Regenerative Agriculture: A Movement
- Bodhi Milano '26
- Feb 26, 2024
- 8 min read
Regenerative agriculture could be key to combating climate change, but what exactly is it?
Regenerative agriculture—the practice of revitalizing farmland with beneficial practices to reverse climate change—is becoming an international movement, making appearances in the COP conferences, movies, and on advertisements for big food companies—but what exactly is this promising form of farming and why are people so passionate about it?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, over half of global farmland is degraded. This is a result of harmful, but common practices such as monocropping, tilling, and the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Regenerative agriculture is different from conventional farming because it aims to protect soil health.
“Regenerative means you are building up something that has been degraded,” says Virginia Jameson, Deputy Secretary for Climate and Working Lands at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
The term “regenerative agriculture,” which has not had a proper definition for the past 90 years, is loosely defined as farming practices that reverse climate change by restoring destroyed soil’s biodiversity, which results in increased carbon sequestration and water retention.
Regenerative agriculture includes a broad and adaptive set of practices that enhance soil health, many of which have been traditionally used by Native Americans. An important method is no or minimal amounts of tilling (raking the soil with a tractor). Tilling breaks up the root structure and soil microbiome. Another regenerative approach is no or minimal chemical usage (pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizer etc.). There are many other ways to practice the regenerative technique, including crop rotations and cover crops, which ensures multiple types of plants are introduced to the soil.
“It is the greatest opportunity we have to help climate change, help biodiversity and to help feed this planet,” says Larry Kopald Co-Founder and President of The Carbon Underground (TCU), a frontrunner in the race to implement regenerative agriculture. “Our goal is to reverse climate change, that is why we exist,” Kopald said.
Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have released more than 898 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To reverse climate change, we would have to bring most of that down. This seems impossible, however, there are around 7.89 billion acres of agricultural land around the world. An acre of regeneratively farmed land can annually pull down up to 3.6 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. If all agricultural land were to be cultivated regeneratively, 10 years from now we would be more than a fourth of the way to completely stopping climate change.
Despite the clear statistics, there is resistance from the Big Agriculture industry, which earns a lot of profit from the production of chemicals associated with farming (the need for which are eliminated with regenerative agriculture). In fact, many current day policies support the use of chemicals. For example, crop insurance. Just like car insurance, farmers buy crop insurance so that they remain financially stable even if their yield doesn’t do well in a given year. “Crop insurance goes down as your use of chemicals goes up,” Kopald said. The pesticide industry also earns between 13.7 to 16.8 in revenue. And although it may seem like regenerative agriculture is facing an uphill battle, two of the largest industries in the world, Big Food and the textile industry, are supportive of regenerative practices. “They are moving to regenerative because of soil health,” Kopald said.
Regenerative agriculture also addresses important health and economic considerations. A good example is pesticides, which enter into our bodies after eating pesticide-grown agricultural products. It can also transfer through breast milk to babies and can cause various cancers, ADHD, birth defects and miscarriages. The estimated environmental and health care costs of pesticide use in the U.S. is about $12 billion a year. In contrast, the increased soil health and biodiversity of regenerative agriculture has been correlated to increased levels of nutrients in the farmed products. In other words, regenerative agriculture produces healthier food. Additionally, without the need for chemical fertilizers or synthetic pesticides, farmers save hundreds to thousands of dollars per year.
Farmers also gain stability. “Climate hits them hardest, they don't have the resources to bounce back,” says Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Roughly two billion (¼) of all the people in the world are farmers, and they usually live in states of poverty. With the increasing abundance of extreme weather events, species migration and more, climate change is impacting the yields of farmland and farmers' livelihood.
Regeneratively farmed land is proven to be more resilient. Kopald conducted a test on a farm in Costa Rica, in which he divided it up, one part regenerative and another conventionally farmed. Six weeks after a ten day drought, the conventional land was barren, while the regenerative land was bright green.
“Regenerative allows plants under harsher circumstances to survive. I think that this is what people will be looking for in the future. And it will show that this is our pathway for climate resilience and adaptation,” Ross said.
As a result of all its benefits, in a recent COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes, Danone, PepsiCo, Cargill and Nestlé agreed to significantly up-scale regenerative agriculture techniques. Other big companies such as General Mills, Walmart, Unilever and Microsoft have also made investments into regenerative agriculture.
As modern trailblazers in implementing regenerative agricultural practices, The Carbon Underground has worked in around 80 countries all over the world.
“There is so much interest in it. At our first worksop there were 300 people,” Ross said.
The CDFA facilitates many meetings with the public, as they try to define the term 'regenerative agriculture’ to be used in state policies and stature.
The interest and demand is there, but regenerative agriculture is facing some problems. There are currently not enough restorative farms to produce large quantities of regeneratively farmed goods. “Unilever realized that even if they bought all of the regenerative soybeans on the planet it would only meet 2% of their needs. And they are only one company,” Kopald said.
In time, as more people convert to regenerative or as the movement gains momentum, the supply should reach the demand.
However, farmers might need a little bit of support along the way.
Switching to regenerative farming after using conventional practices shocks the soil, causing a period of one to three years in which there is a decrease in yields. Afterwards, there is no difference in the amount of product produced from regenerative and conventional farms. Unfortunately, the majority of farmers around the world are smallholdings -they do not own much land or make a lot of income. When one's livelihood depends on crop yields, it is hard to sacrifice a decrease in yields unless there are incentive grants, funding from various companies, or technical training that teaches them how to do it properly.
The CDFA and Carbon Underground both say that their next goals for regenerative agriculture are to provide funding or training for farmers. They just have different ways of approaching it.
Through their Healthy Soils program, the CDFA is able to provide farmers up to 100,000 dollars in incentive grants to implement around thirty regenerative agricultural practices. They have also begun technical assistance programs and field days, where they teach farmers how to implement better practices.
Contrary to targeting the individual farmer, “we need to organize the public,” Kopald said. The Carbon Underground is working to partner with music artists to commit a commission on every ticket or piece of merchandise sold. The money earned will be used to help farms switch to regenerative agriculture. Through social media and previews played during concerts, TCU hopes to garner interest and let people know that this is a viable solution to climate change.
TCU already has a long history of assisting farmers through organizing the public. In 2014, they created Adopt-A-Meter, a program wherein anyone can fund a meter of soil, and the Carbon Underground will restore it using regenerative agricultural practices. They have also designed the first carbon credit that rewards 50% of the profits to the farmer.
Carbon credits are important. They “work like permission slips for emissions,” says CarbonCredits.com, a site for carbon pricing, news, and investment advice . Companies, individuals, and governments can invest in supporting projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere, in order to compensate for their own emissions. A big stepping stone for regenerative agriculture is to be able to better measure the carbon stored underground, so that farmers can merchandise carbon capture.
In general, for this regen ag movement to take off, global buyers will need reliable evidence and statistics to invest in.The CDFA workshops want to ensure that not just carbon, but nutrient cycling, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity are measured as well. “It’s a systems approach,” Ross said.
Unfortunately, one of the problems the CDFA and TCU is facing is greenwashing.
“The point of the state defining it is because we don’t want there to be any greenwashing. We don’t want someone to be saying that they are doing something that is regenerative when it isn’t. We want consumers to trust their food and we want positive environmental effects,” Jameson said.
Ross agrees.
“I am very worried about greenwashing, especially as we talk about big companies who advertise switching to regenerative agriculture. Where is the measurement, where is the verification? And are we all measuring it the same way? This is why we are trying to come to a definition. To ensure that we are all using the same terminology. We are getting a lot of pushback from people who say that they are already doing it,” Ross said.
To combat greenwashing, a CDFA workshop participant proposed the idea of implementing a “Certified Regenerative Organic” certification, similar to the organic certification (meaning no chemicals and regenerative agriculture practices), where farmers’ practices are strictly enforced and surveyed.
Kopald, however, disagrees with this idea. “After half a century organic food production makes up 1.6% of global farming. 1.6% is nothing if you are trying to change the world. Let’s just say it explodes and we grow by 500% the organic movement, now you are at a bit over 5% of the world's soil. If that is all the soil we restore the planet is going to die,” Kopald said.
The problem with a regenerative organic certification is that it may make it entirely to stringent requirements of farmers and limit the amount of people willing to make the switch.
Ross argues that many farmers will choose to implement regenerative agriculture practices for the noticeable benefits, such as resilience, carbon credits or increased yields, even if they don’t choose to get the certification.
Within this conversation, there is the question of affordability. Organic foods are known to be above the market price. In fact, “the premium drives the organic certification program,” Ross said.
Will regeneratively produced foods also be more expensive?
“Regenerative food is only a little bit more expensive right now because we have to pay for training,” Kopald said. Eventually the costs are less. Once the soil is healthy, farmers don’t need to pay thousands of dollars for pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizer and other chemicals. Similarly, healthy soil has incredible water retention capabilities, which reduces irrigation costs.
“Climate change is the biggest threat facing this planet. The only thing with the ability to scale the affordability globally is restoring soil. It’s the only thing. We don’t have any technology that really does it,” Kopald said.
Want to Get Involved? Here are some easy ways that you can take action to support regenerative agriculture:
Visit Adopt a Meter - Founded by the Carbon Underground, Adopt a Meter is an initiative that allows anyone to fund the restoration of degraded soil. Each meter is $5.
Support regenerative farms and companies by buying their produce or following their progress.
Learn more about regenerative agriculture in current news, on The Carbon Underground and CDFA websites, in COP action agendas and by scrolling through results on your search engine.
Start using regenerative agriculture practices such as compost, no pesticides and diverse planting in your very own farms, gardens or homes.
Share what you’ve learned from this article to your community!
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