Defining "Regenerative" farms, new scientific paper from Jonathan Lundgren

[holwellcourtfarm]

As per the title, This paper is based around Corn, Almonds and range grazing in the U.S. but makes interesting reading.

Defining and validating regenerative farm systems using a composite of ranked agricultural practices

Background: Ongoing efforts attempt to define farms as regenerative to aid marketers, policymakers, farmers, etc. The approach needs to balance precision with function, and must be transparent, simple, scalable, transferable, incorruptible, and replicable. Methods: ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Guleesh]

It really just highlights to me the impossibility of accurately defining/quantifying what is regenerative and what isn't. I don't really see the point in continually trying to standardise and measure what qualifies as regenerative and what doesn't, as surely it varies too greatly between different locations and environments?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Interesting!

I would venture that "if you're working to sell stuff to people you don't know" then it's not really that regenerative despite what stuff you don't do to produce the stuff.

Things like producing commodity to a strict specification, how do you deal with what doesn't meet spec?
How does that fit with the regenerative principle of "uniqueness" or indeed, why aren't these principles mentioned?

Agriculture = pretty much degenerative

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Interesting!

I would venture that "if you're working to sell stuff to people you don't know" then it's not really that regenerative despite what stuff you don't do to produce the stuff.

Things like producing commodity to a strict specification, how do you deal with what doesn't meet spec?
How does that fit with the regenerative principle of "uniqueness" or indeed, why aren't these principles mentioned?

Agriculture = pretty much degenerative

I think that's a bit "hard core" for scientific folk just yet.......

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I think that's a bit "hard core" for scientific folk just yet.......

It may be, but IMO it's one of the most important principles to consider.
Because that's where all the wasteage comes in!

You always here how many tonnes of food it takes but you seldom hear how much is grown to get to that point, after these spuds and those spuds and the other spuds were rejected for various reasons

chances are, (if we actually bridged the gap) then there would be plenty right with the wrong spuds, or that lamb that was 200g too heavy, or whatever.

Not trying to be overly critical of this paper, it's good, but it's still very "agricultural" if you see what I mean?
200 years ago few of these ivermectins and roundups and 11 furrow ploughs were available, but agriculture was just as degenerative as today, because the core business was the same.

I know this to be roughly true -as a pesky observer from a distant colony, otherwise our land wouldn't have been invaded and the landscape destroyed for agriculture - and I wouldn't be here

that's not regenerative culture and no amount of 'soil health' is going to fix things or create a drastically better world for the kids - if they can't catch a sheep and dress it, then they'll be bidding against the rest of the world if they want to eat mutton

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

It may be, but IMO it's one of the most important principles to consider.
Because that's where all the wasteage comes in!

You always here how many tonnes of food it takes but you seldom hear how much is grown to get to that point, after these spuds and those spuds and the other spuds were rejected for various reasons

chances are, (if we actually bridged the gap) then there would be plenty right with the wrong spuds, or that lamb that was 200g too heavy, or whatever.

Not trying to be overly critical of this paper, it's good, but it's still very "agricultural" if you see what I mean?
200 years ago few of these ivermectins and roundups and 11 furrow ploughs were available, but agriculture was just as degenerative as today, because the core business was the same.

I know this to be roughly true -as a pesky observer from a distant colony, otherwise our land wouldn't have been invaded and the landscape destroyed for agriculture - and I wouldn't be here

that's not regenerative culture and no amount of 'soil health' is going to fix things or create a drastically better world for the kids - if they can't catch a sheep and dress it, then they'll be bidding against the rest of the world if they want to eat mutton

That's the viewpoint I thought Ffinlo Costain might find interesting for the Farmgate Podcast.

I can see exactly where you're coming from and so why contact grazing works so well. It would be a really interesting discussion to have with an evangelical vegan too!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It's really difficult to be objective when you're passionate about something.
I'm rather towards the end of being "dispassionate" which is why things are working well here?

Because I really don't see an answer for feeding people who don't want to be a part of "it", I don't really care how they get on, or even if they do get on.
They will certainly not learn much reading labels at the supermarket which is precisely where "regenerative agriculture" seems to want to be?

Ours is different: I want to help farmers out of a pickle, eg if they are overstocked and only see the options of smashing nitrogen on or buying in feed, I present a third option - send them here
I call this "regenerative" because:

-it's mutualistic, I get tools and they buy some time
-it's nodal, if their farm is beginning to crack then they can use our farm's wealth of groundcover while they regroup and explore options
-it's embracing the uniqueness of thought processes and facilitating education of both parties

none of it is really to do with biodiversity or the things that we don't apply to the land or business, it's built on relationships and communication

since we've been grazing, I've suddenly elevated our position from "those new people with the funny ideas" to "the people on the green farm might be worth having a yarn to"

Producers, shepherds, drovers should be the most respected people in the land, because we manage the water catchment for the towns and cities.
We need to forget about "the food" for a bit.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

It's really difficult to be objective when you're passionate about something.
I'm rather towards the end of being "dispassionate" which is why things are working well here?

Because I really don't see an answer for feeding people who don't want to be a part of "it", I don't really care how they get on, or even if they do get on.
They will certainly not learn much reading labels at the supermarket which is precisely where "regenerative agriculture" seems to want to be?

Ours is different: I want to help farmers out of a pickle, eg if they are overstocked and only see the options of smashing nitrogen on or buying in feed, I present a third option - send them here
I call this "regenerative" because:

-it's mutualistic, I get tools and they buy some time
-it's nodal, if their farm is beginning to crack then they can use our farm's wealth of groundcover while they regroup and explore options
-it's embracing the uniqueness of thought processes and facilitating education of both parties

none of it is really to do with biodiversity or the things that we don't apply to the land or business, it's built on relationships and communication

since we've been grazing, I've suddenly elevated our position from "those new people with the funny ideas" to "the people on the green farm might be worth having a yarn to"

Producers, shepherds, drovers should be the most respected people in the land, because we manage the water catchment for the towns and cities.
We need to forget about "the food" for a bit.

Talking like that you'll scare the pants off Jacky (&THAT doesn't beat thinking about! )

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Talking like that you'll scare the pants off Jacky (&THAT doesn't beat thinking about! )

NZ has the unique position that we're overly self-sufficient in commodities.
Hence we can delude ourselves that "we can afford" to export "Carbon credits" and plant vast tracts of land into invasive exotic species to score points with countries who cannot justify doing so.

Then we'll have to drink water out of bottles, I guess?

As above, we can live well without "food from farms" for a while, but we cannot survive the day without decent fresh water.
This is something we need to take more seriously than several other metrics designed around "food" production because it can take care of itself - when we think about managing water on the landscape

Managing our water effectively gives carbon sequestration and food production a massive boost, thinking food production only benefits food production. Hence the poor water cycle

 

[Nick Adams]

It may be, but IMO it's one of the most important principles to consider.
Because that's where all the wasteage comes in!

You always here how many tonnes of food it takes but you seldom hear how much is grown to get to that point, after these spuds and those spuds and the other spuds were rejected for various reasons

chances are, (if we actually bridged the gap) then there would be plenty right with the wrong spuds, or that lamb that was 200g too heavy, or whatever.

Not trying to be overly critical of this paper, it's good, but it's still very "agricultural" if you see what I mean?
200 years ago few of these ivermectins and roundups and 11 furrow ploughs were available, but agriculture was just as degenerative as today, because the core business was the same.

I know this to be roughly true -as a pesky observer from a distant colony, otherwise our land wouldn't have been invaded and the landscape destroyed for agriculture - and I wouldn't be here

that's not regenerative culture and no amount of 'soil health' is going to fix things or create a drastically better world for the kids - if they can't catch a sheep and dress it, then they'll be bidding against the rest of the world if they want to eat mutton

but agriculture was just as degenerative as today,

You can still see the damage on this farm from exploitative cropping in the late nineteenth century.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You can still see the damage on this farm from exploitative cropping in the late nineteenth century.

Can't blame herbicide and urea abuse for that, can we?

That's exactly what I mean though, Nick, the RA movement is basically polishing a poo to sound like a chocolate egg - which it really doesn't have much chance of being.
Sending raw foodstuffs and money to town.... and hardly even getting respect back

 

[Jungle Bill]

At a recent conference I heard Vandana Shiva say something along the lines of we shouldn’t worry about defining what’s regenerative and just try to stop any degenerative practices in our management and nature would look after the regeneration.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

At a recent conference I heard Vandana Shiva say something along the lines of we shouldn’t worry about defining what’s regenerative and just try to stop any degenerative practices in our management and nature would look after the regeneration.

She's usually right

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

At a recent conference I heard Vandana Shiva say something along the lines of we shouldn’t worry about defining what’s regenerative and just try to stop any degenerative practices in our management and nature would look after the regeneration.

Agreed. Too many folk are hung up on the definition (to let them tick the box, mainly) rather than seeing it as an endless journey of improvement.

Reports like this do help get the politicians to understand the idea though.

 

[Nick Adams]

At a recent conference I heard Vandana Shiva say something along the lines of we shouldn’t worry about defining what’s regenerative and just try to stop any degenerative practices in our management and nature would look after the regeneration.

" Do no harm"

 

[Nick Adams]

Agreed. Too many folk are hung up on the definition (to let them tick the box, mainly) rather than seeing it as an endless journey of improvement.

Reports like this do help get the politicians to understand the idea though.

I take your point. But do we want polys involved? They then start being prescriptive and giving us money that we become dependent on. I've just started a mid tier scheme. I could be paid for my herbal leys but they then want to tell me when I can graze. Judgement whether to farm for subsidy or food production.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I take your point. But do we want polys involved? They then start being prescriptive and giving us money that we become dependent on. I've just started a mid tier scheme. I could be paid for my herbal leys but they then want to tell me when I can graze. Judgement whether to farm for subsidy or food production.

This is why I'm trying to get DEFRA to see value in allowing ELMS to work the other way round: For farmers to propose how they want to manage their land and DEFRA to then agree target outcomes and payment rates.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I take your point. But do we want polys involved? They then start being prescriptive and giving us money that we become dependent on. I've just started a mid tier scheme. I could be paid for my herbal leys but they then want to tell me when I can graze. Judgement whether to farm for subsidy or food production.

Politicians could learn a lot [from us], if they didn't think they know it all already

It's always difficult trying to explain to someone "clever" that they are missing the obvious: they work in a place with "departments" and "portfolios"

have you ever seen an Ag minister who also is the minister of health, and finance minister too? Because they should be

 

[Nick Adams]

Never try and teach a pig to sing.

It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

 

[Jungle Bill]

Politicians could learn a lot [from us], if they didn't think they know it all already

It's always difficult trying to explain to someone "clever" that they are missing the obvious: they work in a place with "departments" and "portfolios"

have you ever seen an Ag minister who also is the minister of health, and finance minister too? Because they should be

Allan Savory is currently helping an enlightened government to develop policy holistically, it will be interesting to see how it goes.