We hear the word “sustainability” used in various senses on quite a few occasions these days, often linked to the Planet, although it means different things to different people. Sustainability is not just about climate change but refers to keeping any activity going forward – activities using up their resources or exhausting their foundations are not sustainable and activities that make things worse are degenerative. So sustainability is often mis-used, and ultimately it is probably not enough of an answer to our challenges in farming and food because we need to look beyond merely sustaining what we have.

Sustainability is no longer enough to help solve the world’s problems, in fact it was Paul Polman the former CEO of Unilever, one of the largest Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) organisations who said, “companies are starting to understand that you need to be restorative, reparative, regenerative”, all words that suggest an improvement in conditions. 

Regenerative agriculture has yet to be given a common and definitive (legal) definition which is often tricky to try to establish, yet it could be a way to bring together learnings and outcomes to help steer the next generation of farmers by enabling them to think longer term and how they can begin to really have a positive impact in the face of the challenges many face today. Some of the largest CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) organisations including Danone, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever have set up the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) platform and released their own definition alongside a framework to give clear guidance, and it boasts up to 190 members aligning to the “Regenerating Together” programme.

Our farming communities typically want to protect the land for their offspring wanting to take the reins in their future career, and by those who aim to join the sector to help feed our nation and those in other parts of the world through what we can export.  So, what does this mean, and how do these agricultural businesses get there?

Many people across the value chain now believe that agriculture must be regenerative in order to not only be sustainable but to ensure we have growth in our farming sector in the future – in essence it is a way to bring a “healthier” perspective to many things which are important to us now and to our next generation – healthy people, healthy animals, healthy plants, healthy soils, and healthy farming futures for food quality and security.

It encompasses not only the environmental factors of farming, but also the economic and social aspects too, and is a focus on an approach to land management that many are beginning to adopt. Using regenerative practice across farms means that food production starts to work for both the local and global environment, and begins to help restore our wider ecosystem – it is essentially a system based broadly around five key principles:

• minimising soil disturbance and improving soil health

• broadening crop rotations, and using cover crops

• integrating livestock and increasing biodiversity

• minimising the use of chemical inputs including synthetic fertiliser

• protecting water resources through infiltration and storage

Advocates believe you need to practise all these elements without missing a principle or you will not experience the same successful outcomes that others have seen; showing flexibility in adapting the approaches to make principles work locally. The aim is to increase the resilience of farms and reduce the reliance on chemical inputs through a different system – working with the soil and ultimately reducing cultivation entails the need for cover crop roots, which in turn require a broad crop rotation, which then reduces the weed burden created by the first step of making reductions in cultivation.

Yet this is not just about People and Planet – Profit is important as part of the Triple Bottom line approach. It is imperative for the success of our farming world to continue to feed us, that it will need to invest in the way forward in adopting these new ways of working, as it takes time to plan for the transformation. Whilst some farming businesses remain sceptical about the move to a regenerative model, there are a few who have looked further ahead and the need to shore up their prosperity - maybe in priority to any gains from an ESG perspective. However, there is soon realisation that the “ReGen” approach may well bring both of these prospects to bear. 

Many farmers are working in commodity crops and with major customers, like Government bodies and Supermarket empires within their route to market. The focus upon high yields, lowering costs and de-risking is key; and in the past few years we have seen so much cost and price inflation without much ability to have any sense of control of either of these within the agricultural world. Moving into regenerative practices has given some the way forward in quantifying goals, with the knowledge that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. This year, Waitrose made an important pledge to move more than 2000 British Farmers into Nature friendly practices, in an effort to move more holistically into regenerative agriculture by 2035 as a way to boost the financial resilience of farms as well as combat climate change. Having a Centre of Excellence at Leckford Farm will really help to drive the initiative through, with field trials to inform the wider supply chain, alongside access to affordable finance and other important resources of support including data and measurement.

Other initiatives like “Clarkson’s Farm” through Amazon has really started to bring a renewed perspective to farming in general to the British viewing public – and divided the farming community a little with some expressing that he is doing a great job in highlighting the challenges faced, and others think he is belittling the farming efforts in the UK. Having Andy Cato appear in the latest series has brought a greater awareness of regenerative farming to many more people, as he explains over a few episodes during conversations and an experiment demonstrating how planting two crops in one field brings a nature driven methodology to Diddly Squat Farm. It worked well enough to convince Jeremy Clarkson to expand the approach to greater areas within the farmlands, reintroducing the good stuff back into the soil like microbes and nutrients, and including carbon. Cato himself farms from Colleymore in Oxfordshire. A National Trust farm tenant, he founded the brand and business “Wildfarmed” with two others, and currently grows wheat regeneratively to make flour and bread.

Consumer understanding of regenerative farming remains relatively low – recent research from EIT highlighted that many people:

• “Do not see the need to transform current agricultural practises”– ultimately they start to move from the idealistic view of current conventional farming (typically they look upon with admiration and a source of national pride, with no downside widely recognised) with the impression becoming less romanticised and idyllic as they learn more about it, in favour of regenerative methods which they begin to intuitively feel is better in comparison. They remain concerned with chemicals in food and the quality of the produce

• “Know or can guess what regenerative agriculture is, but also confuse it with organic agriculture” - finding it really difficult to distinguish between the two.

• See “health and taste remaining the biggest drivers and possible triggers to consumer food products produced through regenerative agricultural methods” – the high-quality food perception is enhanced through environmental benefits and improved animal welfare

• “Are convinced that products produced this way are healthier than food products they generally buy”

• Believe “Foods are more natural” – and most relevant to fresh produce like vegetables, fruit, and animal products like dairy and eggs. And they feel like they should be eating less of the Ultra Processed Foods (UPFs)

• Think “lack of scale and high prices are main concerns about regenerative agriculture” – as they believe this is only a relevant farming methodology relevant for small scale or local farms, so many don’t see this as a way to food security, and that prices will be higher as we make the move.

• Understand “it is beneficial in the long run, but difficult in the short term” – and that the responsibility should not rest solely with farmers. But it will be beneficial for farmers and eventually restore their lands for higher yields.

• “Want to understand regenerative agriculture better” – verification their food is free from “chemicals”, and how it is different from organic food and farming.

This provides scope moving forward in telling a compelling story about the advantages of regenerative agriculture when compared to conventional, and also the differences with organic farming. Ideally we need a consumer centric definition for this approach to farming our next generation of food, which will highlight the product features and their benefits.

An example of a progressive business already moving into such practices within the dairy sector is First Milk, which had an amazing response to its call for members to join a Regenerative Pioneer Farm programme. Over 90% of members submitted a plan before the end of March last year, representing 96% of total milk volume. As well as becoming a B Corp organisation using their business as a force for good, First MIlk has committed to become net zero by 2040, setting itself some stretching targets and plans to achieve this. First MIlk believes in promoting grass based dairy farming as a climate solution.

So, in summary one thing does seem to be clear – if making do with what we have is not enough, then we will need to rethink the way we approach farming in the future, we cannot work in isolation, and we will also need to integrate the evolving technologies which bring new innovations to support the enhancements of food security as well as nutritional substance and improved productivity. Finding ways to also change the approach to food distribution, marketing and communication, shopping, and consumption is also needed to support the way we eat and drink into the next five years, and into the net zero phase which so many industries are signing up to deliver against.

Farming will need support from many of the Governmental departments – from Treasury, to The Department for Business and Trade, Department for Culture Media and Sport, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Science, Innovation and Technology to name the core few – who need to work together for this to happen, all a subject of conversation when the National Food Strategy was being pulled together by Henry Dimbleby and his team of highly capable people from around the industry. Many farmers will need incentives and help to adopt new practises as it is the formative years which take the resources, particularly time being a driver to catapult the changeover seasons encompassing the associated harvesting and adaptations needed – it is not all about financial input but also free access to technical assistance, and often digital and precision tools, including reliable data access to view progress, and AI powered systems to support on-going learnings, just a few examples of how we can regenerate the health of our food systems.

Let’s see what will happen in order to make this difference from our new Government, as they very much have the leadership to make change happen.