Regenerative Agriculture and Its Potential to Improve Farmscape Function
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. International Impetus to Improve Ecosystem Function
1.2. Conventional Agriculture and Its Alternatives
1.3. Comparing Performance
1.4. Article Outline
2. Methods
- (a)
- (b)
- the quick succession of the three reviews of 2020 and 2021 [34,35,37], which present a wide-reaching fulcrum for the modern regenerative agriculture movement, before which no central authority had been declared for a definition and after which a considerable point of reference had been made for subsequent work,
- 1.
- Backward snowballing considered all references listed for the three 2020–2021 reviews.
- 2.
- Peer-reviewed snowballed resources were screened for relevance by title and abstract.
- 3.
- For non-peer-reviewed resources:
- a.
- Significance was first determined by influence. Where a non-peer-reviewed resource was referred to by multiple resources, it was deemed to have substantial influence over the development of regenerative agriculture.
- b.
- Significant non-peer-reviewed resources were screened for relevance by title and abstract/introduction, if available. If an abstract or introduction was not available, as is often the case with website resources, the text body was consulted.
- 4.
- Relevant resources were considered for inclusion in this study based on their discussion of the intentions, goals, practices, scope, performance, and potential of regenerative agriculture.
- 5.
- Subsequent backward snowballing considered the reference lists of relevant resources only. With relevance of subsequent resources again being determined according to items 2–4 above.
- 6.
- Forward snowballing used Scopus (scopus.com, accessed on 19 August 2021) citation metrics from the three 2020–2021 review articles and was performed once, given the time since publication of the base set of reviews. Relevance and inclusion were determined according to items 2–4 above.
3. Results
3.1. Early Intentions
3.2. Current Popular Intentions
3.3. Current Academic Intentions
An approach to farming that uses soil conservation as the entry point to regenerate and contribute to multiple provisioning, regulating, and supporting services, with the objective that this will enhance not only the environmental, but also the social and economic dimensions of sustainable food production.
3.4. Public, Corporate, and Farming Following
3.5. Unconfirmed Definition
3.6. An Intent to and History of Innovation
3.7. Consumer Markets and Existing Certification Schemes
3.8. Ecosystem Service Markets
4. Discussion
4.1. Current and Early Alignment on the Intentions of Regenerative Agriculture
- Repair the damage its supporters perceived had been done to natural resources and regional communities through conventional agriculture.
- Rodale identified that progress towards regenerative practice would be iterative and be achieved through increased natural complexity.
- Sampson highlighted a role for financial motivators in this process.
- Soil fertility, integrated pest management, advances in plant breeding, and integrated crop-animal systems were flagged as pathways to achieving regenerative and, ideally, a sustainable agriculture [51].
- An intention to maintain iterative practice based on function principles that reflect the early resources, e.g., soil, water, biota, human, and energy, permeates the movement.
4.2. Sources of Potential
- How do we ensure performance?
- How do we define regenerative agriculture?
4.3. Other Agricultural Movements
4.4. Assessing Agricultural System Performance
4.5. Quantifying, Refining, and Iterating towards Higher Levels of Farmscape Function—The IPPI Mechanism
- (1)
- the practice can be adjusted according to the movement’s principles,
- (2)
- the principles the movement employs to achieve its intentions can be reassessed, or
- (3)
- the indicator reviewed for its efficacy to quantify change.
- (1)
- Farmers and their agents will be given the tools to quantitatively refine their own practice for their context.
- (2)
- The contextually assigned data will contribute to refining indicators [142].
- (3)
- The multitude of contexts covered will provide other farmers with highly tailored and accessible information for their system and context. Decoding contextually complex practices [50].
- (4)
- Exemplary farmers will be identified [76].
- (5)
4.6. A definition for Regenerative Agriculture
Any system of crop and/or livestock production that, through natural complexity and with respect to its contextual capacity, increases the quality of the product and the availability of the resources agriculture depends upon; soil, water, biota, renewable energy and human endeavor.
5. Conclusions
- As a movement, regenerative agriculture has, since the 1980s, consistently focused on rebuilding or increasing the availability of the resources agriculture depends upon in the attempt to achieve a sustainable agriculture.
- The movement has substantial support, consumer markets, interested corporate parties, and most importantly, farmers who claim to have provided the missing link between early conceptualization and current regenerative performance (claims which have been critiqued academically). However, an increased appreciation of system interaction is beginning to shift academic opinion.
- Ensuring that regeneratively focused systems perform is essential in maintaining and building movement momentum. Herein, the authors have proposed a new Farmscape Function framework that will monitor change in agricultural resources over time and track relationships with system expenses, certainty, and land condition.
- A new Intention, Principle, Practice, and Indicator (IPPI) mechanism will enable further data driven innovation within farms and across communities of practice.
- Monitoring for the above framework and mechanism will be best undertaken by farmers and agronomist-extension workers and contribute towards establishing a systems agronomy.
- These tools will quantify system performance and facilitate iteration to higher levels of function, enabling a situation where a regenerative agriculture can be confirmed as any system of crop and/or livestock production that, through natural complexity and with respect to its contextual capacity, increases the quality of the product and the availability of the resources agriculture depends upon, soil, water, biota, renewable energy, and human endeavor.
- Future work will seek to identify regenerative systems by implementing the Farmscape Function framework and IPPI mechanism. Addressing limitations of communication, context determination, and cost-effective measurement of indicators will be major focus points. It is expected that digital agriculture will play a major role in overcoming these limitations. Collaborations will be sought with farming groups and academics within the fields encompassed by the dimensions of regenerative agriculture to assist in identifying and refining indicators.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Dimension | Potential Indicators |
---|---|
Soil | Organic matter, pH, bulk density, aggregate stability, ground cover, nutrient profiles. |
Water | Soil infiltration, consistency of plant available water, stream flow consistency, stream flow quality. |
Biota | Above and below ground flora and fauna diversity and abundance. |
Human | Income, autonomy, quality of life, and community stability. |
Crop | Quantity and quality. |
Energy | Inputs: fossil fuels, renewably sourced energy, fertilizers, and incidence radiation capture. |
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O’Donoghue, T.; Minasny, B.; McBratney, A. Regenerative Agriculture and Its Potential to Improve Farmscape Function. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5815. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14105815
O’Donoghue T, Minasny B, McBratney A. Regenerative Agriculture and Its Potential to Improve Farmscape Function. Sustainability. 2022; 14(10):5815. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14105815
Chicago/Turabian StyleO’Donoghue, Tom, Budiman Minasny, and Alex McBratney. 2022. "Regenerative Agriculture and Its Potential to Improve Farmscape Function" Sustainability 14, no. 10: 5815. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14105815