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Soil-first farming: why regenerative agriculture is gaining ground
Driving home from Wales to rural Hertfordshire, 40 miles north of London, farmer John Cherry was struck not by the bucolic landscape but by the state of his windscreen.
“In the past, at this time of year, you wouldn’t be able to see out of the windscreen because it would be splattered with dead insects. There were one or two,” he says. “Then suddenly we’re driving onto our farm and there are moths and insects everywhere, all over the road, bats flying around, all manner of birds, and it felt like, ‘Hang on, something is happening here.’”
That something is the way Cherry farms his land – and his obsession, as he describes it, with the soil. “The soil is an incredibly complex ecosystem,” he says. “It’s like a poor man’s rainforest. The better your soil, the better everything else performs.”
Making the switch to regenerative farming
Cherry is one of a growing number of regenerative farmers. A loose umbrella term, regenerative agriculture is an approach that focusses not just on maximising how much food can be produced per acre – the conventional, monoculture, fertiliser-drenched method – but on how the land and surrounding environment can be restored and preserved. Its core principles include “no-till” farming, where ploughing is avoided to minimise soil disturbance; “cover crops” to increase soil organic matter and water retention; diverse crop rotations; managed livestock grazing; and negligible chemical use.
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The potential benefits are profound, Cherry says. Healthy soil supports biodiversity (every year more amber- and red-endangered list bird species flock to his farm – though he is most excited by the dung beetles); reduces erosion and flood risk; produces nutritious food; and absorbs and stores CO2.
Regenerative agriculture is an approach that focusses not just on maximising how much food can be produced per acre – the conventional, monoculture, fertiliser-drenched method – but on how the land and surrounding environment can be restored and preserved
On his 1,250-acre no-till farm, Cherry’s main crops are wheat, barley, oats, beans and linseed, sown in rotation with a herbal ley – a mix of herbs, grasses and legumes – to build soil fertility and add some spice to the diet of his grass-fed Shorthorn cattle. Since beginning to incorporate regenerative methods in 2010, it has been a continual journey of “tinkering”, failing and trying again, he says. But the switch has been fruitful: while farmers in the UK suffered with reduced yields due to a sodden winter followed by a dry spring, Cherry’s crops have proved resilient.
“We’ve had a good year despite the horrible weather,” Cherry says. “It’s because our soil is in good shape. It’s held onto the rain a lot longer than it would have done if we’d been ploughing.”
Building resilience to climate and political shocks
No-till farming is not new, and some argue it is simply a return to farming’s original modus operandi before modern-day conventional methods took over. Still, no-till has seen a surge of interest in recent years, from smallholders to big food conglomerates such as Nestlé, Arla and Danone – and, increasingly, venture capitalists.
One of the drivers is “a feeling that current approaches aren’t working and that this idea […] can provide long-term stability,” says Richard Francksen, professor of zoology at the University of Cumbria in north-west England. “Farmers are feeling uncertain about the future in a lot of respects. Regenerative agriculture can reduce input costs and provide longer-term resilience to change, whether climate or political.”
Today, farmers in the UK and around the world are walking a tightrope when it comes to climate and geopolitical shocks. Climate change is felt in crops ravaged by drought and floods; narrow profit margins are being squeezed by global price rises of chemicals such as fertilisers, which are dependent on fossil fuels; and trade disruption has been caused by Brexit, de-globalisation and Covid-19.
Agriculture is one of the principal contributors to global warming and the destruction of the natural world, accounting for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization1. Centuries of damaging, industrialised farming practices have left the earth scorched, biodiversity depleted and farmers struggling to make ends meet. The Global Environment Facility, a multilateral funding organisation, estimates that 95% of the world’s land could become degraded by 20502 – the UN warns that 40% already is3.
Agriculture is one of the principal contributors to global warming and the destruction of the natural world, accounting for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions
Reducing inputs to increase profits
Proponents of the regenerative approach believe it could help to heal the land and shrink farming’s carbon footprint, while also boosting farms’ ecological and economic resilience. Yet questions – and obstacles – remain.
“It’s partly mindset; you’re always looking for reasons not to change,” Cherry says. “If you’ve been doing things a certain way for 50 years, it’s hard to say, ‘I’ve been wrong.’”
Education is key, which is why Cherry co-founded Groundswell, a UK regenerative agriculture festival, in 2016. Rooted in peer-to-peer learning, the festival has grown from a few hundred attendees to some 8,000 last year. “The lovely thing about Groundswell is that it does change people’s minds,” he says. “I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve come up to me with tears in their eyes saying, ‘You’ve changed my life.’”
Even for those keen to change, the transition isn’t simple, however. “Context is hugely important,” says Francksen. “The barriers vary for different farmers: depending on the scale of their farm, location, climate. All fall under some kind of risk perception: what it might mean for bottom lines, potential yield penalties, whether there are supportive agricultural policies.”
While yields can initially drop, there is evidence to suggest that they rebound within the following three to six years4, Francksen adds. And for Cherry, a massive drop in input costs – such as chemicals and heavy pieces of machinery – means his surplus is larger. “There really isn’t much money in farming at the moment, so the less spent means any income is pure profit.”
Putting carbon back underground
“Capital is essential” to support the shift to regenerative agriculture, says Larry Kopald, founder of US-based non-governmental organisation The Carbon Underground (TCU). TCU works with farmers, scientists, companies and policymakers to restore soil health – and draw down millions of tonnes of CO2 – by accelerating the global transition.
TCU works through partnerships with farmers in Africa, Europe, Asia, South and Central America, and Europe, and has found that different parts of the world – and different farms – require different incentives. Sometimes, for example, that means working to help farmers commercialise their carbon, while TCU’s Adopt A Meter programme allows consumers to donate USD 5 which goes to small farmers for help with things like equipment purchase and to support co-op development.
Kopald is adamant the concept can be scaled, and argues that it is the “only scalable, immediate and economic way to fight climate change and improve food and water security. With roughly two billion people growing our food on six hundred million farms, the opportunity to scale is already there. And with nature as our business partner – supplying many of our input needs for free – the economic benefits to farmers, food companies, and governments will improve.”
Francksen is more cautious – there are still “evidence gaps” in terms of scaling regenerative agriculture and what it might mean for food security, he says. “We need to be careful that if we’re reducing total outputs on some farmland, we’re not just creating greater pressures elsewhere.”
With nature as our business partner… supplying many of our input needs for free – the economic benefits to farmers, food companies, and governments will improve.
The only way to feed the world?
While there is robust evidence that regenerative agriculture brings benefits such as improved soil health and soil water storage, data is less clear when it comes to no-till farming techniques or replacing chemical pesticides with natural pest suppression. There are also concerns that – given the lack of a standard definition or regulatory framework – some corporations are greenwashing by branding only minor changes to farming practices as “regenerative”.
Yet, continued research is underway and advocates argue that shifting to regenerative agriculture is critical for farming and the planet. “The urgency of progress cannot be overstated,” Kopald says, “given that agriculture is currently the second biggest cause of climate change, and climate change is projected to reduce food production just as the world is adding a billion people. It’s the only thing that can feed the world.”
There are signs of movement. Current investments in regenerative farming – from both private and public funds – are already larger than the entire organic food industry, TCU’s Larry Kopald says.
Current investments in regenerative farming – from both private and public funds – are already larger than the entire organic food industry
He draws parallels between regenerative agriculture and renewable energy, which is being rolled out globally at an exponential rate, offering hope that by working with, rather than against, nature we may soon reach peak emissions.
Similarly, when it comes to farming, he says: “Work with nature and the costs go down, the negative impacts go down, and the promise of the future goes up.”
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It is not intended for distribution, publication, or use in any jurisdiction where such distribution, publication, or use would be unlawful, nor is it aimed at any person or entity to whom it would be unlawful to address such a marketing communication.
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