What is Regenerative Farming
Regenerative Agriculture is based upon a design philosophy that seeks to replicate the structure and function of equivalent natural systems in the design of biologically healthy and resilient farm systems. Regenerative farming requires a mindset that is systems-based, place-based, and positive-outcome oriented. Regenerative design is where the output of a system improves the health and resiliency of that system over time. This is achieved by positive feedback loops, where the production of each element has positive influences on the other elements of that farm system
The momentum behind adopting these strategies is the increasing recognition that conventional methods of farming are doing harm to our environment, to livestock, and to people. Regenerative agriculture is not just about reducing harm - but seeks to improve the health of the land, waterways, the animals that live on it, and people that benefit from it. As our population expands and demand for resources increases so too do the strains of acquiring our resources in ways that blend in with the natural function of ecosystems. The sustainable production of resources must ultimately be blended in with sustaining healthy natural ecosystems.
The driver for regenerative agriculture is an increasing awareness of and motivation towards living in harmony with natural systems – seen as a central ideological narrative that runs through and impacts upon all modern disciples. Because agricultural production is so directly related to the landscapes where that production occurs – the environmental impacts are more clearly defined. This creates a wonderful opportunity to investigate the design of regenerative systems and gain real-time feedback on the benefit of various measures taken.
Regenerative agriculture could also be thought of as being linked to a wider ideology developing through modern society. Ideologies are fluid constructs we have created to represent commonly held values and patterns of behavior within society. They emerge from the realisation that we naturally gravitate towards holding common beliefs and are strongly influenced by them in the actions we take. Modern life is increasingly infused with imagery and narratives that remind us of our responsibility towards protecting the environment and living in ways that restore the health of those environments. In New Zealand, this driver can be clearly seen in the popularisation of lifestyle blocks, where families wish to live more in tune with the natural world and derive a large proportion of the resources they acquire from that relationship.
Farming in New Zealand is also a highly visible landuse, with countryside and town in proximity with each other and having overlapping resource use. Natural waterways in particular act as a commonly used resource by both sectors of society that also act as a natural accumulator of impacts from each. From having such a high degree of proximity and shared resource use the values held by society at large are naturally conveyed in a transparent manner between these land users.
The main context of this regenerative agriculture is to restore degraded farmland back to a biologically functional state of health while sustaining a land-based income to those dependent upon the provision of resources from that land for their livelihood. Key goals from adopting this philosophy are enriched soils, improve watersheds and enhance ecosystem services such as soil carbon and nitrogen sequestration, improve biodiversity, and promote farmer and livestock welfare Key practices incorporated into this approach include organic farming, holistic land management, permaculture, biodynamic farming, carbon farming, silvopasture, agroecology, and conservation agriculture. Recognition is increasing about the importance of maintaining ecosystem functions and the high costs to society if these are impaired or lost.
The adoption of regenerative design requires a sequential analysis of a site, based upon good observation, research, and application of that data to farm-scale actions that restore the health and resiliency of the farm system. Management requires information, and information requires both data and understanding. The data collection, design, and management of the regenerative farm comprise a holistic strategy that acts as a working document to be constantly revised as new information impacts the design and management practices carried out at that site.
The adoption of such a strategy draws upon insights from a diverse range of disciplines – but is primarily oriented towards developing a picture of how to work with natural processes to restore landscapes back to functional health where they sustainable produce useful resources, while also preserving natural environments in a good state of health. In each region, the application of that strategy will have unique dynamics that influence how that philosophy is best applied. Understanding the ecology of each site and the impact of market factors, climates, availability of resources, and goals of land users all need to be incorporated into a matrix of analysis for developing a robust management strategy.
A major approach of regenerative design is pattern recognition. The main goal in applying patterns in landscape design is to harmonise with natural processes that are constantly working to build a balanced interaction of diverse elements, to store as much energy moving through an ecosystem as possible within living things. This process guides the assembly of natural systems, which develop into complex, self-regulating assemblies of life that result in the longest storage of energy passing through an ecosystem before it is lost again. The more complexity within a system the more opportunity for that energy to pass between different organisms within beneficial interactions (or consumption of each other), resulting in a greater yield from that system.
This requires an understanding of how to adopt practices aligned to restoring the health of these agro-ecosystems and allow them to beneficially integrate with surrounding natural systems, produce high quality and nutrient-dense food that supports optimal human health, and to sequester carbon through soils with a rich diversity of fauna and flora.
In applying agroecology to regenerative farming, we aim to create healthy farm ecosystems that are not sustained by chemical or produce wasteful products that enter surrounding ecosystems. The aim in developing these systems is to recycle resources, create diversity and match as closely as possible the form and function of native ecosystems. This requires a sensitivity to the environmental factors that shape local ecosystems, the species that comprise these ecosystems, and suitable agricultural alternatives. Ideally wildlife from neighbouring areas can interact beneficially within the outer fringes of agricultural ecosystems and there is a transition in the intensity of farming between urban centers and wildlife reserves.
Within a farming context, this means that agricultural production should aim to be diverse and inter-connected - with the wastes from one form of production becoming a resource to be utilised by another. Each element of the farm should also be selected to perform well within the environmental context it is positioned and not require a lot of resources to support production. Each element should also be selected so that its function is utilised to restore the health of the landscape - in addition to providing useful resources. Within this system, there are a recognisable set of interactions between the living systems with energy fixed by the producers flowing through the rest of the ecosystem as the consumers eat them and are in turn consumed by other organisms.
As regenerative agriculture designers, we are finding as many connections between these elements as possible, creating complex systems that become more stable through being linked to so much. If one thing fails, many are there to step in. Simpler systems, such as a monoculture field, are much less steady. When we look closely at natural systems, we find that the amount of connections between elements and the number of elements interacting is uncountable.
Nature is diverse, even its harshest conditions, so our systems, too, are designed to be so. With diversity, individual elements have multiple functions that help to maintain stable systems. We design such that our systems have purposeful diverseness, a network of positive connections between the elements there. Many ecologists think that the biodiversity of an ecosystem plays a key role in stability. For example, if there were just one plant species with a particular role in an ecosystem, a disturbance that harms that one species (say, a drought for a drought-sensitive species) might have a severe impact on the ecosystem as a whole. In contrast, if there were several plant species with similar functional roles, there would be a better chance of one of them being drought-tolerant and helping the ecosystem as a whole survive the drought period.
Regenerative farm systems, being living systems, behave the same way. To replicate this function we create a similar diversity of interconnected life forms and assembly the species diversity in favour of those that produce a useful yield. The selection of those species will then depend on suitability to environmental conditions (biotic 'living' and abiotic 'non-living'), which will get along well together in useful guilds, which provide compatible services (when combining plant and animal species), which can cope with local pathogens and predators in wildlife, and finally can produce a useful yield that can harvested to produce a useful economic return.
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