Regenerative Agriculture

Moving from farming as a factory to farming as an ecosystem

What is regenerative agriculture?

• Regenerative Agriculture helps to build soils
• Regenerative Agriculture is a continuum → From very degenerative (destructive) to more regenerative
• Regen ag can help us begin a Self-Reliance Revolution


Characteristics of regen ag

• High Diversity, Resilience, Local
• Little waste and pollution, no tillage
• soil health is essential

Regenerative Agriculture Practices

• • Agroforestry
  • Polyculture
  • No-till
    • Tilling turns the soil around before planting new crops (thought to increase productivity)
    • Massively disturbs soil health
    • No-till draws carbon from the atmosphere, while tilling does the opposite
  • Multicropping
  • Rewilding
  • Cover-cropping

From Paper - Food in the Anthropocene the EAT–Lancet Commission

incorporating farm organic wastes into soil, low or no tillage, nitrogen-fixing cover plants, replacement of annuals with perennial crops and pastures, agroforestry, establishing buffer strips, and keeping some farmland with natural vegetation.

Profitability

Paper - The investment Case for Regenerative Agriculture: https://slmpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SLM-Partners-Investment-case-for-ecological-farming.pdf

Paper: Regenerative agriculture: merging farming and natural resource conservation profitably: https://peerj.com/articles/4428/

If we want regenerative farms to be really sustainable (in the literal sense of the word), they need to be profitable

Risks of Investing in Extractive Agriculture

1. High and volatile input costs
   • Most farmers are profitable thanks to subsidies
   • Last 5 years, input prices increased by 20%, output prices by 5%
     • Intensive animal producers are the most affected from high feed costs
2. Negative externalities
   • Value of property decreasing
   • Soils quality and future cashflows decrease
3. Vulnerable to climate change
4. Health and consumer preferences
5. Biodiversity Loss

Returns of Regenerative Agriculture

1. Comparable or higher yields
   • Many examples of agroforestry outcompeting monocrop
2. Lower operating cost (possibility)
   • No need for expensive fertilizers or seeds
   • Farming is a margin’s business
     • Yield not always a good indicator of profitability
3. Increasing value of capital
4. Healthy soils are more resilient
   • Less susceptible to pest infestations etc…
5. Positive externalities
   • Nascent market and possibilities to get paid
     • Nori, Soil heroes, Regen Network
6. Higher price (50-200%)

Impact of Regenerative Agriculture

Impact investors are looking for the highest possible positive net impact

1. Healthy soils and forests (agroforestry) sequester carbon
2. Water Storage
3. Healthy soils encourage biodiversity
4. Healthy soils, healthy microbiomes, healthy people