Regenerative Agriculture: The Basics
There is something beautiful about growing your own food, tending the earth and being gifted sustenance in return. When our current agricultural systems contribute to a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions returning to our roots and growing our own food may be our salvation (1). Redefining our agricultural systems is an excellent opportunity to transform global emissions. One method that has much potential is regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative agriculture (RA) is a food production system that emphasizes soil health and biodiversity. It works to balance a productive form of food production while maintaining a nutrient dense soil with a rich microbiome. It is designed to eliminate the need for pesticides by promoting symbiotic relationships within the soil and between the soil, plants and insects. It has been shown that pest populations were 10x higher in fields treated with insecticides compared to fields grown using a regenerative technique (2). This result is counter intuitive when you first think about it but if you delve deeper it actually makes a lot of sense. When plants are bombarded with pesticides and fertilizers they rely less on their environment, the chemical signals they depend on to communicate are overshadowed by synthetic chemicals. When this happens they can no longer send and receive vital information between one another. For example when one plant is being attacked by a pest they will send out a distress signal to those around them to warn of the impending danger. This warning allows plants to produce alkaloids that deter pests from consuming them. Some alkaloids work to make leaves extremely bitter so the pest has no interest in eating them. However without this communication the plants are caught off guard, defenseless against pests. RA focuses instead on building the relationship between plants and their neighbors so that together they may support and strengthen one another.
While our current agricultural system is based on growing monocultures, RA is based on growing plants together that positively affect one another. By supporting symbiotic relationships plants are able to defend themselves against pests and receive nutrients from partners in the soil that they would have a hard time getting by themselves. Soil health is extremely important in RA. Healthy soil means there is a vast microbiome converting waste and providing nutrients, a fungal network to connect plants with each other, and plenty of organic matter being decomposed to give back to the soil what is required by the plants. When all of these pieces work in harmony you not only have happy plants but happy soil that can support even more growth! Overall it results in a system that actually sequesters carbon rather than emitting it, as our current systems do.
Yields are typically less from regenerative farms but net nutrient content is significantly higher. Due to it being of higher quality it is sold for human consumption versus feedstock for cattle which has a lower market value. Therefore profits can actually be much higher even if yields are less. In one study regenerative fields on average yielded 29% lower but profited 78% more (2). It is about a balance between a production system and a consumption system. Production systems emphasize yields while consumption systems emphasize nutritional content. A balance is required to not only create the highest quality food but also make it readily available to all. The difficulty with this is maintaining the principles of RA while scaling it up to accommodate larger societies. We don’t have all of the answers now, but as this field grows and more people turn to new forms of agriculture, solutions will arise that not only benefit our health but our planet too.
References:
J. Poore,T. Nemecek (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science Jun 2018: 987-992. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
LaCanne, C. E., & Lundgren, J. G. (2018). Regenerative agriculture: merging farming and natural resource conservation profitably. PeerJ, 6, e4428. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831153/
L. Schreefel, R.P.O. Schulte, I.J.M. de Boer, A. Pas Schrijver, H.H.E. van Zanten. (2020). Regenerative agriculture – the soil is the base. Global Food Security, Volume 26, 100404, ISSN 2211-9124. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912420300584#:~:text=Regenerative%20agriculture%20(RA)%20is%20proposed,solution%20towards%20sustainable%20food%20systems.&text=From%20our%20analysis%2C%20we%20propose,contribute%20to%20multiple%20ecosystem%20services.