At it’s most basic, regenerative agriculture involves leaving the soil in better condition than it was found.  It’s different to the idea of “sustainable” – keeping something in it’s current state or level for the future – which implies that where we’re at is actually acceptable.  There’s no denying that agricultural practices over the course of human history have degraded eco-systems both above and below ground. Broadly speaking, finding ways to allow us to continue to grow enough food into the future would be sustainable.   Restoring life above and below ground as we grow – that would be regenerative.  We now have a deeper understanding of the damage caused and how to measure our efforts to remediate it.

Even within circles of folks practicing regenerative agriculture, there is difficulty pinning down a precise definition.  Part of this is because (thankfully) there are multiple practices that work across various contexts.  So it’s not necessarily the “what”.  As Nicole Masters (my favourite soil nerd) puts it, it’s more about the “why”, and being transparent along the way.  Trying to distill something as complex as ecosystem function into a set of boxes that could be certified is a very reductionist approach.  One could argue that it’s this way of thinking that got our soils in this mess in the first place.  In Nicole’s words: “regenerative agriculture calls forth terms around integrity, restoring natural cycles and transparency of food production systems… any definition, therefore, requires that we know where our starting points are.  Are you re-building, restoring, and bringing more life to your land every season?”

The regenerators at Hope Farm are doing just that.  This past season, an experiment was set up to explore the effects of 7 different strategies to restore soil health across 16 plots of corn.  8 plots combined conventional management (treated seeds, chemical fertilisers, herbicide) with biological management (composts, compost extracts, seed coating, various biochar concoctions) and 8 additional plots looked at the same biological management strategies with untreated seeds, this time without the chemicals.  I’m excited to share what we chose to measure as our starting points, and the results, over the coming months.  Stay tuned!