I have previously documented the funds that explicitly state they are investing in regenerative agriculture (here and here). But is their approach to investing in and of itself regenerative?

Consider the following conceptual framework, which describes the Four Levels of Paradigm that underlie (usually unconsciously) the thinking and actions of investors around the world. While most food systems investors, philanthropists, and funds can quickly tell you what they invest in, it is much rarer for them to be able to describe how they invest and the way it is shaped by their paradigm — especially the deeper why that motivates their behavior and decision-making.

This article explores the ways that unconscious paradigms shape the why, how, and what of food systems investing. Along the way, I invite you to consider: which of these paradigms sources your investment decisions? What would you change if you were to work from a different level?

Value Return

The underlying motivation of investors working from the Value Return paradigm is to generate a single-bottom-line return on invested capital. The means of obtaining this return, and the impacts that get created, the way the return is obtained, are inconsequential compared to “getting more back than I put in” — ideally, 10–1000x more.

The financial enrichment of an individual, firm, or institution (including governments) is often a parallel motivator. Many times food systems investors working from the Value Return paradigm are not even interested in food or agriculture per se, but see food companies or agribusinesses as attractive opportunities for the significant financial capital returns that can be obtained by extracting value from land, laborers, and living systems.

Value Return investors and funds tend to focus on a single phase of the larger value-adding stream that produces, processes, productizes, packages, and purveys food. Farmland funds buy agricultural land with predictable (or projected) high-yielding crops. Natural product industry investors look for emerging food categories, superior flavors, and opportunities for rapid scale to acquisition. Entities sourcing their thinking from this paradigm are often dismissive of concerns about negative impacts of their investments, assuming that larger market forces will address these problems and preferring to focus on their own economic gain instead of resulting externalities.

Functionally, the investment approaches that emerge from Value Return thinking focus on the best bets for 10x, 100x, or 1000x return on financial capital generated. This leads to food and agriculture investments that prioritize short-term gains: For example, businesses that profit from razing intact forest ecosystems to produce beef cattle, palm oil, or sugar; companies that scale up a trending food product category that relies on ingredients from extractive agriculture (like meat-heavy keto diets or sugar-laced CBD drinks). Venture capital funds are organized around fast growth, or algorithms to trend-spot the companies and product categories that will deliver the highest rates of return.

Arrest Disorder

The primary driver of investment decision-making in the Arrest Disorder paradigm is how to profit from efficiency and optimization. Whether the promise is of lean business operations, technological advances in efficiency, or reduced resource consumption, this investing paradigm aims to waste less and thereby generate returns.

How Arrest Disorder-based investors operate is again tied to a single phase of the value adding process of food, although with a more comprehensive consideration of resource use and utilization.

Attractive food product investments are ones that offer reductions in effort or harm to the eater: faster/easier to consume, reduced sugar or fat or calories, decreased ethical concerns, or lower-impact impact ingredients. Specific examples are products like Soylent, “diet” sodas or low-alcohol beers, and plant-based foods like Impossible burgers or OmniPork.

Agricultural production investments focus on ag-tech efficiencies: reduced pesticide usage, decreased water requirements, lower fertilizer inputs with greater yields, farm management software, and human labor-saving robots.

Supply systems efficiencies are also attractive targets:

• Big data and market-making software (e.g. Indigo Marketplace, AI-enabled commodities trading),
• Technologies to decrease food-loss and food-fraud (e.g. Internet-of-Things temperature/moisture sensors, blockchain solutions for immutable and public chain-of-custody records)
• Direct approaches to reducing food waste (e.g. Apeel biosciences, upcycled ingredients).

Efficient business models are also an important focus, including discounted online retail, direct-to-consumer offerings, and membership-based meal kit models.

In keeping with the overall orientation of Arrest Disorder, investors working within this paradigm are often defensive in tone about the importance and correctness of their approach. For example, investors in plant-based “meats”, which offer large reductions in environmental harm compared to industrial animal protein production, attack holistic rotational grazing approaches that go beyond environmental harm reduction and actually increase the health of soils and ecosystems. Plastics manufacturers defensively point to the greenhouse gas and water efficiency of their single-use packaging, despite public outcry against ocean pollution and the greater systemic potential of carbon-sequestering packaging materials derived from sustainable forestry.

Do Good

Food systems investors working from the Do Good paradigm are motivated by a sincere desire to create positive change. They have developed a concept of what “good” means, often encapsulated in vision/value statements that articulate their ideals as replacements for the current “bad” approaches to farming and business.

While philanthropists working within this paradigm are often content to drive change by giving their capital to values-aligned causes, some will partner with venture capitalists to seek investment opportunity sweet spots where they can generate financial capital returns and make the world a better place — “Doing well by doing good.”

In this paradigm, investors grow their understanding and awareness of different phases of the value-adding process of food. Ingredients are traced upstream to their sources from producer communities around the world, then downstream through manufacture, distribution,and consumption, with consideration given to the environmental and social impacts of each step of the process.

The longer-term health effects of each upstream phase are tracked downstream, from soil erosion and greenhouse gas emissions to persistent chemical accumulation; from energy-intensive processing of ingredients to synthetic preservatives; from extractive labor practices to environmentally toxic packaging to the resulting effects on human communities, ecosystem services, and global biodiversity.

Investors see and articulate the interconnectedness of food systems, and are determined to put their capital to work to “make things better” at multiple points in the process. They often feel connected at a personal level with the good they seek to create, truly seeking to invest their resources towards the betterment of something other than themselves.

In order to Do Good, investors focus on mission-driven or values-aligned food businesses, agricultural projects, and community development initiatives. Food products or restaurants that represent various approaches to healthy eating are excellent targets, especially when paired with initiatives to promote responsible or sustainable food production, sourcing, processing, and packaging.

Many diet-centric business models promote a Do Good image, although in practice the supply systems that generate the food they utilize may still be operating from Value Return or Arrest Disorder paradigms. When these inconsistencies are revealed to Do Good investors, they will work towards ameliorating them in their portfolios, seeking industry best practices and agricultural models that go beyond reducing harm.

Promoters of regenerative agriculture, much like early organic agriculture enthusiasts, are convinced that their approach to agriculture is truly good and that everyone should adopt it. Herein lies the shadow of the Do Good paradigm — someone must decide what is “good” and what is not. One person or group’s perspective on “goodness” is then projected onto other people and places, whether by religious missionaries, cause-fighting NGOs, or mission-driven companies.

Nonetheless, in food systems, many individuals can immediately and emotionally grasp the difference between reducing pesticide use (an idea from the Arrest Disorder paradigm) and increasing soil health (Do Good paradigm). The palpable difference between doing less of something bad and doing something good underlies the rapid growth of corporate and consumer demand for regenerative agriculture. But there are very few food systems actors, and even fewer investors, who are actually working from the Regenerate Life paradigm.

Regenerate Life

Investors sourcing their strategies and actions from the Regenerate Life paradigm aim to evolve the capacity of a whole place (usually a bioregion or life-shed), using the food system as a focused nodal entry point to initiate change. Through their investments they seek to reveal and express the essence of this place — it’s irreducible uniqueness or singularity, akin to a bioregional fingerprint or terroir, that arises from its socio-cultural-ecological-economic distinctiveness.

Instead of fixing problems, Regenerate Life investors focus on generating new potential — novel business models, innovative food products and eating innovations, new agricultural approaches, and enterprise ecosystems that are deeply in harmony with the long term story of the place.

At this level of paradigm, investments and the entire process of investing are vectored toward growing a developmental community of food systems actors that ongoingly advance the vitality and quality of local intellectual, financial, and living capital. In many places this will mean that the focus of regeneration is not solely the environment where food is grown, but also the socio-cultural-culinary system that generates both the innovations and demand for the food itself.

This community simultaneously sees that its unique place is nested within larger ecoregions, climactic zones, and Earth herself — it perceives a functional global diversity, and works to cultivate reciprocal relationships with other unique places around the world.

Investors whose aim is to regenerate life understand at a deep level how the fooding process works in a place. Not just food, which is a static and finished object to be consumed, but fooding — the whole living mosaic of interwoven processes that result in nourishment of all beings in a place. Here is one lens through which to consider the value-adding process of fooding as a whole:

Investments are made to grow the capacity of actors across all phases, or strategically targeted at specific phases that can unlock the potential of others.

On the surface, it would seem easy to suggest that investors working from the Regenerate Life paradigm would focus on businesses that are engaged in physical regeneration: regenerative agriculture or agroforestry enterprises (e.g. Ejido Verde), broadscale ecological land managers (e.g. Grasslands LLC), 3D regenerative ocean farmers (e.g. GreenWave); or food product companies that have made commitments to regenerative agriculture like General Mills, Danone, Patagonia Provisions, or dozens of others.

However in practice, individual investments will vary radically from investor to investor and place to place. In one bioregion a farmers cooperative and food processing hub might be the key to uplifting ecosystems and livelihoods, while a rural entrepreneurship incubator and culinary agritourism cluster might energize demand and market development in another.

Ultimately, investments at this level are not defined by what is invested in, but by their success in evolving human capacity and their ability to unlock the potential of a place or system.

Conclusion

In a regenerative economy, food systems investing does much more than generate financial capital returns (Value Return), reduce the harm of food product supply chains (Arrest Disorder), or promote practices that have small-scale positive impacts (Do Good).

The economy actively develops the capacity of all people, places, and organizations to be creative and consistent investors in their own food system, while simultaneously crafting conscious reciprocal relationships with the other place-sourced food-systems of the world. The economy’s policies, management, and infrastructure are designed to educate citizens and businesses, and to evolve the means of ongoing wealth-generation for all entities in a way that expresses the unique essence of each place.

In a regenerative economy,

1. Investors work from a Regenerate Life Paradigm
2. Local actors, including individuals, families, businesses, institutions, and other entities have the personal agency to see their every decision as an investment and therefore themselves as investors
3. Communities, cities, and bioregions organize their resources to catalyze investment across all phases of the fooding value-adding process

After exploring the why, how, and what of these four levels of paradigm, I invite you to consider the following questions: What paradigm are you currently investing from? What paradigm do you want your investors or LPs to be investing from? What would it take for you to evolve your collective approach? Where might you start?

Food System Investing in a Regenerative Economy was originally published in The Regenerative Economy Collaborative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Companies, investors, organizations, and farms are included in this map based on the following criteria:

1. They explicitly use the term “Regenerative Agriculture” or “Regenerative Farming” in public-facing communications.
2. Or they invest financial capital into an entity meeting Criteria 1.

Why this criteria?

As I’ve described elsewhere, there are multiple divergent meanings of “Regenerative Agriculture” in use today. Instead of subjectively applying any particular definition, I’ve chosen to start with a simple objective approach: Who is using the term?

While this may seem overly simplistic, it turns out that even using the term is a non-trivial step for most organizations. It implies, at least, that the decision-makers have explored the definitional landscape and decided that something about “regeneration” is important enough to publicly align with and proclaim.

I recognize that this is a lowest-common-denominator approach, and invites onto this map entities whose usage of the term I disagree with — even entities whose approach I believe will degrade and banalize the deeper meaning of the term. Over time I will add more layers of analysis to discern between the different lineages and levels of regenerative agriculture that are sourcing each entity’s usage.

When I co-organized the Carbon Farming Course: Workshops in Regenerative Agriculture in 2009 and 2012, only a few small groups of organizations were using the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. Through a combination of pathways, these groups have exponentially grown the number of entities and financial scale of the industry. Through the uptake by large CPG companies starting in 2016, it’s likely that the annual revenue to companies that are explicitly promoting regenerative agriculture is greater than $50 billion.

This is a Draft

Version 1.0 is a draft. There are very likely mistakes. Please help me correct them. If the “usage year” listed for your organization is incorrect, I will happily change it — please just send me a link to the date of a public record where you use the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. If your estimated financial scale is incorrect, please tell me (with as much precision as you’d like to be public) what it should be. Thank you!

Entity Types

Organizations are grouped in five categories:

• Investment: Primarily investment managers and funds, though a few family offices are included.
• Farm: Includes farms that develop and market their own products. See additional note about Farms below.
• Service Organization: Educators, consultants, research organizations, agricultural equipment and product manufacturers, land managers not tied to a single farm, media producers, for-profit membership organizations, ecosystem platforms, and other types of organizations.
• CPG: Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers, primarily food and beverage, but including some health and beauty products. Retailers of Consumer Packaged Goods are included here, along with fashion and clothing manufacturers.
• Non-Profit: A diversity of not-for-profit organizations, from education to research to events convening to advocacy.

There is significant overlap in the functional work of entities in the “Service Organization” and “Non-Profit” categories, with the primary division being the choice of legal organizational structure.

Strongly under-represented in Version 1.0 of the Map are farms. The number of farms that are beginning to use the term ‘regenerative’ is multiplying exponentially. Many farms that have been using the principles of Holistic Management, Biodynamics, Permaculture, or Organic Agriculture are now saying, “we have been regenerative for a long time.” Combine that with a flood of larger US and Australian farms that are growing conventionally while adopting some form of regenerative agriculture principles, and this is a challenging category to keep up with. This is compounded by the fact that a much smaller proportion of farms maintain up-to-date websites — which makes pinpointing the year they started using the term difficult.

In summary, the distinction that I’ve chosen for version 1.0 of the Map, “Explicitly using the term “regenerative agriculture” in public-facing communications” is hard to track for farms. And, I would like to do a better job in the next version of this map recording this quickly-changing farm. I’ll keep adding farms to the list, and welcome any contributions from the wider community.

Estimated Financial Scale

Organizations are loosely clumped into one of 4 financial scale categories, based primarily on publicly available information. For most entities on the map the estimated financial scale refers to annual revenue, with the exception of Investment organizations where it refers to Assets Under Management (AUM).

One current issue with the map is that the estimated financial scale grouping is based on relatively current information (from the last 1–5 years), and does necessarily accurately depict the financial scale of the organizations at the time when they started using the term “Regenerative Agriculture.” I welcome any suggestions on a graphically elegant way to depict this complexity.

Note about Earliest Usages

This first written record of the term “Regenerative Agriculture” was in 1979 by Medard Gabel (thanks to Luke Smith of Terra Genesis for research on this). Soon afterwards (in 1983), Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute began using the term, and led the creation of the “Regenerative Agriculture Association” sometime in the 1980s. They published at least one book that I have seen (“Booker T. Whatley’s Handbook on How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres”), and began promoting early ideas about regeneration alongside their work on organic farming.

Sometime After Robert Rodale’s unexpected death in 1990, the Rodale Institute dropped the term, focusing on promoting Organic Agriculture for more than 20 years. After the permaculture community and several other organizations (especially Darren Doherty of Regrarians, Terra Genesis International, Armonia LLC, and Biological Capital) started using “Regenerative Agriculture” between 2009–2013, the Rodale Institute reclaimed the term (2014) in a modified usage that they continue today: “Regenerative Organic”.

Future Versions

There are two primary pathways along which I plan to develop I plan develop this map.

1. Expansion. As noted, there are a lot of farms out there using the term that are not yet on this map. Additionally, this map is heavily United States-centric, and should definitely be expanded to better represent the work happening in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
2. Depth. I will add layers of detail and complexity over time. I’ll start with characterizing the “Lineages” from which each entity is sourcing their use of “Regenerative Agriculture”. Next I will characterize the Level of Regenerative Agriculture that each entity is working from, through a combination of supported self-reporting and my subjective assessments. Then I will start to develop more detailed attributes for the different entities, including the agricultural practices, business models, and metrics utilized by each. Eventually these attributes will include locations, climate zones, and crops produced.

If you would like to contribute to the development of either pathway, please email me to discuss: e@ethansoloviev.com.

Final Questions

Will the exponential growth trend of the last decade continue? How many entities using the term “Regenerative Agriculture” will it take to reverse climate change? What would success look like for the growth of this industry?

Will your company be the next added to the map?

Finally, biodiversity is having a moment.

At the UN Climate Action Summit in September, Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, announced the launch of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition, stating, “We thought we could engineer the life that we needed and kill the rest in the fields. The resulting monocropping consequences are standing right in front of us.”

Government and large-scale business decision-makers are coming to terms with two sides of a coin of ecological reality: Biodiversity has immense inherent value on our planet, AND the ongoing devastation of biodiversity will drastically decrease global human quality of life.

Biodiversity is a key factor in the earth’s provision of ecosystem services — including biomass production, nutrient and water cycling, and soil formation and retention — but the ongoing, mounting losses to biodiversity are not simply an environmental issue. The IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services states that “Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress towards 80% of the Sustainable Development Goals, related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.”

I can assure you: this article isn’t a fear-mongering account of the real-life implications of biodiversity loss. Rather, this is an invitation — for companies, growers, and consumers — to take stock of your current understandings of biodiversity and situate them in a more encompassing and holistic framework.

WHAT IS MISSING FROM THE CONVERSATION ABOUT BIODIVERSITY?

This level of global acknowledgment is a hopeful sign. However, it is critical to note two major limitations to how biodiversity is currently being approached.

Limitation #1: In the business community, “biodiversity” is often understood and recognized as “the diversity of agricultural crops used in our products.” From this lens, oats or lentils become “biodiverse” crops because they are less common agricultural commodities, even if they are still grown in industrial-scale chemical monocultures.

Limitation #2: In the academic community, a well-established categorization limits biodiversity to the confines of three levels: genetic diversity within a species, species diversity within a population, and ecosystem diversity within a region.

The academic approach offers more nuance than the business perspective. But in the context of increasing attention for biodiversity, there is an opportunity here: We can significantly enhance the impact of our strategies and actions by evolving the framework through which we work. The following eight-level understanding of biodiversity offers a new lens that can spark improved design and creativity towards positive global impact.

A NEW APPROACH: THE EIGHT-LEVEL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK

Corporate decisions about product design, raw materials, farming practices, and sourcing standards have significant impacts on all levels of biodiversity, and potential outputs vary accordingly. While each level can be a source of innovation — for ingredients, flavors, chemical compounds, and even culinary creativity — companies must design for net-positive impacts on biodiversity or risk serious destabilization to their supply chains and the global stock of natural capital upon which all life depends.

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY

This level accounts for the sum total of life and total variability of life forms on Earth. It’s where we identify endangered and threatened species and map biodiversity hotspots. At least 10,000 species are going extinct every year. Addressing the long-term consequences of biodiversity loss through the lens of this level is critical in fighting to work against species extinction for global health.

ECO REGION BIODIVERSITY

Here, we look at biodiversity across an entire region, taking into account the makeup of the land and the richness of species across it. Most rarefied and sought-after provisions, from a Bordeaux wine that can only come from Bordeaux, to a Parmiagianno Reggiano that can only come from Parma, these are the products of the unique eco-regions and cultural histories from which they are cultivated. When biodiversity is supported at this level, there is potential for great culinary creativity — new dishes, new products, new remixes of ancient foods — that can emerge from healthy ecological-cultural complexes.

LAND USE BIODIVERSITY

This level looks at land in terms of form and function: the types of land that can exist in a given watershed and the diversity in how those pieces of land are used. In a given watershed, does there exist land that is being maintained as an old-growth forest, converted into a tree crop farm, or developed into an urban garden? How do those landscapes integrate and interact? An ecosystem composed of diverse landscapes with different functions directly supports nutrition and food security.

SPECIES BIODIVERSITY

Species biodiversity accounts for the differences within and between populations of species as well as the variety of species within a habitat or region. It is critical that we observe interactions among and between species to understand how anthropogenic actions are affecting an ecosystem. We’re currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of species, losing species at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of 1–5 species per year. 99% of threatened species are at risk of extinction from the effects of human activities. Continuing to address biodiversity at the species level can create intact ecosystems and the evolution of new crops through wild cultivation.

AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY (AKA AGROBIODIVERSITY)

This is the level of diversity that most product manufacturers identify as the sum total of biodiversity. Promoting agricultural biodiversity is indeed important: while more than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food, only 9 species account for 66% of total crop production. Increasing agricultural biodiversity doesn’t just improve the variety of our diet, but enhances soil and water health, increases pest and disease resistance, and reduces the need for external inputs.

Brands are taking a step in the right direction. Lush Cosmetics is reintroducing native crops and reducing land conversion on smallholder farms in Guatemala, while integrating a breathtaking array of underutilized plants into its diverse products. Smaller brands like Kuli Kuli, Yolele, and Global Breadfruit are rapidly increasing market demand for lesser-known food crops. We know that seeking to achieve greater agricultural biodiversity can lend itself to the development of lesser-known flavors, textures, and scents.

However, the popular inclination to concentrate biodiversity efforts solely at the agricultural level can be limiting. Not only are companies who confine their scope to the agricultural level missing out on the positive impacts made possible only by addressing other levels, but they are ultimately foregoing innovation, creativity, and market differentiation in their products. There are clear benefits to both the brand and the planet.

GENETIC BIODIVERSITY

Genetic diversity, the variety of genes within a species, is critical: high genetic diversity allows for species to maintain resilience against pests and pathogens and adapt to changing environments. Of the over 10,000 varieties of apples that have been ever cultivated, only 100 are now grown commercially in the US, and only 15 account for almost 90% of national production. Addressing genetic biodiversity can produce different varieties of crops, colors, and flavors, with different tastes, resistances, and nutrient profiles.

MICROBIAL BIODIVERSITY

The health of all living things — of the soil, the microbiome of animals, the leaves of trees — is indicated by and depends on its microbial composition. Healthy soil is resilient, teeming with bacteria, fungi, algae and protozoa, and is able to cycle nutrients and make them available to organisms. Some of the most treasured heritage foods in the world are a product of the unique sets of microbes that live within the soil in which it is grown. Innovation at the microbial level is directly responsible, for example, for the lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria in sour beer and probiotic yogurt. Allowing for a diverse set of microbes to flourish in the soil can give way to creative fermentation and novel processing.

CHEMICAL BIODIVERSITY

Brands are realizing the myriad of opportunities at the chemical level in creating new compounds, nutrients and bioactive functionals that can boost skin health, heart health, and digestion. Cultivating a diverse variety of grapes can produce a wider range of wines packed with different antioxidants, while developing diverse probiotics can maintain a healthy skin microbiome. A greater biodiversity of food can create a greater variety of chemical compounds, each with its own set of benefits for human and ecosystem health.

WHY SHOULD BRANDS PAY ATTENTION TO BIODIVERSITY?

Quite simply, because biodiversity loss benefits no one. Most current agricultural practices and the majority of the ingredients in our food are significant contributors to global biodiversity loss.

Take palm oil, for example. It thrives in the tropics, is largely grown as a monoculture, and is in approximately 50% of consumer products. Its production requires large-scale land conversion that not only increases greenhouse gas emissions, smoke-haze and water pollution, but also affects at least 405 species globally, 193 of which are critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. Despite the attractiveness of short-term financial gain, no one profits from species going extinct.

Brands are beginning to understand the impending threat of biodiversity loss and realize the opportunity for greater market growth and differentiation in their products. The OP2B coalition, formed by 19 companies with combined total revenue of $500 billion, is pledging to diversify their product portfolios and initiate large-scale change across their brands. Emmanuel Faber of Danone promised: “Using the thousands of brands we have in our [OP2B] portfolio, we will create a demand for a variety of crops, of species, of traditional seeds that are forgotten today, that are dying.”

Measuring progress in biodiversity impact can be difficult, but incorporating it as a key performance indicator will prove to be transformative. Brands that utilize metrics for tracking biodiversity, then subsequently place an emphasis on improving their practices across multiple levels, will inevitably put into motion a multiplier effect of positive impact on sustainability.

We’re at an exciting crossroads. Choices are being made today that will impact our planet for generations. Companies must soon decide: Will they continue to turn a blind eye (or support gentle greenwashing) to the agriculture-driven damage to global biodiversity? Or will they adopt a more whole-systems viewpoint to create positive impacts on multiple levels of life?

Regenerative Alcohol, Carbon Negative Beef, and 1 trillion trees …

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Listen to the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast, a joint venture with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture. Link

Regenerative Agriculture

“Are we entering a new era of regeneration?” Not fast enough. Link

Interesting place for Regen Ag to show up: Chemical & Engineering News. Mostly the article touts standard conservation and sustainability approaches, but it does have a nice little chart of different corporate strategies — similar to the “Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map” that I am building. Link

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$9 billlion Alcohol company touts “regenerative agriculture”, but makes no public commitment to get started until 2025. Pernod Ricard, owner of over 50 brands (including Absolut, Jameson, Chivas Regal, Malibu, Kahlúa, and Beefeater) is aligning their sustainability goals with the UN SDGs. While I have a hard time believing they’ll make it anywhere close to net-positive if all impacts are taken into account, it will be interesting to see what they can push forward in agriculture. Link and Link

New York Times — Wine, Carbon Sequestration, and Regenerative Agriculture — Link

See also ‘The Porto Protocol’, a collaborative including Toyota, Marks & Spencer, PwC, and 100+ others in the wine industry who are working on climate change — Link

Carbon-negative beef — This Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) by respected international firm Quantis shows that holistically managed grass-fed beef production can capture more carbon than it emits. Note that General Mills funded this study — we’re beginning to see real ripples of their investments in the field. Link

Bloomberg — On the other hand, “Most grass-fed beef labeled ‘product of U.S.A.’ is imported” — a fascinating article focusing on chicken giant Perdue and it’s ongoing acquisition of higher-end meat producers: Coleman Natural Foods (2011), Niman Ranch (2015), and now Panorama Meats (2019), America’s largest producer of grass-fed, certified organic beef. Link

Fewer than 1 in 4 have heard of regenerative agriculture, says a new consumer survey of 1,000 people in the US. The actual number is 22% — which to me sounds shockingly high! Perhaps more interesting is that 55% of those surveyed have not heard of it, but want to learn more. Link

GreenBiz — “The fight to define regenerative agriculture” — So far, thankfully, it’s not a fight. This article does a decent job juxtaposing Process vs. Outcome-based standards. I also think it’s fascinating that Rodale Institute is quoted saying, “A lot of people are using the word regenerative… It’s the new buzzword. There is a danger of it getting greenwashed.” Link

Fashionista — “The Next Wave of Sustainable Fashion is All About Regenerative Farming.” Good overview article with a balanced appraoch that covers most of what’s happening at the regen ag / fashion nexus. Link

El Pais — Great long-form article on regenerative agriculture and land restoration in Spain, combining philanthropic and investment capital to kick-start ecological entrepreneurship across more than 1 million hectares. Link

CNN — “The most effective way to tackle climate change? Plant 1 trillion trees” — Link

Two important and substantive articles on the edge between Regenerative Agriculture and Government Legislation:

• Salon — Carbon Farming taking root in NY — Link
• “A Green New Deal must Prioritize Regenerative Agriculture”. This article is fascinating because it shows a very different trend from the middle-America Soil Profits approach… Link
• “But the fact that farming has become a major source of emissions actually belies an important truth that sets agriculture apart from every other major economic sector: It has the natural potential to become a massive carbon sink, rather than a carbon emitter.”

Plus, businesses worth $2.5 trillion with 750,00 employees are advocating for a price on carbon: Link

Podcasts

FoodTank — General Mills’ Carla Vernon on Regenerative Agriculture. Expect more media and coverage as the $15 billion CPG giant continues its push into the space. Link

Great podcast on the Bioregional Agroforestry Suitability Analysis (BRASA), a new offering from Terra Genesis International — Link

From the Carbon Removal Newsroom at Nori, “General Mills issues grant for regenerative agriculture training”- Link

A Geological Perspective On Regenerative Agriculture with David Montgomery, interviewed by John Kempf — Link

Agroforestry

“The ultimate agricultural practice” — I’ve heard great things about this year’s World Agroforestry Conference — here’s a sweet Q&A with the event organizers Link

1100 Hectare farm & “Regeneration Academy” in southern Spain, following the principles of Commonland. Looks like they’re just getting started, but someone’s got to be managing those 300 hectares of Almonds… Link

ICYMI — India’s President announces a National Agroforestry Policy — even though this is 5 years ago, don’t you think it’s a good time for other countries to follow suit? Link

Special Section — Global Agribusiness & Land

This comes from a more activist angle than I usually cover, but the issues of land rights and global land grabbing are important to track. This article is a summary of the new Report from the Oakland Institute. Link

From Brazil, where Amazon deforestation is being enabled by the new government. I found the ‘commodities’ section of this report illuminating — How many of these ingredients do you eat? How many are in your company’s supply system? Link

Jobs & Events

Job — Senior Colleague @ Systemiq — Regenerative Agriculture & Nature-Based Carbon Solutions — Link

If you want a job in regenerative agriculture, you’ll need to learn the keys of integrative design. Probably the best way to do it is through the top-notch firm Regrarians, who are now offering a new set of hybrid in-person and online courses around the world — not to be missed. Link

Save-the-dates for 2019:

• Natural Products Expo East: September 11–14
• Regenerative Earth Summit: October 28–30
• Regenerative Business Summit: November 19

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Food Companies Lead, $24 Billion in Regen Ag Database, New Soil Carbon Standard…

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Listen to the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast, a joint venture with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture. Link

Regenerative Agriculture

Important: A new standard for putting carbon in the soil. The Soil Carbon Initiative is backed by Ben & Jerry’s (Unilever), Danone North America, and MegaFood, and have just released their draft standard for public feedback. Comments are due by May 5th. Link

(Note: If you weren’t at Expo, they’re doing a webinar to describe the standard — register here)

Newly released: A comprehensive global list of regenerative agriculture, forestry, and agroforestry investment funds. I worked with Gatherlab to build this list and a larger database connected to it. $200–400 million USD are invested by explicitly “regenerative” funds; the full list covers $24 billion invested by larger climate-change and forestry organizations. See anyone we missed? Email me. Link

AppleGate makes headlines last month for their “New Food Collective”. A few links:

1. Their press release, highlighting new products with 100% pasture-raised meat certified by the well-respected American Grassfed Association
2. The New Food Collective website, with sexy photos of their new sausages and their take on regenerative agriculture
3. Significantly, Applegate is committing to source 100% of their meat from Savory Land-to-Market Verified farms. Here’s their VP of impact & Mission discussing Ecological Outcome Verification in a great interview

Danone aims for carbon-neutral by 2050, takes a “one size does not fit all” approach to sustainability. Aims for “regenerative agriculture practices” — which ones? Link

US Soybean farmers touting “regenerative agriculture”… continued evidence of the rapid banalization of the term. Brought to you by the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Link

I love seeing more job postings explicitly focused on Regenerative Ag. I’d say it’s still a few years till I can host a job board… but in the meantime, if you’ve got an open position, let me know.

Muir Glen, stalwart organic tomato sauce producer (owned since 2000 by General Mills), lists “Regenerative Farming” as their top “principle”. Unclear what they mean, beyond a few basic practices that are already followed by most organic farmers… Link

From the “Soil Profits” lineage, here’s a free online class by the American Society of Agronomy — “Regenerative Agriculture: How to Work with Farmers to Improve Soil”. Interesting to note this is also sponsored by General Mills. Link

Forbes: The Caribbean has a “Dirty” Solution to Climate Change. Surprisingly good article quoting Terra Genesis International and the leader of Walkers Reserve, a 200-acre sand mine regeneration project in Barbados. Link

“Regenerative agriculture could save soil, water, and the climate. Here’s how the U.S. government actively discourages it.” Link

“Three Takeaways On the Nexus of Food Companies, Climate Change and Regenerative Agriculture” — A new post from the folks at the Regenerative Food Systems Investment Forum taking place this fall in Oakland CA. Nice summary of regenerative at the 2019 Natural Products Expo West earlier this month; also includes a number of statistics and quotes from my presentation on the market performance of the most regenerative food products. Link

From our Europe desk: Regenerative agriculture in Belgium. Link

Free 109-page report from the J. Walter Thompson Intelligence Innovation Group: “The New Sustainability: Regeneration”. There’s a lot in here, from Green AI to Regenerative Business. Worth a skim. Link

National Regenerative Agriculture Day, anyone? Link

This is from 2017, but worth a read as a manifesto/white-paper hybrid on carbon drawdown “Regenerate Earth” by Walter Jehne of Healthy Soil Australia. Link

Former Blue Apron CEO launches a new “regenerative agriculture” business called Cooks Venture. Here’s the press release and their website. I’ll admit I’m skeptical. Their “definition” of regenerative agriculture is weak. They tout scientific proof but don’t offer any. I definitely want to support the scaling up of regen ag, but I want it done with integrity instead of hype. Link

General Mills announces that they will “advance” regenerative agriculture on 1,000,000 acres by 2030. Here’s coverage from:

• Fast Company
• Seeking Alpha
• Successful Farming

On a contrarian note, here’s an excellent article from AgFunder News calling into question the motives of large CPG moves on sustainability & regenerative ag. Link

And here’s another one from Grist. “Regenerative agriculture’: World-saving idea or food marketing ploy?” Link

Podcasts

Three top podcasts for this month:

Investing in Regenerative Agriculture: an interview on water & water cycles with Zach Weiss Link

Shift to perennialization in agriculture & culture — longer form interview of the Land Institute by Nori. Link

Tech accelerator seeking carbon drawdown — and other stories. From the new(ish) ‘Carbon Removal Newsroom’ (I wonder where they got the name;) Link

Investing

Terramera snags another $10mil investment. They claim “regenerative solutions”, but it looks like they’re firmly focused on conservation — they want to reduce synthetic chemicals in agriculture by 80%. Their two main products are broad-range biocides. Link

Financing Regenerative Agriculture — London April 2019. Jeremy Grantham @ GMO, Satya Tripathi @ United Nations, and Christian Didier @ Danone. If you go, I’d love to hear a summary for the next newsletter. Link

Events

There are a lot of awesome events happening this year. I’m speaking at a few of them.

Living Soil Symposium: March 28–31, Montreal. I’m on a panel Saturday, speaking about:

• Quantitative data on regeneration: How are the most regenerative products performing in the marketplace?
• Comparing and contrasting the new ‘regenerative’ standards and certifications that have popped up this year
• How can we reconcile local food systems, transparency, and blockchain technology in an age of online shopping and eroding consumer trust?

Transform: Climate, Capital, Communities — Regenerative Agriculture, Investing, and more. From the folks who started SOCAP and built it into a behemoth. I’m hosting a panel Regen Ag Investing, plus a private gathering for investors. Link

Other save-the-dates for 2019:

• Natural Products Expo East: September 11–14
• SOCAP 2019: October 22–25
• Regenerative Earth Summit: October 28–30
• Regenerative Business Summit: November 12–14

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news

Companies are leading the move towards regenerative agriculture. Other food movements (e.g. organic, Biodynamic) have been pushed forward primarily by farmers and consumers. They grew more slowly, with grassroots organizing and farmer-led furor, slowly building alliances with small food companies and local retailers. Eventually larger companies began buying up smaller organic brands, using acquisitions to get ahead of consumer demand.

So far, the story is unfolding differently for regenerative agriculture. Starting in 2016, food companies have been more active than farmers in promoting regen ag. Consumers seem to be almost left in the dust, wondering, “WTF is this new term?!?” just as they were getting used to “organic.”

Not-for-profits have played a role in catching up consumers, especially Kiss the Ground, the Rodale Institute, and At the Epicenter. But their primary focus (and funding?) seems to be CPG companies, who are clearly (based on this month’s news) leading the way.

Companies doing the work that citizens and farmers have done in other movements leads to several interesting dynamics. One is the danger of marketing hype overpowering on-the-ground impact (highlighted in the Grist and AgFunder articles). Another is that product-creating businesses are investing big bucks to help “train” and “educate” farmers in the methods they want them to use. It remains to be seen if this approach will generate real improvement in soils, ecosystems, or farmer livelihoods — I am hopeful that it can, but wary of the many pitfalls on the path.

- Ethan Soloviev

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I’m writing a more complete and expanded version of this article, including graphics and structured analyses of these lineages. Sign up for my mailing list if you want to read the finished version.

There are 5 primary intellectual and practical Lineages of people who are using the term “Regenerative Agriculture”.

Each lineage has a different definition, farming philosophy, and approach to growing their community. In the last year, one of them is quickly (but quietly) out-growing the others.

This article will help you clarify what people are talking about when they use the term, and what perspective they are coming from.

Here are the Five Lineages of Regenerative Agriculture:

1. Rodale Organic

Basic organic agriculture practices promoted by Rodale since the 1970s, re-dubbed “Regenerative Organic” in recent years and requiring the tenets of organic agriculture as a baseline. The focus is soil. CPG brands have been strongly promoting this lineage, most notably through the Regenerative Organic Certification.

This lineage seems to think that “regeneration” is a combination of 40-year-tested conservation farming practices — cover cropping, crop rotation, compost, low- or no-till. These are great practices for reducing erosion, inputs and (if practiced with great skill) beginning to increase soil carbon.

However, I propose that there is no such thing as a “Regenerative Agriculture Practice” — only systemic outcomes can confirm that a regeneration is taking place.

2. Permaculture/Regrarians

Permaculture as a global movement loves the IDEA of regenerative agriculture, but for the most part fails to achieve significant levels of agricultural production.

Along with a strong focus on small-scale design and unproven beliefs about reversing climate change, this lineage of Regenerative Agriculture tends towards ideals from the human potential movement, focusing on how to create “thriving” and “abundance” for all.

Regrarians, emerging from but transcending the scale and idealism of permaculture, has for decades integrated Holistic Management, Keyline, and ecological design processes at farm-scale around the world.

In my opinion some of the best regenerative agriculture farm design comes from this lineage — they effectively integrate agroforestry, comprehensive water-planning, soil-building, and holistic livestock management while building farmer capacity and economic viability.

3. Holistic Management

Promoted by both the Savory Institute and Holistic Management International, focusing on a comprehensive decision-making framework designed for animal-centric ecosystem regeneration.

In 2018 The Savory Institute released their Land to Market Ecological Outcome Verification system, with backing of some significant food and fashion brands. This is the best standard on the market, in large part because it is outcomes-based (instead of practice-based) and requires a positive trend-line for ecosystem improvements.

4. Regenerative Paradigm

Over 50 years ago, the term ‘Regenerative’ was developed by Charles Krone to describe a radically different paradigm of approaching human and systems development.

Guided by the Carol Sanford Institute, a small but effective community of praxis including Regenesis, Terra Genesis International, Regen.Network and others has applied the paradigm to Business, Design, Planning, Education, and Agriculture.

The most complete explanation (so far!) of farming from the perspective of this lineage is freely available in the paper ‘Levels of Regenerative Agriculture’.

5. Soil Profits / No-Till / NRCS

Typified and led by Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown, and others, this lineage draws practices and inspiration from other Lineages but appeals strongly to conventional farmers by eschewing the dogmas of organic agriculture and focusing on bottom line profits through increased soil health.

This lineage is the one that I see quietly experiencing exponential growth — dominating the Regenerative Agriculture mentions in middle-America newspapers (which I track, somewhat obsessively, in the monthly Regeneration Newsroom) and actually being adopted by mainstream conventional farmers.

By bypassing prejudices against ‘organic’, and allowing farmers to still use synthetic inputs, this lineage is received openly enough to then show the economic arguments for decreasing inputs and improving soil through good crop rotation, no-till, and grazing practices.

The narrative that something as effective and sexy as “Regenerative Agriculture” is available to conventional farmers is a big deal.

While I think this lineage misses opportunities through its incompleteness and dis-integrative approach, I believe it is incredibly important for the world to watch and support its growth and evolution.

Conclusion

My goal in articulating these five lineages is to help discern and distinguish the different meanings and philosophies at play when someone says “Regenerative Agriculture”.

There is a significant “Regenerative Hype” sweeping into public consciousness, primarily through the natural products industry, but also pushed by recent climate change reports and global political dialogue.

More and more organizations, individuals, and businesses will start to claim that what they are doing is “regenerative” without changing how they are thinking or even what they are doing.

I think that understanding what lineage an individual or organization is speaking from will help everyone to discuss and further develop the actual effects of work in this realm — there is great potential in Regenerative Agriculture, and we are not anywhere close to achieving it.

- Ethan Soloviev

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll dig the Regeneration Newsroom.

Global Land Degradation, Gucci Goes Regenerative, and Why Certifications Don’t Work…

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Check out a new joint venture between Koen van Seijen and Ethan Soloviev, the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!

Regenerative Agriculture

New map of global environmental degradation in a peer-reviewed journal — important up-to-date information for arguments about WHY regenerative agriculture is important — Link

30 for 100: Savory launches a new global campaign to transform landscapes. Link

The four E’s: “ethos, economy, elegance and empowerment”. It’s been curious not to hear much from Joel Salatin in the recent hype around regenerative agriculture. Glad to see he’s making the rounds in North Dakota and beyond -Link (P.S. Joel Salatin and I will both be speaking at the 2019 Living Soil Symposium in Montreal — this will be an awesome event!)

These small but steady mentions of regenerative agriculture are important: Tri-state Livestock News (Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota) promotes the “Western Dakota Crops Day”, which focuses on “Regional agronomy research results, dealing with saline and sodic soils and the latest research on regenerative cropping systems…” Link

Glad to see Pipeline Foods getting Rabobank’s attention. Their notion of “regenerative” is from the ‘Soil Profits’ paradigm and is not particularly nuanced, but their work as a broker for organic commodities is great. Link

Land to Market™ takes another big step: first EOV™ (Ecological Outcomes Verification™) Wool goes to market in South Africa. I think this is important, and worth watching — what will the market say about ecologically net-positive practices?!? Link

Towards Regenerative (Luxury?!?) Fashion — Kering, who owns brands Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and others, is teaming up with the Savory Institute to develop supply chains for grass-fed Land to Market™-verified leather and other raw materials. With most Gucci purses costing more than $2,300 USD, it would be great for some of that margin to support regenerative agriculture. Here’s the Kering Press Release, and more coverage from Sustainable Brands.

2 million chickens a week: Great and nuanced coverage by Civil Eats on Costco’s move to vertically integrate poultry production — and “RegeNErate Nebraska’s” opposition and proposed alternatives. Link

Also from RegeNErate Nebraska, check out this Resource Guide. As I’ve commented elsewhere, I think the use of “regenerative” to describe many of these organizations is dubious — they are and have been doing great work, but adding the word “regenerative” does not change much. On the other hand, I greatly appreciate the Native American voices and perspectives in this document — more dialogue and cooperative development with indigenous communities could be mutually beneficial for people working towards regeneration.

“Regenerative agriculture is actually a native concept.” –Vincent Bass, Winnebago Vice Chairman

Too good to be true? Nextfuel promises to replace fossil fuels with… Elephant Grass. While it may capture carbon, the whole pitch is from the “extract value” paradigm — there is no shift evident to regenerative thinking. But interesting nonetheless — watch the video! Link

Podcasts

This month on Investing in Regenerative Agriculture, Koen van Seijen interviews Chuck de Liedekerke of Soil Capital. I disagree with how he defines “regenerative ag”, but he’s taking an interesting approach with larger-scale growers. Link

“An Underground Insurgency: Regenerative Agriculture & Human Transformation” — Interview with Charles Massy, author of the number one regenerative agriculture book in Australia, “Call of the Reed Warbler”. Link

David Bronner on Food Tank — apparently Dr. Bronner’s has donated $8 million to regenerative organic agriculture, perhaps through the Regenerative Organic Alliance… Link

Fascinating podcast from John Kempf that breaks the mold of his agronomy-focused offerings — this one explores 5 characteristics of exceptionally successful farm managers. Very interesting. Link

Agroforestry

Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan: Unlikely locations for agroforestry? It’s actually been here for thousands of years. This duo of articles highlights the practical application of integrated tree crops for land restoration in arid mountain climates: The Innovative Polyculture Farmers of Tajikistan and the Apple-Walnut Forests of Kyrgyzstan

“Profit changes minds” — I love the no-nonsense practical points made here. Not all the farming described is regenerative, but it’s aiming in that direction, and go figure — it’s more profitable. Link

“Ghanaian Farmer Urges Others to Adopt Regenerative Dynamic Agroforestry” — the clearest explanations come from farmers on the ground — Link.

Are there trees in your carbon sequestration plan? Regenerative agriculture focused on soil just can’t keep up — Link

Business

Why Certifications Don’t Work Are you considering one of the new “regenerative” certifications for your product or business? Read this first — a comprehensive dismantling of the underlying reasoning behind certifications. There’s a podcast too if you want to listen. Link

“Value Change in the Value Chain” — New guidance for corporations to track Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Put out by the Gold Standard and Science-Based Targets Initiative, there’s just a few small companies who have signed on to try it out — Mars, Danone, Barry Callebaut, Ben & Jerry’s, Cargill, General Mills, L’Oréal, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Target ;) Link and here’s a Sustainable Brands article with a faster overview: Link

Part of the preceding release but worth it’s own note: Value Change /Gold Standard has realeased a 40-page document to help make decisions about how to design and quantify projects that aim to change Soil Organic Carbon (aka carbon farming, or as most people mis-label it, regenerative agriculture). Nothing ground-breaking, but organized with precision and clarity. Link

Forbes — “How Investing In Regenerative Agriculture Can Help Stem Climate Change Profitably” — (I’m not sure what “stem climate change’ means;) We’ve already covered the Ecosystem Service Valuation Report and the other key farm profitability study cited (NOT regenerative agriculture, despite their use of the term), but if you’re interested to learn more about the Farmland LP Business Model this is not a bad little video to watch. Link

Fast Company — Exclusive interview with Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard. Urgency and action are front and center. Regenerative Agriculture is touted, but primarily related to a project in India growing cotton… this is a very very difficult crop to produce with a regenerative effect. Perhaps the folks running the project (Metawear / RESET) can provide more information? Link

If we have just 11 more harvests to transition the global agrifood system, this 2.8 million ha project in Fiji is not a bad example of how we can organize multi-sectoral financing for regenerating landscapes. Link

Government & Policy

US Farm bill passes with bipartisan support, miraculously containing a new program that will focus on soil health and soil carbon sequestration. Coming from an unlikely coalition of the NRDC, National Corn Growers Association, American Coalition for Ethanol, and Environmental Entrepreneurs, this provision is the best thing I’ve heard about a farm bill in more than a decade. Link

Punjab cabinet approves policies for… Regenerative Agriculture? Link

“How Regenerative Agriculture Could Be Key to the Green New Deal” — Brief high-level policy article, decent, though coming mostly from the ‘Rodale Organic’ lineage and missing the (mostly conventional, industrial, large-scale) farmers who are quickly growing a “regenerative agriculture” that works for them. Link

Here’s a great example of government getting out of the way and supporting citizens to craft their own food systems. And it’s a boon for small business. Will more lawmakers follow Maine’s example? Link

COP24 concludes with a lowest-common-denominator agreement, but an agreement nonetheless. Not a lot of agriculture-specific discussions that I saw covered, though these two side-events each brought their own angle on soil carbonization to “Speed up the cool down”: CGIAR Event and IFOAM / Biovision / Regeneration International / Shumei

Special Section on Blockchain

Report: Navigating Blockchain and Climate Action. Interesting report, a bit more restrained than most of what’s coming out of the blockchain community but highlighting some clear characteristics and opportunity areas. If you read the full report and have deeper analysis to share, let me know. Link

Industrial agriculture digital farm operations carbon market blockchain mashup — Nori (decentralized carbon markets on the blockchain) announces a new partnership with Granular (farm management software bought by DuPont in 2017). I’m very interested to see what comes from this, and which of Granular’s users will want tiptoe in the carbon markets. Link: “Turning Carbon Into a Cash Crop”

Excellent new video from Regen.Network: “The Balance Sheet for Earth”. Regen is a decentralized ledger technology designed to track positive changes to ecological systems. Link

“We’re reinventing the economics of agriculture by realigning short term economic gains with long-term ecological health” — Regen.Network CEO Gregory Landua

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

Many of this month’s stories came to life for me at the Regenerative Earth Summit, where I spoke along with major brands like Patagonia, Kashi, Applegate, Eileen Fisher, and The North Face. To here my reflections from the event, you’ll have to listen my discussion with Koen van Seijen — available for free at the new Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!

- Ethan Soloviev

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The Future of Carbon Measurement, Regenerative Meat, Australia Rising

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Check out a new joint venture between Koen van Seijen and Ethan Soloviev, the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!

Regenerative Agriculture

Epic: First product with ecologically regenerative meat hits the market. As I covered last month, Savory Institute has been hard at work for 2 years prototyping it’s Land-to-Market™ verification program in close collaboration with hand-selected brands. Now you can taste the results. Link

“Turning around 4 disastrous years with regenerative agriculture” — Dakota Farmer. Have I mentioned how important it is that folks are reading this in the Dakota Farmer? Link

Gabe Brown’s book Dirt to Soil released! Koen and I discuss it at the end of our Regeneration Newsroom Podcast if you want a sneak preview. Link

As I discussed last month, one strain of regenerative agriculture is quickly spreading in mainstream US farming circles. Want more evidence? Just head on over to the Beef Daily column in Beef Magazine, “Did grandpa have a better way?” Link

Trio of stories on regenerative agriculture in Australia:

1. The Guardian continues its excellent coverage on regenerative agriculture, this time focusing on the potential for Australia. Interesting focus on education and removing vested interests from the industry. “If we don’t go to regenerative agriculture, we will continue to mine soils, particularly of carbon. This is the great loss and it is not being admitted. If you continue to mine carbon, you are shot” Link

2. Restore the Soil, Prosper the Nation. Big-thinking policy paper from the former governor general of Australia. Link

3. Soils for Life Case Study: “Returns in excess of 8% on capital invested per year” on 8900 hectares. Very interesting investment & land acquisition model with a real focus on profit & impact. Link

To round these out, see the recent review paper “Conservation and Regenerative versus Intensive Agriculture” from Future Directions International. While overall the positive and research-directed tone is welcome, the author confuses regenerative and conservation agriculture, citing the paper I covered in August with terrible methodology for defining “regenerative”. Worth a quick skim, though nothing revolutionary here. Link

Very Important: This is the future of carbon measurement. Instead of expensive & slow soil testing, simple reflectometers measure soil carbon based on how dark a soil is. Eventually these will embedded in IoT sensors for real-time data streams. Several outfits are working on this, I like the tone and open source hardware approach of Quick Carbon. Link.

Supermarkets, microorganism trade systems, and super-high-phenolic olive oil. All from… Cyprus? Link and here’s the farm itself Link

This young australian farmer won an award for no-till grain growing, inspired by regen ag principles. Link

Australia: The State of Global Food Security and Implications for Rural Communities. Nice tight summary of the global food security landscape with good references. Link

Apparently, the big General Mills / Gunsmoke project will train young farmers and… robots? Link

Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees every time you search, shares its thinking on regenerative agriculture. Basic, but good. Link

From Andre Leu and the good folks at Regeneration International: “Reversing Climate Change through Regenerative Agriculture.” Good general article, summarizes climate change logic and makes some rather remarkable claims of what soil carbon sequestration can achieve. Main tools listed are composting and grazing; I think de-emphasizing agroforestry like this is a mistake. Link [photo available]

Candidate running with regenerative agriculture as part of their platform. Small-scale politics, but expect to see more of this. Link

Cute little Forbes/Quora mashup: how regenerative agriculture can improve meat. Link

Great in-depth article on the first new perennial starch crop — Kernza. High Plains Journal article highlights some of the real challenges with scaling up supply, especially in the face of skyrocketing demand (which I discuss at length on this podcast). Link

Soil and Seaweed: Farming Our Wayto a Climate Solution on Scientific American. I wish I could post more about regenerative oceans — the potential is HUGE, but so few folks are working on it. Good intro here. More context over at OceanCollectiv, and amazing work on 3D ocean farming at GreenWave.

“I began questioning if I was a farmer, or a mere pawn for Big Agriculture” — Part of a great article on farmer Luke Peterson of Minnesota. He offers up my favorite quote of the month:

“So what is regenerative agriculture? Though he can easily illustrate the practices and goals, Peterson is reticent “to try to define regenerative agriculture because it’s a way of thinking that is creative, expansive, holistic, open and alive,” he says. “I’m afraid that once we think we have it defined, it will be limited or compartmentalized.”

In contrast, from Alberta, here’s an article on a 2,000-acre farmer who gives a (common) mis-definition of Regen Ag that does not actually describe regeneration: “We’re trying to practise what we would call regenerative agriculture — trying to build a profitable, resilient system that’s maintaining a good level of production while reducing the amount of inputs we’re relying on.” Reducing inputs does not equal regenerative. That said, there are some tactical intercropping gems in here. Link

I love the fiery political commentary coming out of Australia. “The froth and bubble buffoonery of political opportunity… suggests that the National Drought Summit will be largely a waste of time and result in…” Regenerative agriculture?!? Link

Third General Assembly of Regeneration International happened in India. Doesn’t sound like a lot happened? And the organization’s newly clarified mission is to promote organic agriculture? Link

I think the nascent inclusion of regeneratively produced ingredients into health & beauty products is incredibly important. See short interview with the folks at Kaibae over at Beauty Independent — Link

Videos & Podcasts

“A Regenerative Secret” — New mini-film by Kiss the Ground, focused on the science and practice of regenerative grazing on Joyce Farms. Awesome drone shots of rotating cattle, those alone make this excellent 8 minutes worth watching. [screenshot]

What do Baobab, Seaweed, and Cacay have in common? Check out Lost Crops — The Documentary. In just 14 minutes you can see beautiful and important footage from Ghana to Colombia touching the community economic empowerment potential of regenerative agriculture and mariculture. Link

Cute but strange video from Patagonia Provisions. I find it a bit heavy-handed and fear-driven despite the regenerative agriculture message and digitized watercolor. This video is not going to get any large-scale farmers I know to change their practices. What do you think? Link

This farmer’s got 23 more inches of topsoil than his neighbor. From John Kempf, an interview with Gabe Brown. Link

“The Next Frontier in Regenerative Agriculture & the Power of Stories” — Poultry-centric pioneer and Ashoka Fellow Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin offers great insights on his Regenerative Agriculture work. Link

(Top podcast this month) Investing in Regenerative Agriculture — Koen van Seijen covers a new $30 million fund creator Victor Friedberg of FoodShots Global. Their first focus? Soil. — Link

Agroforestry

AFR100: The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative aims to bring 100 million hectares of land in Africa into restoration by 2030. Excellent project. Link

California indigenous groups’ revive their fire and agroforestry traditions, upending years of ill-conceived management practices. Yurok and Karuk peoples are collaborating with California and US Forest Service to restore 5,700 square kilometers. Great article. Link

Sweet little Forbes interview with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, 2018 Ashoka Fellow and creator of the “Tree-Range™” regenerative farming model. Link

Agroforestry gaining traction among mainstream timberland investors. First of its kind Report from leading forest products advisor RISI. Link

Free book from the World Agroforestry Centre on Climate Smart Landscapes. 445 Pages of multifunctional agroforestry in practice. Great academic resource with some fascinating practical details from around the world. Link

Business & Policy

First in the US Carbon Fee — $15 per metric ton of carbon emitted, increasing by $2 per year. Could raise $2.3 billion for clean energy investment and other carbon-reduction measures. — Link

Corporate Carbon: This Australian organization has developed over 100 projects focusing on building soil organic matter. Though it looks like a journal article, this is an interview with the founder — fascinating. Link

This Bangalore-based business just won a Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leaders Award for making a turning a farming video game into real life. Link

Important Event: The Regenerative Earth Summit is in less than 3 weeks. Leading businesses like Patagonia, North Face, Danone, Epic, Kashi, Lotus Foods come together with the the worlds 5th-largest commodities trader (Bunge), indigenous leader Winona LaDuke, regenerative ag pioneers (Fibershed, Savory Institute, Rodale Institute) and many more! I’ll be speaking on the panel “Growing Traceability and Transparency”. I look forward to seeing you there! Link

#Media is trending. Simple and stark regenerative agriculture meme from Kiss the Ground.

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

As Koen van Seijen and I discuss in our audio highlights, the key trend to watch this month is the role of media in shaping public perception of regenerative agriculture.

With the quickly-growing number of consumer products making “regenerative” claims (see Epic’s product this month, North Face’s last month), more and more people will be looking or bite-sized information in the form of Youtube videos and Text/Image Memes.

Kiss the Ground is at the forefront of this media wave, consistently releasing high-quality and easy-to-digest documentary- and explainer-type videos.

But expect to see larger players with their own particular interests getting into the media game as well. See for example this meme produced (apparently) by General Mills earlier this year… look familiar?

The vast majority of General Mills’ products still come from farms that look like the one on the left. And “protect soil” comes from the Conservative agriculture paradigm, but is masquerading here as regenerative (I’ll write more about the distinctions in an upcoming paper).

Don’t get me wrong — I am overjoyed that General Mills (and soon, I predict) other large agriculture players are beginning to shift their paradigm towards regeneration. I just hope they can help uphold and evolve the integrity of a truly regenerative agriculture, instead of degrading it in their bid to profit from this year’s regenerative hype.

- Ethan Soloviev

P.S. Two books I’m excited to read: Gary Paul Nabhan’s Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair and Leah Penniman’s Farming While Black. Have you read them?

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Out of a total of 35 videos recommend, 6 rose to the top. I grouped them into two categories: “Start Here” (~20 minutes or less) and “Go Deeper” (Usually 1 hour or more).

If you want to add your vote (or recommend another video!), check out the “Methodology” section below for a link to the public spreadsheet and original posts.

Start Here

Videos 20 minutes or less in length

1. How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change

2. Life in Syntropy

3. Greening the Desert

These top videos on regenerative agriculture have been viewed (according to YouTube, and TED) about 7.5 million times. That’s about 0.1% of earth’s population (and if you’re like me, many of those views are repeats;). How could we invite more people to engage with regenerative agriculture?!?

Go Deeper

Here are the top videos that are more than an hour long

1. Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective

2. Tomorrow (Demain)

3. Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem

Commentary

1. Lineage

The full set of videos clearly highlight the three primary lineages of regenerative agriculture that are active in the world today: Permaculture, Holistic Management, and (Rodale)-Organic. I’ll write another post soon that covers these in detail.

2. Language

Of the 36 videos, all except for 2 are in English. Where’s the regenerative agriculture documentation in Mandarin? Arabic? Spanish? Hindi? Russian?

3. Gender

These videos overwhelming feature men. Where are the feature-length inspirational portrayals of regenerative agriculture leaders like Precious Phiri, Doniga Markegaard, and Daniela Ibarra-Howell? What can the regenerative agriculture community do to support and make visible the incredible work women are doing in this space?

Methodology

I posted the following question to the Facebook groups Regenerative Agriculture, Soil4Climate, Regenerative Agrarians, and my own feed:

“What would you say are the top 3 videos to introduce someone to #Regenerative #Agriculture?”

Then I tallied up the responses in this spreadsheet, which is publicly available for viewing and commenting. I gave 2 points for a direct mention, and 1 point for a “like”.

Probably the easiest way to add your voice is to like or add a comment to the original post:

While you’re here…

After a 10 year break, I’m re-starting my own blog to post stuff like this on Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Life. I just put it up and I’d love to see what you think — it’s called “Re-Source” and you can find it over at EthanSoloviev.com.

Join the email list if you want to get updates first when I write something new!

Cheers,

Ethan

This weekend I gifted a fellow farmer a chestnut tree. As I was driving I was thinking,

“What is this tree worth, really?”

So I did the math. A chestnut tree starts yielding nuts at around 10 years old. (They may produce sooner, but I’ll be conservative here.) Some chestnut trees can live to more than a 100 years old. Again I’ll be conservative and say that this tree will produce 50 years of crops.

Once in production, a chestnut orchard will yield 1,000–2,000 pounds per acre per year. Let’s assume the low end at 1,000 pounds. Now, how many chestnut trees are in an acre? With the spacing I use in my plantings on various landowners’ properties, I start with ~50 trees per acre.

That means that over it’s lifetime, each tree will average about 20 pounds of chestnuts per year. Over 50 years of crops, that means each tree will yield 1,000 pounds of chestnuts.

Now, the price of chestnuts varies greatly. Small conventionally produced nuts can go for $5 per pound at retail, while fresh local organic chestnuts can sell for upwards of $16.50 per pound. Nuts.com has a 1 pound bag of dried chestnuts at $13.99 and 1 pound fresh at $9.99; on Amazon you can buy 5.25 pounds of organic chestnuts for $44.99, which works out to ~$8.5 per pound.

I am small farmer with abundant local markets, so I’ll assume a mid-range price of $10.00 per pound. That means, over the 50 years of nuts produced…

This one chestnut tree will generate $10,000 of revenue.

If there’s a glut of local organic chestnuts, I can imagine the price dropping a bit. If I decide to sell wholesale, getting $5.00 per pound is not unreasonable. And it’s not at all hard to imagine selling local organic chestnuts around the holidays for $15.00 per pound. $15,000 of revenue per tree sounds pretty good to me!

In a few years I’ll be able to line out the cost side of this equation, though the maintenance of chestnut trees is pretty darn minimal compared to most tree crops. Basically I just mow (or graze) the orchard, prune in the winter, and harvest. That’s a LOT less work than our permaculture apple orchard, or almost any of the other crops we grow.

Needless to say, I am excited about chestnut trees. I’m planting a them on 5 farms throughout the Hudson Valley, and landowners keep emailing asking if I can plant on their land too. Let’s get a few thousand acres into chestnuts in the next few years, and generate some fresh income for farmers and rural communities. How long until NY has a million dollar chestnut economy? If you ask me, not long.

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Regenerative Agriculture