Whole Foods says regenerative agriculture is the number-one food trend of next year. Patagonia has made it a centerpiece of its activism and will be rolling out products made using the practice early next year. General Mills announced this spring that it will employ regenerative agriculture on one million acres—about a quarter of the land it uses in North America.
Why companies as diverse as Patagonia and General Mills are suddenly focused on getting dirty
Maybe it’s the year-end double punch of consumerism and self-reflection—what holiday meals are we making, what are we buying for people, what have I even done with my life—but December triggers a cavalcade of questions about how a person who wears things and eats things and likes to go outside (this is me, but, hey, it could be you, too) is tied into the whole dang system of consumption.
And in that blitz, an unlikely subject has come up. Not reproductive choices, not carbon offsets, not even Greta Thunberg. No, it’s regenerative agriculture, a soil-focused farming practice. Whole Foods says it’s the number-one food trend of next year. Patagonia has made it a centerpiece of its activism and will be rolling out products made using the practice early next year. General Mills announced this…
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The Most Revolutionary Act 
The article doesn’t really define what “regenerative agriculture” is, but it sounds like good old fashioned common sense, to wit: crop rotation, letting land rest, don’t poison the land with chemicals. Now we have a certification program?
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Katherine, here in Taranaki, the dairy capital of New Zealand, a number of climate activists have been working directly with local farmers to teach them regenerative pastoral management. Most of them are quite conservative and gun shy about “organic” farming or “organic” certification (which is extremely expensive in New Zealand). So what we have been teaching them is to simply rotate their cows more often to prevent them from eating the grass down to the roots (as this tends to destroy the root system). Instead we encourage them to allow the pasture to grow waist high and to move the cows when it’s 1 1/2 foot in height. When you restore the root system the pasture will start storing carbon instead of losing it. In fact, it will become a net carbon sink for the first 5-7 years, more than compensating for the methane stock emit. The animals are happier because the plants naturally become more diverse. Also restoring natural soil bacteria greatly reduces pathogenic bacteria so vet bills are lower.
We’re also campaigning for the government to pay farmers for adopting this approach. It’s a much faster way to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere than planting trees. Thus far, local farmers have been extremely responsive.
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That’s a fantastic approach.
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What really surprises me, Sha’Tara, is that soil scientists have known about this approach for more than two decades! It’s only now that it’s gaining traction in the public mind.
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I enjoyed reading your article, i am looking forward to follow ups in the near future.
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Thanks, mellicao04. I live in a primarily agricultural community. Our local farmers have been adopting regenerative pasture management, and they find it significantly reduces facial eczema and vet bills. It seems that maintaining health soil organisms suppresses pathogenic bacteria that cause disease in livestock.
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