Demystifying Regenerative Agriculture

Hi everyone and welcome to the interview and analysis corner! This week I wanted to experiment with a new format, explaining some of the buzzword concepts that we often see in the food industry, but that can also be quite confusing.

Today I wanted to talk about the idea of “regenerative agriculture” and to simply explain why it has become such a hot topic of conversation in recent months. Let’s dig in.

It’s safe to say that climate change is beginning to have a noticeable effect on our food production with farmers’ incomes in the United States declining and the costs of producing staple products - from cacao to olive oil - becoming increasingly unmanageable all around the world.

The research shows that conventional agriculture contributes to at least a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, consumes 70% of our diminishing freshwater reserves, and is responsible for around 80% of tropical deforestation.

All of this has gotten people asking one simple question: how can we do this better?

A recent phenomenon.

Earlier this year, salad giant - Sweetgreen - announced that it would be introducing meat to its menu for the first time ever. The meat it’ll serve, according to one company spokeswoman, would be produced in Australia and New Zealand with specific attention being paid to animal welfare and soil health.

Using so-called “regenerative agriculture”, Sweetgreen representatives maintained that it would serve meat while simultaneously being climate conscious. Of course, many environmentalists were sceptical as meat has never ranked highly on the list of sustainable food products.

It doesn't stop there. A famous, L.A.-based vegan restaurant - Sage’s Bistro - turned heads when it announced that it would stop its vegan theme in favour of “regenerative” beef.

Nestlé has also invested millions of dollars in increasing its regenerative agriculture portfolio and PepsiCo has done the same, doubling its regenerative agriculture footprint to 1.8 million acres.

Getting to the bottom of it.

With all this hype, surrounding this allegedly brilliant ecological idea of regenerative agriculture, very few people with whom I have spoken actually know what it means and, more so, why it’s good for the planet.

Simply put, “regenerative agriculture” is an idea that involves farming in harmony with nature or producing food while caring for the land, the farmers that work it, and the biodiverse ecosystems that are affected by agriculture in general.

Whether it is growing crops in a way that preserves soil health and sequesters carbon dioxide or using fewer synthetic fertilisers and pesticides to make sure that ecosystems are preserved, regenerative agriculture focuses on a more balanced, and somewhat ancient, approach to producing food.

Reading between the lines.

While regenerative agriculture sounds very pretty and hopeful, especially in the context of appealing to climate activists, the idea has its fair share of critics.

Firstly, regenerative agriculture lacks any clear definitions. As many food reporters might say, it is more of a philosophy than an exact science, which makes regenerative agriculture particularly hard to apply on a commercial or policy level.

Especially when trying to ensure that a whole country, or the world, practices a sustainable agricultural technique, using a vague “way of doing things” is seldom a constructive plan.

Secondly, many experts disagree on whether “sustainable meat” is even a realistic idea. Beef, for example, makes up about 3% of calories in American diets, but it accounts for about half of the country’s agricultural land use. On top of that, cows create large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Producing beef, or any type of meat, is incredible inefficient, regenerative or not.

Lastly, but certainly not least, regenerative agriculture is expensive. To use fewer pesticides, to have cattle out in the fresh air, to eliminate the use of weedkillers requires time and effort that most farmers, particularly in the United States, don’t have.

At the moment, net farm income is on track to plummet more than 25% - or $43 billion - this year alone, the largest single-year decline on record according to the US Department of Agriculture. The same can be said for many other farmers across the world. So expecting farmers to rethink their farming strategy while also just scraping by is a tough ask.

Concluding thoughts.

After all of this, I hope you understand just a little bit more about the sexy new buzzword that is “regenerative agriculture”. In typical Food Jungle fashion, short and concise explanations are the way to go.

As someone who has been in the food industry for quite some time now, I would love to see this be implemented on a larger scale. Whether PepsiCo or Sweetgreen, it is great to see sustainable farming practices get some recognition amidst an evident climate crisis.

However, when it comes to seemingly perfect climate solutions we shouldn’t get complacent. Regenerative agriculture is still in its nascent stages and requires a lot of tweaking. And this little summary is, realistically, only scratching the surface.

But with the right marketing, funding, and lobbying effort, I feel like regenerative agriculture will have its moment to shine hopefully sooner rather than later.

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