Regenerative Agriculture Is the New Farming Buzzword, but Few Can Agree on What It Means

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Earlier this year, NSW wine and olive oil producer Sam Statham recieved a phone call from a committed vegan.

The caller was seeking an assurance that animals weren’t used to graze the olive grove and vineyard. But the Stathams regularly agist sheep for exactly that purpose, and as a natural source of fertiliser.

“I had a sudden realisation that some people, not only do they not understand where their food comes from, they also might not understand what an ecosystem is or how nature actually works,” says Statham, who runs the family farm Rosnay Organic near Canowindra in the state’s central west.

It’s the main reason Statham now offers farm tours at Rosnay, which is certified to Australia’s national organic standard. He tries to provide clarity to visitors around the meaning of terms such as organic and regenerative, which are increasingly used to promote supermarket products.

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Guerra a las neuronas: cómo la industria tóxica oculta info

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No faltan pruebas. La industria química responsable de inundar cuerpos y territorios con agrotóxicos ha omitido o falseado datos para ocultar los peligros que provocan  sus productos sobre cuerpos y ambientes.  Ejemplos cómo los Monsanto papers (la confirmación sobre cómo se ocultó a sabiendas el daño cancerígeno y genotóxico del glifosato), o los Paraquat papers (cómo Syngenta sabía desde hace décadas la asociación entre ese herbicida altamente tóxico y un trastorno del sistema nervioso central como el Parkinson), hacen caer a pedazos la propaganda corporativa que pregona la inocuidad de los plaguicidas.

La nueva evidencia, esta vez, llega desde Europa.  Recientemente, un estudio publicado en PubMed, una plataforma de difusión de trabajos científicos sostenida por el Centro Nacional de Información Biotecnológica de los Estados Unidos (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37259092/) realizado por los investigadores suecos Axel Mie y Christina Ruden reveló que los productores de plaguicidas, incluidos Bayer y Syngenta, habían presentado estudios de neurotoxicidad a la EPA (Agencia de protección ambiental estadounidense), pero no a la Autoridad Europea de Seguridad Alimentaria (EFSA).

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Exploring the connections between Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture

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Food security is one of a human being’s most basic needs, and the threat of food insecurity causes primal anxiety. Food insecurity is among the main causes of climate-related migration and, in turn, one of the main causes of the growing insecurity of nations.

With these vulnerabilities so raw, it’s no wonder people worldwide are questioning their food supply or that worldwide concern is surging about an industrial food system that feeds climate change and causes political instability – not to mention a system that weakens our immune systems and Nucauses serious nutrition-related health conditions and diseases.

It should also be no surprise that there is rapidly scaling curiosity about alternative food systems that don’t ride roughshod over human rights; about systems that keep people and the planet safe and healthy. And yet it can be confusing to understand the similarities and differences between these alternative systems. Let’s take a look at two approaches: Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture.

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La agroecología ha llegado para quedarse

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La agroecología surgió en Latinoamérica, hacia finales de la década de 1970, como una respuesta a la crisis ecológica y los problemas sociales y medioambientales generados por la agricultura indiustrializada. Desde su origen, estuvo ligada a movimientos campesinos, ambientalistas y otros que luchan por conseguir la soberanía alimentaria y la justicia social. La finalidad de la agroecología, como ciencia, práctica y movimiento social, es establecer formas de producción y consumo alternativas al modelo productivo agroindustrial, y que apunten hacia una agricultura socialmente más justa, económicamente viable y ecológicamente apropiada.

La introducción de la agroecología en los espacios académicos y políticos no ha sido fácil. Durante las primeras décadas, las personas relacionadas con el incipiente sector fueron ignoradas, cuando no ridiculizadas, por la corriente dominante, y tildadas de ilusas, predicadoras, radicales, charlatanas o calificativos peores.

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Find Regenerative Farmers. Help Us Grow Our Regenerative Farm Map!

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Have you seen the Regenerative Farm Map resource we have been developing over the past several years?
The Regenerative Farm Map is a resource that was invented with a revolutionary idea at it’s heart: the idea that the regenerative movement has already spread across the whole world, and all we need to do to make it grow is connect people with their local regenerative farmers. This idea has proved to be true! And now we are asking you to help us grow the map even more!

We recently added the option to submit regenerative agriculture education centers to the farm map. Now we are asking that you help us find the regenerative agriculture education centers and regenerative farms in your area that we have not yet added to the Regenerative Farm Map.

Check out the Regenerative Farm Map

General Public: Submit a Regenerative Farm or Regenerative Agriculture Education Center
Farmers and Educators: Submit a Regenerative Farm or Regenerative Agriculture Education Center that you Own/Manage
Make a Donation to help support this and other work that the OCA does

Food Sector Making “More Promises Than Progress” on Regenerative Agriculture

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A ground-breaking study of 79 global agri-food firms has found that 50 (63%) publicly refer to the potential of regenerative agriculture as a solution to the climate and biodiversity crises. However, of these 50 companies, 64% (32/50) including Chipotle, Domino’s and Bunge have not put in place any formal quantitative company-wide targets to achieve those ambitions. The report will be discussed at a private investor-only event being held today at New York Climate Action Week.

Key findings include:

  • 64% (32/50) of agri-food companies that publicly report on regenerative agriculture as an opportunity do not put in place any formal quantitative company-wide targets to achieve those ambitions
  • Only 8% (4/50) of companies that publicly report on regenerative agriculture as an opportunity have financial commitments in place to support farmers in their supply chain to incentivise uptake of regenerative agriculture
  • Regulatory risk: new laws in EU and UK, and new TNFD framework, put revenue, value and reputation at risk with EU-based firms facing fines of up to 4% of revenue if marketing is judged to be misleading
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El camino de la agricultura hacia una producción más ecológica y sostenible

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Nuestros ‘sistemas alimentarios’ son muy eficaces. Pero no son sostenibles. Contribuyen a la pérdida de biodiversidad, a la contaminación del suelo, el aire y el agua… y al cambio climático.

¿Cómo podemos restaurar la naturaleza garantizando, al mismo tiempo, nuestra seguridad alimentaria? El equipo de Euronews lo analiza en este episodio del programa ‘The Road To Green’.

Normandía es una región que se encuentra en el norte de Francia. Hoy día, los niveles de pesticidas, herbicidas y fertilizantes químicos siguen siendo elevados en la zona. El objetivo europeo es reducir a la mitad su uso, de aquí a 2030.

El periodista Cyril Fourneris ha conocido a agricultores convencionales que ya lo han hecho, como es el caso de Emmanuel. Este antiguo aficionado a la agricultura intensiva, se ha pasado a la agroecología.

“Tradicionalmente, cultivamos trigo tras el lino. Yo no hago eso, cultivo colza. Es una planta que captará nitrógeno en otoño, en lugar de verterlo en la capa freática.

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Unlocking the True Potential of Vegetables

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Want to boost your immune system, increase the nutrient content in your food, improve your mental health and detox your body? Fermented vegetables are for you!

Fermentation is the process that occurs when the natural bacteria in a vegetable break down the food’s complex elements into more digestible forms. When fermentation occurs, vegetables become easier to digest, allowing your body to work less, while reaping more benefits. And those benefits include higher levels of available nutrients, and live cultures of pro-biotic bacteria (kind of like the good stuff in yogurt). These pro-biotic bacteria can improve your digestion, boost your immune system, improve your mental health, and detox your body.

Worried that fermenting is risky? No need! Fermented veggies are actually safer than raw vegetables, because the fermentation process actually kills off any unwanted or dangerous bacteria that may exist on the food prior to fermentation. According to the USDA, there has “never been a single case of food poisoning reported from fermented vegetables.”

Fermented foods have been around for eons. Fermentation is an ancient art that pre-dates writing and agriculture.  It’s often considered to be the practice that first ushered our ancient relatives from the natural world, into a culturally driven world. In fact, the word ‘culture’ is another word for fermentation. Sandor Katz, who has written several books on the subject, calls it “a health regimen, a gourmet art, a multicultural adventure, a form of activism, and a spiritual path, all rolled into one.”

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Un juez suspende el proyecto de carbono en Colombia hecho de espaldas a la comunidad

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El 23 de agosto, una juez de segunda instancia ordenó la suspensión de un proyecto de bonos de carbono en el sur de Colombia que, según un grupo de indígenas, se ha venido llevando a cabo de espaldas a su comunidad. Con esa decisión, dejó en firme un fallo similar al de un juez de primera instancia en julio pasado. Esta representa la actuación más dura de la justicia colombiana hasta ahora frente a este tipo de iniciativas ambientales.

Los proyectos REDD+ enlazan a comunidades locales que cuidan bosques estratégicos para mitigar la crisis climática global con empresas que compran sus bonos de carbono para compensar su propio uso de combustibles fósiles. Cada bono o crédito equivale a una tonelada de dióxido de carbono —uno de los gases de efecto invernadero que propician el cambio climático— que ya no subiría a la atmósfera producto de ese esfuerzo de conservación.

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Prime, grass fed — bird friendly? Audubon Society label coming to a meat aisle near you

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Labels that read “prime” or “grass fed” are likely to catch your eye in the meat aisle. What about “bird friendly?”

Beginning this winter, some Minnesota-raised beef will begin featuring a green and white label from the Audubon Society that says just that.

The bird conservation group is expanding a ranch certification program it started in the West in 2017 to the Midwest. It hopes to create consumer demand for bird-friendly ranching practices and, in turn, incentivize ranchers to maintain bird habitats.

Matt Maier was one of the first Minnesota farmers to sign up. He said the conservation ranching program aligns with what he’s already doing with his land in Clearwater, Minn.

When a lot adjacent to his boyhood farm went up for sale, Maier said he jumped at the opportunity to give his kids the kind of childhood memories he cherished.

“And what I witnessed when I moved back to the land [was] insects and birds and butterflies and frogs were non-existent. All the things that I wanted them to experience were not there,” Maier said. “So I’m like, OK, I want to do something about this.”

That something is Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed, a cattle ranch that taps 1,000 acres of grazing land — 120 of it Maier’s own — to raise cattle in a way that mimics roaming bison.


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