The Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative organic agriculture is the practice of cultivating by avoiding the tillage

of soil, which allows microorganism to prosper under the soil. The great benefit of

this method is that it requires no use of pesticides and fungicides. The

microorganisms are responsible for absorbing massive amounts of carbon

dioxide as carbon is converted into microbial organic matter. To put things

into perspective, if all the agricultural fields in the world started using

regenerative agriculture, they would absorb more Co2 than the world’s

oceans combined with all of the trees in the world. Regenerative agriculture

also increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances

ecosystem services. In regenerative agriculture, fields are always planted with

crops, or if they are not, cover crops are allowed to grow. These types of crops limit

the loss of soils and nutrients by recycling the nutrients, which reduces the need for

input nutrients like nitrogen and limits water loss, decreasing water evaporation as

the soil has a better water holding capacity.

Carbon Absorption

Moreover, farmers using regenerative agriculture recommend letting animals like

cows, sheep, chickens and pigs roam over their fields in a controlled way, so that

these animals fertilize the fields naturally. An extremely positive aspect of this

method is that when animals are reared using regenerative agriculture, the animals

being reared can be considered to be “carbon negative” as they grow as part of a

carbon absorbing cycle. With this in mind, even cattle, which is currently considered

to be a highly carbon intensive source of meat, can actually absorb carbon if it is

raised using the regenerative system. Regenerative agriculture can also reverse

desertification, as shown in Kenya by Alan Savoury, who owns a productive 200-

acre plot of land surrounded by arid and unusable soil. On the contrast, traditionally

tilled solid tends to degrade quickly and then become unfertile, eventually leading

to desertification as the area loses nutrients and receives increasingly lower

amounts of rain due to the lack of moisture evaporating from that type of terrain.

This process has been occurring even faster in the last century as we use soil more

intensely and we deplete its fertile capabilities by tilling and by using fertilizers and

pesticides.

An Economically Efficient Agricultural Mode

Lastly, when looking at regenerative agriculture as a solution, one must consider its

economic aspect. Interestingly, this solution reveals to be widely scalable as its

economic benefits outweigh other agriculture methods. Regenerative agriculture is

estimated to generate nearly a doubling in profit per acre since it generates savings

from the non-reliance on classical inputs and machinery. Many often dismiss

organic regenerative agriculture because it leads to lower yields, but this is a

misconception as the studies comparing regular and organic agriculture have been

conducted in such a way that practices used in organic farming replicate

conventional farming.