Regenerative Agriculture: reclaiming the 'it' word

Regenerative Agriculture is a hot topic being discussed in rural circles around the world currently as consumers and hence our supply chains look for more sustainable options for food and fibre production.  Here in NZ, there’s a lot of confusion out there on what regen entails as well as considerable pressure on farmers to adopt these principles. 

Lumen resource management advisor Jenna Sutton says “it’s important to compare apples with apples and consider that NZ farmers are world leaders who have been using many regen principles for years.  In many cases only small changes are needed on farm to continue this journey.  As an industry, we need to pause and reclaim this ‘it’ word.​

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Regenerative agriculture is a term being thrown around a lot in rural circles currently.  I would estimate it has come up in conversation in 90% of the farm visits I have had over the last 12 months, with varied views from the passionate advocate to the sceptic.    ‘Regen Ag’ is not a new concept, but it has received increased attention internationally, with some hailing it as a solution to climate change, biodiversity loss, declining water quality and freshwater ecosystem health. The increased attention is primarily due to widely publicised recent successes in the North American and Canadian prairies restoring depleted soils through what’s being referred to as regenerative practices.

Through a combination of regenerative principles (e.g., re-introducing livestock, rotational grazing, minimum tillage cultivation, use of multi-species crops), many farmers on the North American prairies were able to increase the organic matter (and carbon) stored in their soils, which also increased water and nutrient holding capacity of the soil.  This enabled more plant species to be supported which in turn led to an increase in soil microbial populations.  The microbial population is vital for many processes, in particular nutrient cycling/breakdown, and an increase in the number and activity of these microbes generally leads to more resilient soils.  

Ensuring we are comparing apples with apples; we should consider the changes on the land in this example overtime. The North American prairies once supported millions of bison and other livestock.  Through reduction in livestock and the introduction of huge areas of monoculture cropping programs, they faced soil organic matter depletion, loss of topsoil and associated decrease in yield and stocking rates.  The land was in trouble and heading for collapse if management changes weren’t made.  By using the regenerative principles, farmers on the prairies were able to restore soil health and the microbial and plant species that those soils can support.  We have seen these great stories of restoration picked up and told throughout the agricultural world and we now see many large international corporates requiring regenerative practices to be used as part of their supply chain.

In many of these areas, the significant improvements were possible because those soil depleting practices had been employed for a significant amount of time.  The North American prairies store approximately 12T CO2/ha (carbon) whereas New Zealand pastoral farms store, on average, considerably more than this at around 100T CO2/ha, so we have very different starting points.  It is also worth keeping in mind there is a maximum limit on the organic matter that can be built up in soils (dependent on climate, soil type, topography and land management.) 

The white paper ‘Regenerative Agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand’ was published in February 2021 to quantify similarities in the NZ farming system and regenerative farming.  The eleven principles identified behind the farmgate, by practitioners themselves, are: 

(1) The farm is a living system; (2) Make context-specific decisions; (3) Question everything; (4) Learn together; (5) Failure is part of the journey; (6) Open and flexible toolbox; (7) Plan for what you want; start with what you have; (8) Maximise photosynthesis (year-round); (9) Minimise disturbance; (10) Harness diversity; and (11) Manage livestock strategically.

Collectively these principles embody a ‘regenerative mindset’ and the report goes on further to identify which of these principles it believes has similarities to NZ farming systems, but it doesn’t give our current farming practices enough credit.  We have long adopted minimum tillage cultivation practices where soil moisture and carbon need to be preserved.  We already practice rotational grazing to ensure our pastures have time to recover and our impacts on the land are spread.  We use multi-species pastures to get the most from our soils with many NZ pastures based on a symbiotic grass/clover sward with the leguminous clover fixing nitrogen from the air and adding it to the system, meaning less fertiliser is needed.  We use multiple stock classes for weed and disease control and (generally) consider the whole system before big changes are made.  A system change is no easy feat in agriculture requiring significant planning and expert advice…perhaps as an industry in NZ we need to calm down, control the narrative around this word and how it applies to our current systems before looking at big system changes.

There is, however, something to be said about increasing focus on soil microbial health across conventional farming systems in NZ, as Nicole Masters puts it, focusing on our “underground livestock”.  It’s not that NZ farmers haven’t cared about their soil, I have seen many of them stop and pull it apart, smelling it and counting the worms as we walk paddocks.  But, with the dairy explosion we saw more of a reliance on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides with quick turn arounds and perhaps a loss of farm synergy in some more intensive systems (e.g., more nitrogen fertiliser = less biologically fixed nitrogen in most NZ farm systems).  This doesn’t mean every dairy system in NZ has experienced these issues nor does it mean that every farmer needs to change their system significantly.  But small changes such as the addition of beneficial soil microbes where we have cultivated/cropped/sprayed with insecticides as part of our crop protection programme, have the ability to make huge differences to our soil health without needing huge system changes.

Many of the issues regenerative farming aims to solve around soil and freshwater ecosystem health are currently being addressed in New Zealand through freshwater policy initiatives (e.g., sediment loss, nutrient and cropping limits).  While these policies have faced push back and evolved through the consultation process, there is some robust science feeding into many of these and, as daunting as they seem, understanding the risk factors on your property and how to mitigate them will go a long way to preserving soil and water health on farm and should be the first step.

So, what’s in a word?  In this world where perception is often mistaken for reality, a lot it seems, which is why when I now write cropping rotations or farm environment plans, I identify paddocks that need to be ‘regenerated’ rather than ‘re-grassed’.  This simple word change can have very different effects on the person reading the plans, although none of the principles or farm systems have changed with its inclusion. Regenerative agriculture is the ‘it’ word to describe much of what NZ has been doing for years – I suggest we need to claim the word back, ensure we keep a focus on our full system health, constantly questioning and researching what we hear.  Remember, if we were able to produce the food the world needs without fertiliser, chemicals, tractors (and diesel) then we wouldn’t have introduced these costs to our systems in the first place. 

I implore any farmer considering a system change to work through it with their agronomist, environmental policy advisor and farm systems consultant before making any changes – having a plan is the key to success.

Words by
​Jenna Sutton
Resource Management Advisor - Lumen
Phone 027 297 0962