From Campus to Crop Fields: Regenerative Agriculture Project Launched in Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe

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Mount Darwin is a town in northern Zimbabwe. Known for agriculture and gold and asbestos mining, the town is named after the nearby Mount Darwin, which rises 1,509 metres above sea level.

When Hugo Winkfield, a 2023 graduate of the University of Exeter, took on a work placement opportunity in the town recently, he had no idea what to expect, but threw himself into learning. He did his placement with the Agricultural Research Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that functions as a research and demonstration farm, while providing Zimbabwean farmers with machinery and best practices for sustainable farming.

“I knew nothing about farming before I started the placement – I hardly knew what a plough did,” says Hugo. “I really committed myself and I learned a huge amount about how to farm arable crops, from the top farmers and researchers in Zimbabwe.”

This experience ignited Hugo’s passion for transformative agricultural practice.

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Making Regenerative Ag Work in Potato Production

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Over the past four years, the European Union, guided by its Farm to Fork Strategy and Biodiversity Strategy, has made commendable efforts to transition its agri-food systems toward a model centered around sustainability. While these strategies have set ambitious targets, the potential of regenerative agriculture practices as a catalyst for sustainable farming remains largely untapped and must be a priority for EU policymakers.

A recent study published in Science Advances has revealed a concerning reality: humanity has breached six out of nine planetary boundaries. As we move toward the end of 2023, it’s evident that we are well on our way to witnessing the hottest year on record. We stand at the precipice of a “critical point of no return” concerning climate change, biodiversity loss and water scarcity.

Regenerative agriculture presents a multifaceted solution. It offers the promise of improving soil health, enhancing water quality, promoting biodiversity, eventually sequestering carbon in soils, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and bolstering the livelihoods of our farmers.

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The Definition of Regenerative Agriculture

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There are claims that there is no clear definition of Regenerative Agriculture.

Regeneration International started the worldwide regenerative movement in 2015. We have published our definition many times. We are the oldest and most significant of all the inclusive regenerative agriculture movements working on all 6 arable continents on our planet. Consequently, we state with authority that our definition is the primary one.

By definition:

Regenerative systems improve the environment, soil, plants, animal welfare, health, and communities.

The opposite of Regenerative is Degenerative

 This is an essential distinction in determining practices that are not regenerative.

 Agricultural systems that use Degenerative Practices and inputs that damage the environment, soil, health, genes, and communities and involve animal cruelty are not regenerative.

The use of synthetic toxic pesticides, synthetic water-soluble fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, confined animal feeding operations, exploitive marketing and wage systems, destructive tillage systems, and the clearing of high-value ecosystems are examples of degenerative practices.

Such systems must be called degenerative agriculture to stop greenwashing and hijacking.

Regeneration International asserts that to heal our planet, all agricultural systems should be regenerative, organic, and based on the science of agroecology.

Different Definitions

Other organizations have put out different definitions of regenerative agriculture. These tend to be narrower than ours; however, most do not contradict our definition. They are equivalent.

It is the same with organic agriculture, with multiple definitions such as the USDA, the EU, the United Nations Codex Alimentarius, IFOAM – Organics International, over 100 national definitions, and numerous definitions in private standards. They are different. However, most do not tend to contradict each other. They are considered equivalent.

Significant contradictions exist in the numerous national and international organic standards and certification systems, resulting in inconsistencies so that most standards and certification systems are not considered equivalent.

Some of the examples are:

  • Europe allows antibiotic use in animals, whereas the USA and Australia prohibit it.
  • The USDA organic regulation permits carcinogenic nitrates as preservatives in processed meat, which is prohibited in most other countries.
  • The USDA allows hydroponics, which is prohibited by most standards and considered by many as the opposite of true organic agriculture. However, this is changing with other countries following the USDA’s lead and permitting hydroponics.
  • The European regulation encourages confined animal systems to the point that it wouldn’t give equivalence to organic animal products from Australia because their organic producers care for their animals on pasture.
  • European, USDA and Australian standards allow for very small pesticide residue levels, whereas many Asian organic standards prohibit any residue levels.

Many countries permit participatory guarantee systems (PGS) as a way to ensure fairness for small producers. PGS systems are based on farmers peer reviewing each other to ensure the integrity of organic claims rather than being certified by a third-party organization. Most professional groups, such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, use peer review as a way to ensure the integrity of claims. Farmers should not be an exception. PGS has the advantage of being affordable for smaller farmers, especially in the global south, where third-party certification usually costs more than their annual income.  The world’s largest organic markets, the EU and the US prohibit PGS and make it illegal for these producers to call their products, such as coffee, tea, and cocoa, organic.  This is grossly unfair to some of the poorest farmers on the planet.

The fact is these significant differences in standards, and certification systems are the source of much disagreement in the national and international organic sectors. They have not been resolved despite decades of negotiations, protests, position papers, and discussions. There is no indication they will ever be resolved, and are resulting in the fragmentation of the organic and like-minded sectors.

Back to Basics with the Four Principles of Organic Agriculture

Regeneration International believes that rather than wasting decades trying to resolve the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in standards, a more productive approach is determining if practices and inputs are regenerative or degenerative.

IFOAM-Organics International’s Four Principles of Organic Agriculture are the best criteria for determining this.

Health

Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal, human and planet as one and indivisible.

Ecology

Organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them and help sustain them.

Fairness

Organic agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities.

Care

Organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment.

Why Focus on Regenerative Agriculture?

Most of the world’s population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture. Agricultural producers are amongst the most exploited, food and health-insecure, least-educated, and poorest people on our planet, despite producing most of the food we eat.

Agriculture in its various forms has the most significant effect on land use on the planet. Industrial agriculture is responsible for most environmental degradation, forest destruction, and toxic chemicals in our food and environment. It is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, up to 50%. The degenerative forms of agriculture are an existential threat to us and most other species on our planet. We must regenerate agriculture for social, environmental, economic, and cultural reasons.

The soil is fundamental to all terrestrial life on this planet. Our food and biodiversity start with the soil. The soil is not lifeless dirt – it is living, breathing, and teeming with life. The soil microbiome is our planet’s most complex and richest biodiversity area.

Farming practices that increase soil organic matter (SOM) increase soil fertility, water holding capacity, pest and disease resilience, and thus the productivity of agricultural systems. Because SOM comes from carbon dioxide fixed through photosynthesis, increasing SOM can significantly assist in reversing the climate crisis by drawing down this greenhouse gas.

The fact is our health and wealth come from the soil. However, our global regeneration movement is far more than this.

Regenerating our Degenerated Planet and Societies

We have much work to do. We live well beyond our planetary boundaries and extract far more than our planet can provide. As Dr. Vandana Shiva, one of our founders, puts it: “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis, and the crisis of democracy.”

We must reverse the Climate Crisis, Migration Crisis, Biodiversity Crisis, Health Crisis, Food Crisis, Gender Crisis, and Media Crisis to regenerate our planet to have a better and fairer world.

More importantly, we must build a new regenerative system to replace the current degenerated system.

We have more than enough resources for everyone’s well-being. The world produces around three times more food than we need. We have unfair, exploitative, and wasteful systems that must be transformed and regenerated.

We must regenerate our societies and proactively ensure that others have access to land, education, healthcare, income, the commons, participation, inclusion, and empowerment. This must include women, men, and youths across all ethnic and racial groups.

We must take care of each other and regenerate our planet. We must take control and empower ourselves to be the agents of change. We must regenerate a world based on the Four Principles of Organic Agriculture: Health, Ecology, Fairness, and Care.

Ronnie Cummins, one of our founders, wrote: “Never underestimate the power of one individual: yourself. But please understand, at the same time, that what we do as individuals will never be enough. We’ve got to get organized, and we’ve got to help others in our region, our nation, and everywhere build a mighty Green Regeneration Movement. The time to begin is now.”

U.S. Misuses Trade Pacts to Undermine Food Sovereignty

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The following article is adapted from a presentation I gave November 30 at a remarkable conference on Mexico’s transition to agroecology held in Oaxaca, Mexico. More than 1,000 participants strongly backed the government’s efforts to move the country’s large and diverse agricultural sector towards ecological farming. They do so despite cynical efforts by the U.S. government to use trade agreements to advance U.S. commercial interests even if that undermines food security.

The dispute mounted by the U.S. government over Mexico’s policies to restrict the use of genetically modified corn is the latest example of the misuse of a trade agreement to impede social programs in Mexico and other countries. The U.S. government has been doing this for years.

It’s all about boosting exports. U.S. agricultural policies favor and encourage the overproduction of crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat. They depress prices, with supply regularly exceeding demand.

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Activists Warn Post-COP28 Japan-ASEAN Summit Will Be Full of Greenwashing and Dangerous Distractions

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The dust has barely settled following COP28’s historic agreement which sent a long overdue signal on the end of the fossil fuel era.

“After decades of evasion, COP28 finally cast a glaring spotlight on the real culprits of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. A long-overdue direction to move away from coal, oil, and gas has been set,” said Harjeet Singh, Head of Global Political Strategy at Climate Action Network International. “Yet, the resolution is marred by loopholes that offer the fossil fuel industry numerous escape routes, relying on unproven, unsafe technologies.”

The glaring loopholes in the COP28 agreement which activists say will allow the expansion and continued use of fossil fuels will likely be fully exploited this coming weekend as the embattled Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, embroiled in a corruption scandal, prepares to host Asia Pacific leaders for the ASEAN-Japan 50th anniversary commemorative summit and Asia Zero Emissions Community Summit in Tokyo. 

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Regenerative Ag Could Have Major Impact on Organics

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Though a group of panelists agreed that organic farming practices must be the baseline for any official regenerative ag certification, one member of the panel said he does not expect that to happen. And all the members agreed that the regenerative ag movement could have a profound impact on agriculture and on the organic sector.

This informed panel of experts was speaking at the Organic Grower Summit, held in Monterey, California, November 29–30 and put on by Organic Produce Network and Western Growers.

Jessy Beckett Parr, chief program officer for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) led off the questioning by asking each panelist where they stood regarding the role of organic farming in a regenerative ag certification. In fact, CCOF offers certification to the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) standard, which requires the USDA organic certification as a prerequisite. But there are others in the movement that do not believe organic farming practices have to necessarily be followed to be labeled regenerative.

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Africa’s Deep Disappointment At The Stagnation Of Negotiations On Agriculture At COP 28

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The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which represents 37 African networks and organizations representing 200 million Africans, welcomes the first steps taken at COP 28. The agreement on the operationalization of the agreement on loss and damage, the signing of the “Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action” by 134 world leaders, as well as the COP 28 Presidency’s focus on transformation of food systems, with all its drawbacks, and the global agreement to reduce methane production by 30% by 2030, are among the notable results.

However, AFSA expresses its deep disappointment and concern over the stalled negotiations on the Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on Agriculture and Food Security (SSJW). Despite the critical importance of these issues, negotiations on joint work on agriculture and food security at COP 28 are at an impasse, confirming the lack of progress noted at the body’s meeting subsidiary SB58 which was held in Bonn in June.

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COP28 so Far: World Changing or Greenwashing?

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Firstly, there were reports that the state’s oil firm ADNOC may increase its production of oil by 42% by 2030. Furthermore, COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber has been embroiled in a scandal after allegedly arguing that there is no science indicating that fossil fuels need to be phased out – although he later claimed that he had been misinterpreted. Environmentalists’ hopes that an agreement will be signed to phase out fossil fuel usage may also be hampered by the fact that around 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the conference, more than any other COP.

COP28 has been an opportunity for the UK to reassure the international community that it is serious on reaching net zero. International opinion had dropped following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak backtracking on some green targets in September 2023 – this represented a stark contrast to the EU and USA thundering ahead with their respective European Green Deal and Inflation Reduction Act.

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Regeneration is Life – An Agroecological Paradigm to Overtake the Climate Crisis

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On the occasion of the 28th Climate COP, Navdanya International presents “Regeneration is Life – An Agroecological Paradigm to Overtake the Climate Crisis“

There are two main paradigms of thinking of ourselves in the world and of our relationship with the Earth. We either think of ourselves as being separate from Nature or as being one and part of it.

The industrial agriculture paradigm, which sees the world as a machine, and not as a self-organized living system, has created devastation on the planet through extraction and exploitation. Together, the ecologically destructive practices of the industrial agriculture paradigm account for 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), making the global food system one of the main culprits behind climate change and environmental degradation. Acting as if the world were a machine undermines and eventually destroys living processes and organic systems.

Following our Biodiversity is Life booklet, which showcases the deep interconnections between our health and the health of our ecosystems and planet, this new booklet lays out how, today more than ever we need the agroecological cultures of the world to take the forefront and show us what it means to be rooted in harmony with the Earth. The aim should be to work alongside nature to restore its biodiversity and rejuvenate its natural cycles to produce Real Food. These solutions already exist and are being implemented by local, diverse food communities around the world. Showing us that it is possible to walk a path of living in harmony with nature. We are part of the Earth’s systems, our food is a continuum of health from the ecosystems of the earth. We are deeply and inherently interconnected.

The real solution to the ecological and climate crisis does not lie in creating substitutes for food or expanding the industrial paradigm, but in scaling the initiatives all over the world that are already working on healing our connection with the Earth through care.

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The Cop28 President Told a Shocking Lie About Fossil Fuels – and He’s Wrong About Climate Economics Too

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For months Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the Cop28 climate negotiations in Dubai, has been insisting that there is no conflict with his day job, chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) state oil company.

Instead, he argued, the dual role enabled him to persuade fossil fuel companies to change. And some early successes in the talks provided some credibility to that claim.

Now it lies in ruins, following Sunday’s exclusive Guardian report of rejoinders he made to Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and UN special climate envoy, during a live event on 21 November.

He claimed there was “no science” showing that phasing out fossil fuels would keep the world beneath the internationally agreed guardrail of a rise of 1.5C above preindustrial levels – beyond which lurk 11 irreversible tipping points that threaten to plunge the world into a much more hostile climate. Indeed, he implied, such a phase-out could “take the world back into caves”.

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