California just released a statewide draft definition for regenerative ag. Stakeholder reactions are mixed on whether this is the best way forward.
“This coffee helps fight climate change.”
If you look closely at grocery store shelves, you’ll see packages for scores of “regenerative” products, from cheese to corn chips, purporting to improve soil health, revitalize ecosystems, and build resiliency to drought. My inner alarm bells go off when I see a new regenerative label crop up. Will this be the next “USDA organic” — a highly regulated certification with its share of detractors? Or end up in the “all natural” bucket with minimal oversight from the FDA, leaving us guessing what’s actually in a bottle of fruity-tasting juice claiming to save the planet?
A lot is at stake, in large part because the regenerative movement has tremendous potential. Globally, there’s increasing consensus that regenerative practices — think cover cropping and rotational grazing — can begin to solve dire crises in agriculture, while strengthening livelihoods and ecosystem and human health.
But there is a risk that the movement could get watered down if corporate commitments and marketing campaigns (like those from ag giants Bayer and Tyson) are made before a formal definition exists. One study showed that only 8% of committed businesses surveyed have plans to deploy funds to support the transition at the farm level, drawing skepticism that companies are co-opting the term without distributing the rewards.
Without a common understanding of what regenerative means, how can we begin to ensure it benefits farmers, farmworkers, and the people across the food supply chain who are responsible for raising, processing, and preparing the food we eat?
A unified framework for regenerative could help state and federal agencies allocate funding, and help consumers feel confident voting with their dollars. It could also serve as a guiding star for food and apparel companies looking to invest in sustainable approaches for soil health and climate resilience, and to better anticipate a return. This is especially critical as many companies are paralyzed by scrutiny from the federal government on environmental justice initiatives and nervous to even talk about topics like the regenerative movement. (One multinational food company I asked declined to comment on what a definition of regenerative would mean for them.)
Despite this uncertain atmosphere, a unified transitional framework has the potential to help the private sector improve soil health, take care of farmers, and reduce carbon emissions. According to Liza Lamanna, manager of agriculture policy at The American Sustainable Business Network, “Businesses play a critical role in driving demand, shaping supply chains, and influencing consumer perception.” That last piece is essential considering that a recent OTA survey showed that upwards of 40% of consumers still lack an understanding of what regenerative means. “A well-defined standard ensures that regenerative agriculture delivers real environmental and social benefits, rather than serving as a marketing buzzword,” Lamanna says. But we need alignment with other standards, and collective action is key: “No single stakeholder can transform agriculture alone.”
I’ve dedicated the better part of the last three years to asking cross-industry stakeholders what regeneration means to them, and I’ve heard some potent responses: from “holistic ecosystem management” to “enabling community health outcomes,” to my personal favorite, “leave it better than you found it.” Every perspective adds meaning. Some think it should become a certification; others favor a global outcomes framework. Still others contend that regenerative shouldn’t be defined at all — doing so would be reductive, antithetical to the diversity of practices under its banner.
Without a common understanding of what regenerative means, how can we begin to ensure it benefits farmers, farmworkers, and the people across the food supply chain?
Regenerative is not a term devoid of history. It has deep roots in land-based communities and links to traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) held by Indigenous agriculturalists and includes methodologies adapted and refined over millennia by Black, Latino, and diasporic farming communities. Native agriculturalists urge regenerative practitioners to examine how unsustainable practices have made it challenging for farmers to meet basic needs like land and credit access.
Michael Alcazar, a TEK consultant in Colorado, said he first heard the term “regenerative” in the 1990s in reference to permaculture practices, but that it has now become “publicly charged.” This is because current agricultural incentives are typically geared towards large monocropping systems (like crop insurance and subsidies), which are necessary for many farmers to stay afloat, but don’t always protect or include those who want to try regenerative approaches.
Nonetheless, some experts at the state level want to codify a definition. In California — the state with the highest gross agricultural production in the U.S. and the fifth largest economy in the world — the Department of Agriculture established a task force to define regenerative agriculture for its policies and programs. It spent the last year conducting a participatory process involving seven multi-stakeholder listening sessions, including two with Tribal communities. Though the process hasn’t been without hiccups (an initial draft was sent back to the task force to fix ambiguities that some feared would lead to greenwashing), I’ve been cautiously optimistic about what it could mean for the movement.
The latest draft, released January 7, goes beyond the typical soil and ecosystem health outcomes of established regenerative agriculture frameworks. The California framework integrates outcomes that protect culturally specific agricultural practices, urges consultation with Native farmers, and acknowledges regenerative agriculture’s socio-economic benefits. It also opens the door for a phased transition which would be more inclusive of all farmers, stating that “regenerative agriculture is not an endpoint, but a continuous implementation of practices that over time minimize inputs and environmental impacts” while prioritizing community benefits.
I can’t help but think of these ideas as I drive through the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, on my way to co-facilitate the first session in the Regenerative Transition Conversation Tour — another participatory process in support of regenerative agriculture. Co-led by Forum for the Future, the Alliance for Collective Action, and the Earth Regeneration Alliance, this tour engages people across the state in imagining a regenerative future and defining its terms.
Questions are swirling in my head: What’s missing from these definitions, and how will they be implemented and enforced? What about farmworkers, who represent an increasingly vulnerable, yet vital, part of farm communities? How can our vision set the bar as high as possible for an agricultural system that enables both people and planet to thrive?
“When businesses prioritize minimizing costs and maximizing profits, the bare minimum often becomes the ultimate goal.”
As Jolie Brawner of Alliance for Collective Action says, “The challenge with a static definition of regeneration is that it risks setting the ‘floor’ as the limit. When businesses prioritize minimizing costs and maximizing profits, the bare minimum often becomes the ultimate goal.” In this scenario, a definition that sets the bar too low will fail to be effective in the long term. If your fifth grade teacher told you a C+ grade was good enough to make the honor roll, who could blame you for studying less? The same goes for farmers and businesses operating on thin margins.
The goal in Colorado is to build a state-level standard that establishes accessible entry points to the regenerative movement, enabling farmers who utilize conventional methods — which haven’t been too kind to our soil, water, climate, or people — to begin transitioning. It has the potential to shape state policy, building on Colorado’s Regenerative Agriculture Tax Credit bill (SB24-152), an incentive for food and beverage companies to purchase from local, regenerative farms and ranches.
Mandy Magill of Earth Regeneration Alliance has been involved with these legislative efforts since 2023, when Colorado’s legislation was being drafted. She’s confident that a transition plan grounded in a community vision can help get us there. “We need a framework that allows for both flexibility — for place-based approaches and traditional knowledge — and integrity towards the vision we define as a collective,” she says.
Michael Alcazar, the TEK expert, says that the legislation needs to have a “foundational ethos” to succeed. In other words, we need to align on a shared value system to inform and underpin the state’s definition. This could include a focus on equitable economic prosperity, and an acknowledgment of the connection between the health of humans and ecosystems we inhabit.
It’s not a surprise to me that some of the most innovative thinking and action in the regenerative movement is happening at the state level. One thing that ambitious standards (like Regenerative Organic Certification and the recent California definition) have in common is their emphasis on continuous improvement over time, where a guiding vision is deeply rooted in place. California’s eight target outcomes and Colorado’s evolving vision are getting closer to what we need. If we are to have a common definition, it needs to invite everyone who touches agriculture — from the biggest commodity farm to the smallest garden patch — to reconsider their relationship with our precious land and ecosystems.
