoring soils. Over the last century, mechanisation, the increasing availability of pesticides and fertilisers, mono-cropping and a concern about the need to feed the rapidly growing global population have all led to intensively farmed soils becoming depleted of their natural biology and fertility. The United Nation’s 2020 report on the state of soil biodiversity concluded that the future of global soils looks bleak if current detrimental practices continue.

Regenerative agriculture aims to reverse the degradation of soils, focusing on rebuilding soil organic matter (SOM).

Under regenerative models, as soils increase in fertility their water holding capacity also increases, thereby increasing the natural, biological productivity of the land and encouraging species growth

Andrew Teanby, Associate Director, Rural Research

Minimising soil disturbance and building up soil organic matter fixes carbon within the soil. This occurs through the transformation of plant and animal detritus, as well as certain bacteria that can fix carbon by using atmospheric CO2 as their energy source. Under regenerative models, as soils increase in fertility their water holding capacity also increases, thereby building the natural, biological productivity of the land and encouraging species growth.

On the other hand, if land is intensively cultivated, it releases carbon into the atmosphere and water run-off is more frequent. Regenerative agriculture is, therefore, being proposed as a key solution to feeding growing populations, while also tackling climate change and increasing environmental risk.

The yield question

The pivotal question in the debate about regenerative agriculture is whether it can produce enough food. The Food, Farming and Countryside Commission 2021 report modelled the yield potential of a regenerative system and found that within this model the UK yield (of cereal crops) in tonnes per hectare was 27% less than within current conventional systems.

More modelling and information is needed to reach concrete conclusions. Sustaining high yields can be environmentally damaging however, so a key consideration is the improved long-term environmental resilience of regenerative models against the increasing environmental precarity of high yielding, intensive systems.

For many businesses, the financial impact of this drop in yield may prove a prohibitive barrier to this method of farming. However, the beauty of regenerative practices is they are not a binary choice. Unlike purely organic schemes, farmers can adopt practices to suit their soil types or individual enterprises. The diversity implicit within regenerative models enables production layering, for example through grazing animals on cover crops. And for some, the reduction in the use of artificial inputs means that these systems can be more profitable.


No one-size-fits-all

Not all principles of regenerative agriculture will be applicable or suitable to every land type. For example, recent field-scale research from Agrii’s Stow Longa Technology Centre demonstrated that although cover cropping is beneficial for managing lighter erosion-prone soils, for those on heavier land it is less successful. Within the study, it was found that over six years, traditional cultivation techniques outperformed all other cover cropping treatments in terms of margin over costs. However, the study did demonstrate that SOM levels increased significantly more under the cover crop model, indicating a long-term benefit to soil structure and biology. In conclusion, the recommendation was that cover cropping should be seen as part of integrated soil management, rather than the only applicable technique.


Is this new?

The term is only just becoming a mainstream concept, but producing food alongside nature’s rhythms has always existed. Artificial inputs allowed the link to be weakened and nature to be managed in search of greater efficiencies. Ecologists and farmers such as Allan Savory and Richard Perkins have popularised regenerative agriculture in recent years, which has prompted public attention through movements such as Regenuary and the celebrated Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground. This is beginning to have an effect on supply chains, led by corporates such as Timberland and General Mills, which have made commitments to source materials from regenerative systems, supporting farmers to adopt new systems, upskill and scale-up their enterprises.

Regenerative thinking

The concept of regenerative is not unique to agriculture. Regenerative capitalism, a concept coined by John Elkington, is gaining traction within businesses. It is intended to deliver “exponential progress in the form of economic, social, and environmental wealth creation”. Cynics may argue that regenerative thinking is just the next iteration in the box of sustainability jargon, however, it is indicative of a realisation that society has reached an environmental tipping point, and if environmental risk is not addressed in a way that seeks to solve root causes, the future could be bleak.

Where does sustainability fit in?

There is often confusion over the difference between regenerative systems and sustainability. All regenerative models are sustainable, however, not all sustainable action is regenerative. A regenerative system fixes the root cause of the problem and then renews its growth potential, whereas sustainability focuses on not letting the problem get any greater.


Read the articles within Spotlight: Regenerative agriculture below.

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