In this article, we’ll look closely at the intersecting relationship between regenerative agriculture, environmentalism, and food security. There are ways that regenerative practices can not only benefit the environment, but feed our global population as well.
You might also want to check out these articles on regenerative agriculture:
In summary, regenerative agriculture, along with regenerative gardening and regenerative homesteading, is a collective effort aimed at restoring the health of the Earth by transforming conventional and industrial agricultural practices.
Now that you understand the basics of regenerative agriculture, let’s look at what’s happening currently with food security and the climate emergency.
Food security and poverty has a lot of overlap with the issue of climate change. As climate change creates shifts in weather patterns, there is a higher likelihood of crop failure or decreased crop yields. Shifts in temperatures can increase pest pressure, or cause disease in the plants, both of which can negatively impact the harvest.
As global crop harvests decline, what crops are available are offered at an increased price due to supply and demand. And so those who are already not financially well off have even more trouble with purchasing food.
Regenerative agriculture offers two different solutions simultaneously: it looks to benefit the environment, decreasing the alarming rate of CO2e emissions that we see from agriculture and other industries; and it does this while offering increased yields when compared to conventional agriculture.
Regenerative agriculture presents a promising solution to address both the issues of food security and poverty in the context of the climate emergency. This approach focuses on holistic land management practices that aim to restore and enhance soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience.
Regenerative agriculture offers drought-resilience: Since regenerative agriculture builds soil health, it in turn also improves the water-holding capacity of soils. With other practices such as mulching and cover cropping, plants are better able to withstand periods of drought and require less irrigation to thrive.
The more drought-resilient a farm or garden is, the less impact drought will have on the harvest.
Regenerative practices enhance plant fertility: As the soil is prioritized and carbon is sequestered, that in turn causes a thriving microbiome. It’s the microbiome that offers nutrients to the plants.
The more nutrients that are available for the plant to intake, the healthier they will be.
Regenerative farming focuses on adaptability and resilience: Farmers implement practices, such as seed saving, to create plants that are well adapted to their climates. An plant adapted to a shorter growing season will be able to be sold at farmers markets, whereas an early cold snap might have meant that plants were damaged from the cold.
Regenerative farming is usually small-scale: This offers more outreach and connection with the surrounding community.
The Dust Bowl occurred in the Great Plains of the United States in the 1930’s. For a century, the soil had been severely depleted from soil practices that were too intense. Pasture was overgrazed, farms were mono-cropped, and there was no crop rotation or cover cropping.
This was combined with drought, high temperatures, and the Great Depression.
Sound familiar?
This was the perfect storm for severe soil erosion and food shortages. It’s actually one of the reasons that Victory Gardening maintained its popularity between World Wars.
The Dust Bowl was resolved by many of the practices that we see in regenerative farms today, enforced by the United States government. Farmers were encouraged to plant cover crops in the off-season, and to implement crop rotation principles. Windbreaks, hedgerows, and other tree plantings were put in place to help reduce erosion and help decrease the impact of wind on the soil.
Farmers also were taught to work with the contour of the land as a technique to prevent erosion.
However, these practices weren’t widespread for long.
Today, regenerative agriculture and gardening is inspired by the practices implemented during the Dust Bowl, most of which originated in Indigenous, African, and African-American farming techniques that have been practiced for centuries.
When we focus on building the health of the soil, we increase fertility, grow healthier and more robust plants, become more water-secure, and encourage a healthier ecosystem that is more biodiverse.
And all of this enhances crop productivity.
But the proof is in the figgy pudding.
1. Leontino Balbo, regenerative sugar cane in Brazil:
Leontino Balbo owns a huge sugar cane agriculture business - so big, that they are the world’s top supplier of organic sugar globally.
Even though this example is based on a monoculture, Leontino implements with other regenerative practices on his land, which in turn gives him a 20% higher yield when compared with conventional agriculture.
What’s more impressive is that the practices built up his soil health and its water holding capacity, which eliminated the need for irrigation on his operation. Eventually, he stopped using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well.
In an interview, he says that the yearly harvests have doubled, and that biodiversity of mammal species in the sugar cane fields are twice that as what is found in Brazilian national parks.
2. Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution in Japan
**One of the books that I think is essential reading for anyone interested in sustainable agriculture, homesteading, and gardening** is Masanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution.
In an interview with Mother Earth News, Fukuoka details how he shunned the “standard” ways of burning crop residue and adding large amounts of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
Instead, he turned to practices such as mulching with the straw residue, which led to him eliminating the use of synthetic chemicals on his land.
While the health of his soil increased, and the surrounding environment benefited, his yields were on-par with high yield winter grain and rice yields in conventional Japanese systems.
What’s impressive is that when compared with the standard grain yields in the United States, his harvests were enormous: 1,300 pounds of grain per quarter acre!
3. Rodale Institute Farm: resilience in drought
The Rodale Institute is one of the most recognized institutions in regenerative farming.
As they run tests on site and in the field on regenerative agriculture principles, they found that their farm had an especially high resistance to drought.
The water retention capacity in the regeneratively farmed soil meant that their corn yielded 28%-34% more than conventional farms during drought years.
As drought becomes more common as a response to climate change, this is good news in the realm of food security.
4. Global food security and enhanced self-sufficiency: combined data from over 60 sustainable and regenerative farms point to improved outcomes
This large survey of regenerative farmers found that 790,000 farms that produced irrigated rice were able to reduce pesticide use while increasing their harvests by 10% overall.
They noted that staple grain crops, such as wheat, had an overall 200% more yield in areas that relied on rainfall for irrigation, when compared with conventional farming methods in similar growing zones.
They also note that in the United States, the top 25% of regenerative farms have a higher yields than the top 25% of standard farms.
In farmland that was farmed intensively, a switch to sustainable growing does show an initial yield decrease of 10-20%, but usually they come back to pre-regenerative levels within 5 years.
Regenerative agriculture is a means to stop both climate change and hunger: the regions of the world that are economically underserved are the ones that would benefit the most from their greater yields.
5. General Mills and their large-scale regenerative farming overhaul
I think it’s good to have a healthy dose of skepticism to ensure that big companies like General Mills aren’t greenwashing, but from what I can tell this company’s mission looks promising.
A spokesperson for the company says that when almond farms in California followed regenerative principles, yields stayed similar year over year, and water retention increased six-fold.
With almonds being a water-intensive crop in water-scarce California, this is amazing news.
6. David Johnson’s Regenerative Cotton
In an article from Climate and Capital Media, they highlight David Johnson, a agricultural researcher. Working with increased soil microbiology and carbon capture, he was able to yield twice the cotton harvest in his test field when compared to local cotton producers.
In order to get this result, he didn’t need to use any fertilizer, herbicides, or insecticides.
7. Gabe Brown of Kiss the Ground
If you have not seen the Kiss the Ground Documentary, I highly recommend watching it!
Gabe Brown is one of the leading voices of sustainable farming. According to CSU Chico, he tends to a 5000 acre ranch, and has done a ton of experimenting and research on how to best implement regenerative principles on his land.
As he has tended to the soil and implemented eco friendly practices on his farm, he harvests 20-25% more food than the normal yields in his local area.
8. Oxton’s Organics in the UK
This farm was profiled in Richard Perkins’ Regenerative Agriculture book. The owner of the farm, Jake, took over his family’s organic farm and implemented regenerative practices, such as no-till.
He reports that in 2018, they cut their crop production area by more than 50%, but found that they were able to increase their profits by around 10,000 rbp.
No-till gave them some massive advantages that year: an extremely rainy spring meant that they normally would have had to wait to till the soil before planting, but that wasn’t necessary with their new farming model.
Then, that summer was record breaking in terms of high temperatures and extended periods without rain. While they had more water on hand for the smaller growing space, they also had more water retention in their soil than in years prior.
Overall, Jake says his farm was more productive - with certain crops, he was able to grow twice as much.
9. American Farmland Trust’s Soil Health Case Study of MadMax Farms in Ohio
This study from the American Farmland Trust looks at Eric Niemeyer’s business, MadMax Farms. He switched to regenerative methods, such as cover cropping and no-till, and was able to increase his corn and soy bean yields from his baseline harvest each year. He went from harvesting 165 bushels of corn up to 195 bushels, and increased his soybean yield from 45 to 65 bushels.
In addition to a higher yield, he discovered that he needed to sow less seeds for the germination rates that he needed.
He has found that he barely needs herbicides, and has decreased his need for fungicide, offering a cost savings when compared to his standard practices.
10. Takao Furuno’s integrated livestock farm
Takao Furuno is a Japanese rice farmer who is featured as a Social Entreprenur by the Schwab Foundation.
Furuno decided to integrate ducks into his already organic farm. This practice had been practiced for millennia, but hadn’t been implemented in recent years. The ducks offer a second crop on the farm, and provide beneficial fertilizer and pest control. The ducks also are able to dig up weeds without disrupting the rice plants. Instead, they actually add oxygen to the water, which causes the rice plants to grow healthier roots.
Adding the ducks into his existing farm system increased his harvests of rice by 20-50%, depending on the year.
All this with a reduced amount of labor input and increased income.
While regenerative farming is based on indigenous traditional practices, it is not closed off from modern technology. There are upcoming innovations that can be paired with sustainable agriculture to further enhance food security, yield, and crop resilience.
Two of my favorite resources for looking at plant breeding projects are Joseph Lofthouse, advocate for Landrace Seed Saving and Gardening, and the Experimental Farm Network, a group of plant breeders working on plant diversity and adaptability.
The Experimental Farm Network is doing some commendable work with grains. Of note is an on-going project to improve a variety of perennial sorghum, a crop that is usually grown as an annual. M61 survivor sorghum currently has a small rate of perennialization, but they are working with farmers and gardeners across the country to improve this strain. Since perennial crops hold a higher potential for carbon sequestration and soil health when compared with annuals, a perennial grain would be a huge achievement.
Equally commendable is Lofthouse’s work for breeding staple crops, such as beans, squash, and tomatoes, for shorter seasons and other favorable characteristics. One such example is his Landrace Buttercup Squash, which was bred for low-input farming. Squash is typically a heavy feeder, and so in turn is usually heavily fertilized and irrigated. But with this squash, large inputs aren’t necessary for a great harvest, and they are pest-resistant to boot.
Check out my list of drought-resistant vegetable varieties here for more plant-breeding marvels.
Yes! Studies show that on average regenerative farms have a stable yield or increased yields, as the examples in this article illustrate. While some farmers report initial yield losses, usually they were able to work things out and find pre-regenerative harvests again with some modifications.
What is especially promising is that these farms are able to use less water and synthetic chemicals, further improving the environmental benefit of their no-till practices.
