What is regenerative agriculture?

I wrote this two years ago. It still stands up.

Those new to the term might appreciate a short introduction and pointers to further information, because we will be hearing a lot more about it in the future, and it is of great relevance to the issues of global warming, climate change, food production, land degradation and ecological and environmental harm. It can be briefly described in two ways; as a set of practices, techniques and guiding principles; secondly as a major change of philosophy affecting the way we relate to land. I’ll start by describing 5 sets of techniques.

1. Minimal soil disturbance. The most important is no till, or no ploughing. Harvesting of crops and clearance of old plants is also carried out with minimal disturbance to soil.
2. Keeping the surface of the soil covered all year round by using cover crops. This protects the soil ecology and lowers carbon emissions from bare soil. It also maximises photosynthesis.
3. Rotation of crops to manage and maintain soil fertility and multi-cropping to avoid monocultural crops where possible.
4. Minimal inputs of chemical fertiliser, pesticides and fungicides which damage soil biology and structure. Healthy soils need little or no input.
5. Measurement and monitoring of soil health involving microbiological, structural and nutrient values. This is driven and informed by recent advances in soil science.

The agricultural revolution of the 18th century was rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, the growth of rational science and the birth of the industrial revolution. It focused on ‘improvement’ of land and increases in productivity which allowed a growth in population and wealth, fuelling the growth of industry. That is still with us today in the form of the industrial extractive model of agriculture. Land is cleared of all competitive growth, ploughed and seeded. Nutrients are provided by manure or chemical fertilisers and problems of disease and infestation are managed by pesticides and fungicides to maximise yields. This has indeed allowed a global growth in population to 7bn, predicted to plateau at 11bn. This model is unsustainable and has resulted in pollution, loss of biodiversity, species extinctions, desertification and loss of usable land faster than new land can be cleared to replace it. We are running out of land. The UN warned some time ago that we have about 60 years of harvests left.

Regenerative agriculture offers the reversal of the above consequences of human activity. It can be used to restore completely degraded land, even desert, to productive health. It can increase carbon sequestration and the size of planetary carbon sinks. It is scalable and can be applied to any area of land management from small gardens upwards. The socio-political implications are outside the scope of this note, but the low input costs can restore profitability to the small farmer while curbing the domination of the corporate agrochemical industry over the global food supply. RA is compatible with new technology being developed for precision agriculture. Most importantly it offers a new way of relating to the land, one which sees us as part of a balanced whole, not in a struggle against nature but working with it. That is the real revolution.

For those who want to explore further I would recommend finding YouTube videos rather than books. As much as I value Charles Massy’s book Call of the Reed Warbler it is a rather massive tome. Gabe Brown is a US farmer with 20 years of practical experience. He gives a Ted talk and has some good videos. Elaine Ingham is the microbiologist godmother of the science, also with YouTube videos. It is a journey of discovery. Good luck.