Regenerative agriculture is playing an increasingly important role for the food and drink sector, with several major manufacturers and producers championing related projects.
Against that backdrop, Buffy Taylor explains the practice and its role in shaping a more sustainable future.
As an industry, agriculture is feeling the impact of a changing climate, whether it's due to changing weather patterns or evolving expectations for their operations and supply chains.
All sectors have a role to play in eliminating and reducing avoidable greenhouse gas emissions and meeting emission reduction targets. This presents farming businesses with new opportunities but also requires them to adapt and increase business resilience and efficiency.
One way that farms can strive to achieve these green objectives is through regenerative farming practices.
Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming with the core objective to conserve and enhance soil health, organic matter and biodiversity. The principles of regenerative agriculture can help to improve farm sustainability and resilience.
The main principles followed include:
- Minimising soil disturbance
- Maximising crop diversity
- Maintaining living roots year-round
- Keeping soil covered
- Integrating livestock
By following these principles, soils become much more resilient leading to wider environmental benefits.
Soil health improves, resulting in cleaner water, increased nutrients and improved carbon cycling. The soil becomes more tolerant to drought and floods due to higher water infiltration rates and water-holding capacity. Soil erosion is reduced because of higher soil aggregate stability.
All of these benefits lead to an increase in biodiversity.
Regenerative agriculture bridges the gap between traditional, organic and conventional farming practices.
With various pressures on crop cultivation, such as rising fertiliser prices, threats of climate change and more extreme weather, farming practices are shifting towards less conventional methods.
A key difference between regenerative agriculture and organic agriculture is that the former focuses on principles rather than practices, which includes restoring natural biological processes within the soil and agricultural land. The open definition of regenerative agriculture allows farmers to interpret and apply it to their own farming systems, making it a more appealing and less restrictive method for different soil types, farming systems and weather patterns.
Part of regenerative farming is the acceptance of technology to aid in data analysis, across Europe, PepsiCo has been using a system called iCrop to provide live data on crop production and performance. The app can identify improvement opportunities in areas such as soil quality and water usage. In Spain, this tool has been applied to improve potato crop irrigation. It helped to increase accuracy of watering from 48 per cent to 93 per cent in two years.
Similarly Innocent Drinks have launched an initiative making £1 million in grants available through its Farmer Innovation Fund to its ingredient suppliers to support them in their transition to regenerative farming as well as the promotion of fairer farming practices.
With many of the major food and drink manufacturers following suit Regenerative agriculture has grown to be a central focus of UK farming.
The holistic approach provided by regenerative agriculture allows farmers to run successful, sustainable businesses through the reduction of greenhouse gases, increased carbon sequestration and increased soil health, which ultimately helps mitigate against climate change and encourage biodiversity.
Changes to agricultural policy following Brexit, and their impact across the devolved nations, offer opportunities to support farmers and growers in adpoting regenerative agriculture through funding and incentives.
Currently, incentives focus on individual regenerative practices, as there is no comprehensive scheme for regenerative farming as a whole due to the flexible interpretation of regenerative agriculture.
With the rising population and climate crisis, agriculture has had no choice but to alter its course.
Regenerative agriculture is quickly becoming the answer to this problem as farmers question their conventional methods. As more case studies emerge showcasing the success of regenerative farming practices both environmentally and economically, the more attractive the transition becomes.
Support within the industry, whether from through grants, Government bodies or organisations offering advice, is creating a positive outlook for transitioning to a way of farming that helps restore nature's balance.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.