Regenerative agriculture: what the term means
What regenerative agriculture means, its soil-health principles, what the evidence shows for soil carbon, yields and profits, and why definitions matter.
On this page
"Regenerative agriculture" has moved from a niche farming movement to the sustainability plans of the world's largest food companies in barely a decade. Farmers, retailers and governments use the word, but they do not all mean the same thing, and the gap between the promises and the evidence varies from practice to practice.
This article sets out what the term usually means, the principles behind it, what research shows, and the questions to ask of any regenerative claim. It is a growing theme in sustainability, agronomy and agribusiness courses and in policy debates on food and climate.
Where the term comes from
The word was popularised in the 1980s by the Rodale Institute in the United States, which used it for farming that goes beyond "sustaining" the land to improving it. It drew on older traditions: organic farming, agroecology, soil conservation and indigenous land management. In the 2010s it spread rapidly, carried by farmer networks, soil-health advocates and, later, companies seeking climate and nature commitments in their supply chains.
There is no single legal or scientific definition. A review of definitions in the literature (Newton and colleagues, 2020) found them falling into two groups:
- Process- or practice-based: regenerative means using certain practices, such as cover crops, reduced tillage, diverse rotations, integrated livestock, fewer synthetic inputs.
- Outcome-based: regenerative means achieving certain results, such as more soil organic matter, better soil health, more biodiversity, improved water quality, or better farmer livelihoods.
Many programmes combine both. Some private standards and certifications now exist, from organic-based schemes to company-specific programmes, with differing requirements.
The soil-health principles
Most descriptions of regenerative farming share a set of soil-health principles, promoted by soil conservation agencies and farmer groups:
- Minimise soil disturbance: reduced or no tillage, so that soil structure, fungal networks and organic matter are not broken up.
- Keep the soil covered: with residues, mulch or plants, to protect it from rain, wind and heat.
- Keep living roots in the soil as long as possible: cover crops between cash crops, relay crops and perennials, which feed soil life with root exudates.
- Increase diversity: longer and more varied rotations, intercrops, multi-species cover crops, hedgerows.
- Integrate livestock: grazing cover crops and residues, recycling nutrients as manure.
Some definitions add reducing synthetic inputs (fertilisers and pesticides), and some include social goals such as fair labour and community wellbeing.
These principles overlap heavily with conservation agriculture (minimal disturbance, permanent cover, diverse rotations), agroecology, and organic farming, but regenerative agriculture does not, in most definitions, forbid synthetic inputs.
What the evidence shows
Soil organic carbon
- Cover crops have the most consistent evidence. A widely cited global meta-analysis (Poeplau and Don, 2015) found an average gain of about 0.32 t of carbon per hectare per year in the topsoil, continuing for many decades before levelling off.
- No-till often concentrates carbon near the surface without increasing the total stock to depth, so its value for climate mitigation is debated, even though it improves surface structure and cuts erosion.
- Adding organic amendments (manure, compost) raises soil carbon in the field that receives them, but the carbon often came from elsewhere, so it is partly a transfer rather than a net removal.
- Grazing management: claims that particular grazing systems store very large amounts of carbon are contested; results vary greatly with climate, soil and how degraded the land was.
What can a cover crop add?
Using the meta-analysis figure of 0.32 t C per hectare per year:
- Over 10 years: 0.32 × 10 = 3.2 t C per hectare, equal to 3.2 × 44 ⁄ 12 ≈ 11.7 t CO2 per hectare removed from the air.
- For comparison, a typical arable topsoil might hold 40 to 60 t C per hectare in its upper 30 cm, so the decade's gain is a 5 to 8 per cent increase.
A legume cover crop also supplies nitrogen. If it produces 4 t of dry matter per hectare at 3 per cent nitrogen, it holds 4,000 × 0.03 = 120 kg N per hectare; perhaps 30 to 50 per cent of that becomes available to the next crop, about 36 to 60 kg N per hectare, which can reduce the fertiliser needed.
The carbon gain depends on climate, soil, cover-crop biomass and how long the practice continues; it can be lost if the practice stops.
Yields and profits
- No-till across a large global meta-analysis (Pittelkow and colleagues, 2015) reduced yields by about 5 to 6 per cent on average, with the smallest losses, and sometimes gains, in dry climates when combined with residue retention and rotation, and the largest losses in humid, cool conditions and in the first years.
- Cover crops can reduce the following cash crop's yield if they use too much water or tie up nitrogen, or raise it by improving soil and adding nitrogen; results depend on management and climate.
- Diverse rotations commonly raise yields of the main crop and reduce pest and disease pressure.
- Profitability depends on input savings, yield effects, labour, equipment and any price premium or payment. Some farmers report large input savings; others find the transition costly. Independent long-term economic studies are still limited.
Other outcomes
There is good evidence that covering the soil and reducing tillage cut erosion and improve infiltration, and that diverse systems support more biodiversity. Effects on nitrate leaching are often positive with cover crops. Reduced pesticide use depends on the programme; some no-till systems depend more on herbicides.
Why definitions matter
Because "regenerative" carries no fixed meaning, the same word can describe a deep change in a farming system or a small adjustment marketed as a transformation. This matters for:
- Farmers, who may be asked to change practices for a premium that disappears, or to meet a standard they did not help design.
- Consumers, who cannot easily tell what a regenerative label means.
- Climate claims: companies counting soil carbon in their supply chain face the same measurement, permanence and additionality problems as carbon credits.
- Policy: governments funding "regenerative" programmes need clear outcomes to measure.
Good practice, increasingly adopted by serious programmes, is to define outcomes that can be measured (soil organic carbon to depth on an equivalent soil mass, infiltration, biodiversity indicators, farm income), set a baseline, and track change over years, while giving farmers flexibility in the practices they use to get there.
Key points
- Regenerative agriculture aims to improve, not merely sustain, soil and ecosystems; it has no single legal definition.
- Definitions are practice-based, outcome-based, or both.
- Common principles: minimise disturbance, keep soil covered, keep living roots, increase diversity, integrate livestock.
- Strongest evidence: cover crops raise soil carbon (about 0.32 t C per hectare per year on average) and reduce erosion and leaching.
- No-till cuts yields modestly on average (about 5–6 per cent) with smaller effects in dry climates; its net soil carbon benefit is debated.
- Clear, measurable outcomes and baselines distinguish credible regenerative programmes from marketing.
What the exams ask
- Sustainability, agronomy and soil science courses: the principles of regenerative and conservation agriculture, how they differ from organic farming, and their effects on soil carbon and erosion.
- Postgraduate and professional examinations: interpreting meta-analyses, measuring soil carbon, and designing outcome-based programmes.
- Agribusiness and policy examinations: corporate supply-chain commitments, premiums and payments, labels and claims, and support for farmers in transition.
Described in general terms: the kind of examination, not a past paper. Laisha never reproduces exam questions.
Questions people ask
Is regenerative agriculture the same as organic farming?
No. Organic farming is legally defined in most countries, with certification and restrictions on synthetic inputs. Regenerative agriculture has no single definition, and most versions allow some synthetic inputs while emphasising soil-health practices. A farm can be both.
Does regenerative farming always store carbon?
Not always, and not indefinitely. Cover crops and diverse rotations usually add some carbon; no-till may mainly move it nearer the surface; and gains slow as soils approach a new balance. Gains can be lost if practices stop.
Can regenerative methods feed the world?
Some practices, such as diverse rotations and cover crops, can maintain or raise yields; others, such as abandoning fertiliser without replacing nutrients, can lower them. The answer depends on which practices, where, and how they are combined with good nutrient management.
Sources
- Newton, P. et al. "What is regenerative agriculture? A review of scholar and practitioner definitions based on processes and outcomes." Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 4, 577723 (2020).
- Poeplau, C. and Don, A. "Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils via cultivation of cover crops: a meta-analysis." Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 200, 33–41 (2015).
- Pittelkow, C. M. et al. "Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture." Nature 517, 365–368 (2015).
- Giller, K. E., Hijbeek, R., Andersson, J. A. and Sumberg, J. "Regenerative agriculture: an agronomic perspective." Outlook on Agriculture 50, 13–25 (2021).
- FAO. Conservation Agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, online resources.
More in latest in agriculture
Discussion
Questions, corrections and notes from readers on this article. Every comment is checked before it appears: keep it on the topic, and do not share phone numbers, links or contact details.