What is Regenerative agriculture?
Why are we talking about Regenerative Agriculture?
Why are we talking about Regenerative Agriculture?
In the UK and around the world, the food system’s reliance on large-scale, intensive farming practices is destroying habitats, decimating species and accelerating climate change. From clearing forests to grow crops to feed livestock, to using artificial fertilisers and pesticides to boost yields, this way of producing our food has come at a high cost for us all.
Regenerative agriculture is one of our main solutions to shift away from these intensive agricultural practices, to ways of farming that work in balance with nature and focus on health of ecosystems and soils. By using nature friendly farming practices that avoids the use of large amounts of fertilisers, sprays and pesticides, we enrich not just soil health, but our own health too.
What does Regenerative Agriculture look like?
What does Regenerative Agriculture look like?
The main focus of Regenerative Agriculture is to build soil life and health. There are a number of practices that contribute to soil health, for example: planting clovers, pulses or other “cover crops” over the winter to avoid bare soil and capture nutrients, utilising compost and not tilling the soil between planting (digging, overturning by mechanical agitation). The use of artificial inputs should be as low as possible, as nature itself is capable of doing all the hard work.
How does it make use of nature?
How does it make use of nature?
Another key aspect of regenerative agriculture is using animals on the land in ways that also support nature. Well-managed grazing is a cornerstone of building a diversity of life beneath the surface of the soil and above it as well. This can include moving livestock to different grazing areas so as not to put too much pressure on a single field, planting trees for shade or introducing grazing as part of a rotation with other crops. Increasing the range of grasses used for the pasture for cattle also decreases pest and disease pressure, which in turns means farmers do not need to give cattle de-wormers or antibiotics.
How does it provide a solution for climate change?
How does it provide a solution for climate change?
Regenerative agriculture is one of the most promising solutions to support the reversal of climate change and nature loss, and to have food that is healthy and nutritious. Ideally, as much of our food as possible should come from farms that implement principles and techniques that allow nature to flourish, including though regenerative agriculture. This needs strong investment, policy and clear signals from all parts of the food system to support farmers who are the key partners on this journey to heal nature through food production.
Listening to regenerative farmers
Listening to regenerative farmers
The right type of regenerative agriculture will differ across the country and every farmer is at a different point of their regenerative journey. WWF recently visited six farms in the UK, including beef and dairy cattle, sheep, vegetable and arable (land used to grow crops) farming. Each farm has adopted their own interpretation of “nature friendly farming” based on their farms’ own potential. This includes answering questions such as what is the soil type? Does the farm have a river running through or a forest on the margins? These and many more factors decipher what action the farmers can take where they are.
There’s a strong sense with all the farms WWF visited of how the land is gradually recovering its health and how we in turn might heal our relationship with it. No matter what your personal dietary choices are, we all have the same goal: to eat honestly grown healthy, life-giving food and to live on a healthy, thriving planet.
Three years ago, Heather Close joined her father, Philip, at 136-hectare Littleton Farm in south-west Scotland, where he’s been raising beef cattle for about 20 years.
“I think of regenerative agriculture as farming with nature – focusing on soil health, which builds healthy plants, which provides healthy food for our animals, which provides healthy, nutritious food for people”
Heather Close, Littleton Farm in South-West Scotland
Respect and care for natures processes
Respect and care for natures processes
Regenerative agriculture basically means to respect and care for natures processes by putting the health of the soil at the centre of the way we produce our food. While taking pride of being part of the change, regenerative farmers acknowledge their responsibility for current and future generations, allowing the land to renew itself and thrive and working in harmony with nature.
“Success is the knowledge to exist in balance with nature - it is the single and only responsibility of humanity. If we leave it in a state where we have exploited it, there will be nothing to be inherited.”
Angus Walton, Regen Ag Farmer from Berwickshire