By Gabby Cournoyer

According to a study conducted on the impacts of industrial agriculture, industrial agriculture is responsible for around a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The industrial agricultural industry contributes to many detrimental forms of environmental degradation, such as water pollution from agricultural runoff, increased levels of air pollution, a decrease in biodiversity, and the degradation of soils. 

Although industrial agriculture is necessary to uphold food systems and security in our societies today, many scientists, environmentalists, and farmers have started to explore different farming methods that may not be as harmful to the natural environment. One of the most popular methods is called regenerative farming.

What is regenerative farming?

Regenerative farming is a type of farming that works to actively improve soil health and restore the natural environment. Regenerative farming is built on the concept that healthier soil has a direct correlation to healthier plants, animals, and ecosystems. This style of farming has a few key goals and utilizes various practices to aid in the accomplishment of these goals. 

Improving soil health
To directly improve soil health, regenerative farming aims to specifically reduce the physical, biological, and chemical disturbances that occur in soil systems. Reducing disturbances happen through utilizing practices such as no-till planting, cover cropping, and diversification of crop rotations on these farms. No-till practices result in less nutrients lost through the process of tillage, which improves soil health and reduces erosion and carbon dioxide emissions. Cover cropping keeps living roots in soil systems, which helps with nutrient abundance and water retention in soils. Diversifying crops helps minimize the risk of disease and pest prevalence in soil systems and across farms generally. 

Improving water quality
Another key goal of regenerative farming is to improve water quality. This type of farming aims to do so by decreasing chemical disturbance in soil systems (which directly affect water systems), increasing water retention, and reducing agricultural runoff. Chemical disturbances in soil systems can be drastically decreased by utilizing practices mentioned above, such as cover cropping and no-till. These practices also increase the amount of water retention. 

Agricultural runoff is a huge contributing factor to decreased water quality. Agricultural runoff typically increases nitrogen and phosphorus levels because these nutrients are commonly found in fertilizers. The overabundance of these nutrients leads to harmful algal blooms and decreased oxygen levels, which in turn harms aquatic organisms in these ecosystems, which ULTIMATELY decreases the quality of the water drastically. Regenerative farming utilizes a different set of practices to help combat these issues, and ultimately improve water quality. 

Improving ecosystem health

Through the improvement of water quality and soil health, regenerative farming ultimately helps improve ecosystem health overall. Regenerative farming focuses on utilizing the natural environment and limiting the amount of chemical and physical disturbances, and by doing so this overall strengthens the health of the ecosystem. Because regenerative farming steers clear of disturbances, the ecosystems remain self-sufficient and do not become dependent on external resources to function properly. 

How does regenerative farming improve food systems? 
Because the main goal of regenerative farming is to create and maintain healthier soil, this overall leads to a healthier ecosystem and space to grow food. Because the ecosystem is typically in a better state, this provides farmers with a more reliable farming space which also correlates to a more reliable and resilient harvest. These harvests often produce more crops which means more food to contribute to our food systems and more income for regenerative farmers. 

Because the use of chemicals is not a part of regenerative farming, crops produced by these types of farms often are much healthier for the consumer as well. Regenerative agriculture has been proven to be more nutrient-dense because it is being grown in soil that is more nutrient-dense. Finding produce that is free of chemicals is also a rarity in many food systems today, so finding farms that utilize regenerative farming practices is a way to ensure that you are not putting chemicals into your body!

How can I find farms that practice regenerative farming?

Regenerative farming is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, and in many other countries as well! One super cool resource available to locate regenerative farms is a website that provides a map of all of the farms utilizing these practices.

By being conscious of our consumption and choosing to purchase from farmers who utilize these practices, we can be a part of the solution and support regenerative farmers.