Why The Visitor Economy Must Back Regenerative Agriculture, Now!

Introductory Note:?this post has been prepared by Anna Pollock, passionate proponent of regenerative thinking & doing and Anna Drozdowska , food, culture and culinary consultant as an invitation / a call-to-arms! We want to meet and connect with others as passionate as we are about integrating food, farming and hospitality in ways that optimise human and planetary health. If you are actively applying regenerative principles on the farm, or your travel-hospitality business /destination is forging closer relations with food producers, we’d like to meet you, hear and share your story. This is just a starter based on the belief that hosts and farmers could become the most effective agents of change in any community.?

We are assuming that any business person working today knows that, unless humanity stops emitting carbon into the air and increases its retention by the soil beneath our feet, we won’t be in business 10-15 years from now – certainly not in our current form.

The current options for travel and hospitality businesses are to eliminate use of fossil fuels throughout the entire value chain, while reducing travel miles spent by our customers on transport, accommodation, and food. In short, to ensure those who are able to travel can do so around a habitable planet, we’re asked to cut emissions by 50% in the next 8 ? years.?

Even though Covid 19 has played its part in slowing down our growth since 2019, our chances of doing seem bleak. According to?SKIFT :

As of 2018, global tourism contributed approximately?eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions , and despite the targets and pledges, transport-related emissions alone from international tourism are predicted to grow 25 percent by 2030,?according to a 2019 report ?from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

Nevertheless, there is something we could also do as a sector and that’s help another critically important part of our economy - food production (farming, agriculture). Here’s why:?

The production of?food and agricultural production accounts for at least 30% of current GHG emissions (one study from 2013 suggests that the full value chain of food, could account for an estimated 43–57%).?

But that’s just the pollution/production side of the equation.??

According to a 2019 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), titled?Wake Up before It’s Too Late ,??conventional methods of industrial agriculture contribute to degrading the earth’s soil?more than 100 times faster ?than it can regenerate.?Degrading the soil means three things: additional CO2 is released into the atmosphere; the land becomes less resilient to drought and extreme weather conditions; and our capacity to grow food for 8 billion people is undermined.?If current rates of soil degradation continue, according to experts at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), we may only have?60 annual harvests left .

If if all cropland globally were farmed using regenerative organic methods, approximately 40% of current global annual CO2 emissions could be sequestered.

But it gets better….,.

If, at the same time, all global pasture was managed according to a regenerative model, an additional 70% of current CO2 emissions might be sequestered.?In other words, regenerative organic methods of farming have the?potential?to sequester up to?100% of current annual CO2 emissions globally .

So, given we’ve less than a decade to take drastic action, why don’t we put our efforts behind helping that essential aspect of human life (food and agriculture) shift to a form of food production that we know can feed a global population a more nutritious healthy diet without further deforestation and toxic fertilizers, pesticides and supplements, reduce costs, increase food security, reduce biodiversity loss?and?at the same time contribute to stalling the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere?

What’s even better, is that this shift is not only doable but works economically and financially:

…by 2030, food and land use systems can help bring climate change under control, safeguard biological diversity, ensure healthier diets for all, drastically improve food security and create more inclusive rural economies. And they can do that while reaping a societal return that is more than 15 times the related investment cost (estimated at less than 0.5 percent of global GDP) and creating new business opportunities worth up to $4.5 trillion a year by 2030. Food and Land Use Coalition

A partnership between farmers and hosts makes additional sense, especially when a growing proportion of visitors are “domestic” i.e. from the same country:

1. Farmers and hosts (providers of tourism-hospitality services) are both anchored to a specific place with its unique geography, climate, soil and culture. We know that regenerative practices cannot be scaled up and standardised globally. While they may adhere to nature’s principles that are global, their application is shaped by location and requires the commitment of relatively small, highly inter-dependent groups of people who have learned how to manage resources held in common and, most importantly, who really care about its health and vitality.?

2. Both farming and tourism share this characteristic – they are currently dominated by a small number of companies that have used capital and technology to dominate production and benefits through economies of scale; continuous growth in volume and market share; disproportionate political influence; avoidance of externalities and reliance on public subsidies. In short, the dominant model in both food production and tourism is currently extractive. At the same time, most participants in each sector are small, medium-sized often family-owned businesses interested in generating sustainable livelihoods for their members and descendants. Yes, they need to make a profit to survive but not at any cost and not as their sole purpose.??The rapid and sustained growth of?Agri-tourism?(regardless of whether regenerative practices are applied) has established proof of market readiness.?

3. Participants in both sectors (owners, employees, customers) all have to eat, at least twice a day. Pre-pandemic, the travel and hospitality sector catered to over 8 billion travellers from domestic and international sources each year. Increasingly, discerning travellers, associated with higher profits, would prefer that food be nutritious; contribute to their well-being; and, where possible, be locally produced by caring farmers they can meet.??But how many hospitality providers in a town know where their food comes from let alone have any relationship with their local farming community and appreciate the issues they face??

4. With a little imagination, and through local collaboration, a closer relationship between regenerative/organic farmers and wannabe regenerative hoteliers, tour guides and operators could generate many spin-off business opportunities for micro- enterprises and generate other well-being outcomes.?

Here’s just a few that come to mind.

• A collaboration between farmers, hospitality providers and nature/recreation operators could extend and enrich a range of experiences around local food, gastronomy, seasonal produce, foraging, nature conservation, rewilding etc.
• The potentcy of integrating food, farming and hospitality is beautifully exemplified by Finca Argovia in Chiapas, Mexico. (Thankyou Bruno Giesemann for inspiring me and Rob Holmes for telling Bruno’s story?here ??and, post Covid’s arrival,?here )??Two other?recent examples of the nexus between food, culture and conservation from?Ontario Canada ??and??Finnish Lapland .?There are likely hundred more
• Restaurant and hotel chefs could offer events that enabled guests to learn about seasonal diets, local sources of healthy fresh food etc.??The tourism sector provides food producers with a receptive, sitting market – often at ease, away from home, curious and receptive. Do the math. 8 billion trips of at least 2 days in duration with a minimum of 2 meals a day provides 32 billion opportunities to gently influence consuming behaviour. Dan Barbour of?Stone Barn Center’s Chef in Residence program ?in New York State’s Hudson Valley is another pioneer.
• Farm and hospitality-related food waste could be combined to provide healthy compost that improves soil fertility – be it on a farm or the rooftop garden of a high rise hotel. A great example of a farmer exploring all kinds of ways to bring farmers and hoteliers closer together is; Tom Morphew at?Full Circle Farms ?in West Sussex, England. Tom works with hotels to develop or rent their own mini farms – a great example is trendy?Birch House in Hertfordshire .?
• Education – farmers need local support and encouragement to make the shift and be assured that markets will replace existing distribution channels. Travellers and residents need to know the importance of healthy, seasonal, locally produced food to reduce transportation costs and increase nutritional value etc. Politicians needs to know that the popular will is for the subsidies currently propping up industrial agriculture and pharmaceuticals to be removed and directed at regenerative farming and nature restoration, conservation.?
• Farmers can work with hospitality providers and local tourism agencies to develop homestays – perhaps exchange skills, expertise and time?
• Farmers and hospitality providers could join forces to produce edible gardens, wildflower meadows, bee sanctuaries, restore waterways and wetlands and reach out to local populations.??This?story ?from eminent change maker Otto Scharmer (Theory U) shows where dialogue and direct democracy has worked in Germany to protect bees.
• Both parties could help seed locally owned micro-enterprises making such diverse products as local jams, honey, liquors, furnishings, utensils etc.
• The pandemic has greatly increased our focus on health and the critical importance of access to open spaces and time pent in nature. As a consequence, “Care farming ” (the therapeutic use of farming) is expanding. In many cases visitors participate in activities that not only heal themselves but also generate positive environmental impacts.??

5. All the literature and experience associated with successful regenerative practice points to the need for change to be undertaken by relatively small groups of individuals located in a specific place container (town, village, neighbourhood, watershed etc) who bring diverse perspectives and are unified around a common purpose. In this case the unifying question might be –?how can we work together to create the conditions for this place and its people to be healthy (physically, socially, emotionally and economically), thrive and evolve?

So what’s required for such a partnership between farmers and hosts to happen??

1. mutual awareness of their interdependence and the context…. Interested? Then let’s explore together…Please comment on this post for starters.?
2. ?a shared desire to care for the land, water, soil and air on which they depend
3. ?an openness/receptivity to dialogue, sharing, looking at a subject from multiple points of view, combined with a desire to help each other survive and thrive through the difficult times ahead; and?
4. willingness to form and nourish a place-based community group that assumes localised responsibility for caring for their place, its inhabitants and visitors.
5. institutionalised support that breaks down silos from economic development, food, agriculture, tourism and nature conservation agencies. Initiatives such the Sweden’ Edible Country, awards such as for the European Region for Gastronomy; initiatives by destinations such as Northern Ireland’s Taste of Northern Ireland; the FEAST strategy by Indigenous Tourism of Ontario; and the success with social tourism proven by Flanders.?

These requirements can be met initially by a few committed farmers, hospitality providers , and residents convening and hosting some conversations?in their locality?to explore the topic.?

For readers who work primarily in travel, tourism, and hospitality, whose interest is first to learn more about regenerative agriculture, check out this BBC series on the topic?Follow The Food ?or read the Rodale paper?Regenerative Agriculture and Climate Change .?

For readers who want to explore the proposed closer integration of regenerative tourism and regenerative agriculture, check out this brief article by RegenerativeTravel.com: The Intersection of Regenerative Agriculture and Travel ?and their webinar that’s?here ?featuring Katharine Millanzi, a Food Anthropologist from the USA, and two regenerative farmers, Sam Beck (Vermont) and Tom Morphew (England)

For readers who want to act on this proposition and explore the possibilities in their place or, better still, have some success stories to share, comment below or contact us. In the meantime, we will add stories below in the comments to this post.

#Anna Drodowska @Anna Drodowska