Regenerative Agriculture is becoming central to discussions on sustainable food production.
Regenerative Agriculture is an approach to food production that helps to restore ecosystems, offering a future where farming regenerates the land rather than depletes it. Producers, retailers, and researchers are beginning to recognize its potential to reshape food systems in a way that aligns with both environmental and human health.
Global challenges like soil degradation, biodiversity loss, flooding, and rising greenhouse gas emissions threaten food security and ecosystems. With limited years of farming left due to soil depletion and billion tonnes of fertile soil lost annually, regenerative agriculture offers a promising solution. Its ability to reverse biodiversity loss, sequester carbon, improve water retention, and reduce flood risks strengthens resilience against climate shocks. By restoring soil health and enhancing biodiversity, regenerative practices can mitigate food insecurity and improve health, all while contributing to global sustainability goals.
Read the blog to discover why regenerative practices are essential to the future of food and how BSI is exploring possible solutions to help scale consistent, trustworthy, and sustainable practices.
What does food production look like today?
Today’s agricultural systems significantly contribute to environmental challenges. While feeding billions, many current practices have a profound and often unsustainable impact on the planet:
• Agriculture accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Nearly a third of global land use is dedicated to agriculture.
• 80% of global deforestation is driven by agricultural expansion.
• 70% of the world’s freshwater is used for agriculture.
• 52% of agricultural land is degraded, contributing to 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss.
As natural resources face increasing strain, conventional farming methods are being stretched. Degraded land complicates crop production, and water resources are under pressure. With the global population projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, transitioning to more sustainable practices is critical to build resilience against climate shocks and ensure food security.
Despite these challenges, a more positive future is emerging. Many producers are shifting their focus towards sustainable farming practices that prioritize the long term health of both people and the planet. This is where regenerative agriculture comes into play.
What Is Regenerative Agriculture? Exploring Diverging Definitions
At its core, regenerative farming goes beyond sustainability—it’s about restoration. While sustainable farming aims to maintain the status quo, regenerative farming is an approach to nature positive food production that focuses on actively enhancing natural systems, particularly soil health, biodiversity, and water cycles. Described as "a range of agronomic practices," it seeks to reverse biodiversity loss, improve soil health, and protect against climate change through sequestering carbon.
However, despite the growing interest, there is no single, globally agreed definition yet, resulting in various groups and organizations describing regenerative agriculture differently. Common themes include improving soil health, enhancing biodiversity, boosting climate resilience, and increasing economic prosperity for farmers and communities.
This lack of consensus opens the door to greenwashing, where companies claim to adopt regenerative practices without having measurable goals or verifiable standards.
Without a widely shared understanding of regenerative agriculture, developing and advocating for laws, policies, publicly funded research, technical assistance, or conservation incentive programs that promote, support, or evaluate this form of agriculture becomes difficult. Therefore, clear guidelines and definitions are essential to avoid confusion and ensure meaningful progress.
The Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture
The benefits of regenerative agriculture extend far beyond the farm gate, with the potential to transform entire ecosystems and communities. Sustainably managed agricultural lands can significantly contribute to conserving 30% of the planet's land area by 2030.
“Regenerative agriculture is about restoring our soils, reducing inputs, and increasing biodiversity. Through these practices, we’re showing that it’s possible to build a future for farming that is not only environmentally sustainable but also financially viable.” – Tomas Gent, 4th Generation Farmer, Regenerative Farming.
Key benefits are :
• Restoring Biodiversity: One of the biggest promises is its ability to reverse biodiversity loss. Diverse cropping systems, natural habitats, and rotational grazing help rebuild ecosystems. Studies suggest that regenerative farming leads to improved biodiversity, including better pollination, pest control, and healthier soil.
• Healthy Soils and Water Retention: Soil health is at the heart of regenerative practices. By incorporating techniques such as cover cropping and rotational grazing, farms can boost soil fertility, reduce erosion, and enhance water retention. Regenerative practices can raise soil organic carbon levels, mitigating emissions and improving the land's ability to retain water, critical in flood-prone areas.
• Resilient Food Production: Practices like crop rotations and cover cropping build resilience, allowing farms to better withstand extreme weather conditions and environmental stresses. It could also enhance food systems' resilience to climate change, helping to secure long term food supplies.
• Food Security and Nutrition: As the global population grows, ensuring food security is a top priority. By focusing on diverse species, regenerative agriculture can increase yields, promote food diversity, and reduce reliance on chemical inputs. This stabilizes food supplies but also improves public health by encouraging more nutritious, varied diets.
• Economic and Social Good: Regenerative farming supports local communities by fostering local food systems, creating jobs, and offering new income streams. Farmers who adopt these practices can tap into the growing demand for organic, sustainably produced food.
Building Trust and Overcoming Challenges
Despite its benefits, scaling regenerative agriculture presents challenges. The absence of a globally agreed definition makes it difficult to verify which practices truly contribute to ecosystem restoration. Only about one-third of companies claiming to use regenerative methods have set measurable targets. This lack of clarity leaves room for greenwashing.
There’s also a need for greater transparency. Currently, there are no consistent metrics to track progress across the sector. Without clear benchmarks, it’s harder for farmers, producers, and consumers to build trust or assess the impact of regenerative practices.
Financially, the lack of investment remains a barrier. For adoption to grow, changes in farm management must be economically viable, yet private sector investment is still limited. Additionally, many farmers face a knowledge gap—education and training programs are key to guide them through this transformation.
BSI’s Role in Supporting Regenerative Food Systems
BSI is working with key global stakeholders to explore the key challenges and solutions needed to help scale regenerative food production in a consistent, authentic, and trustworthy way.
The goal? To support the transition towards sustainable food systems by providing solutions that can help industry and policymakers alike move towards more sustainable and nature-positive food production.
The Importance of Standardization
By fostering trust and transparency around regenerative agriculture, we can lay the foundation for a food system that goes beyond sustainability, creating long-term resilience and prosperity for all.
So, how could standardization enable the trustworthy adoption of regenerative best practices?
Standards can:
• Build trust through consensus-based frameworks informed by industry experts and stakeholders.
• Guard against greenwashing with clear guidelines for documenting, measuring, and reporting progress.
• Provide clarity on good agricultural practices at every stage of the supply chain.
• Establish a common reference for a global approach to regenerative food production, harmonizing best practices among stakeholders.
• Provide legitimacy and guidance for achieving external and internal goals.
• Align stakeholders—from farmers to regulators—around common goals.
• Enhance brand value through recognized certification.
• Facilitate consumer engagement and education.
• Support access to sustainable financing and investment opportunities.
• Encourage better data collection and knowledge sharing among stakeholders.
Regenerative Agriculture in Action
Real-world examples highlight the positive impact of regenerative practices. From small-scale farms to multinational corporations, regenerative agriculture is already addressing global food production challenges:
Global: Multinational General Mills aims to advance regenerative agriculture on 1 million acres of farmland by 2030.
UK: Colman's four-year regenerative agriculture program focuses on enhancing soil health and biodiversity through innovative practices in mustard and mint farming. Collaborating with local farmers, they aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve water management.
Europe: PepsiCo’s iCrop technology provides live data to optimize soil health and water use. In Spain, it improved potato irrigation accuracy from 48% to 93% in two years.
Australia: Neils Olsen became the first farmer paid through a government system to sequester soil carbon by planting mixed crops and grazing plants to boost soil health and carbon levels.
Brazil: By planting secondary fruit and vegetable crops alongside their main cotton crops, and using organic fertilizers, cotton farmers have tripled their yield.
Tanzania: Farmers are diversifying their crops to increase economic resilience by incorporating more lucrative options, such as cardamom, alongside staple crops like bananas, beans, and maize.
Engaging Stakeholders and Moving Forward
Engaging stakeholders will be key to the success of regenerative agriculture as we move forward. BSI is bringing together agri-food experts, regulators, NGOs, academics, farmers, and consumer organizations to ensure future standards are market-led and globally applicable.
Regenerative Agriculture offers a vision for the future where food production enhances rather than depletes the natural world. By building trust and transparency around these practices, we can create a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable food system for all.
BSI is exploring potential solutions to scale these practices to help the industry move towards a more Nature-Positive future.
