WHAT IS REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE?

Regenerative agriculture aims to enhance soil health and advance carbon sequestration as an antidote to the monocultures, pesticides, fertilizers, over-tilling and pollution that industrial agriculture brings. It’s a set of strategies, not an outcome or end goal. The following is a definition rooted in the spirit of regenerative agriculture while setting standards that are aspirational and achievable. Regenerative agriculture policy should use this definition to ensure accountability and effectiveness in building a healthy, just and sustainable food system:

Regenerative agriculture builds healthy soil in a resilient food system by supporting low-emissions farming practices that protect and conserve healthy native ecosystems. Regenerative agriculture must have measurable outcomes, with full lifecycle analyses, that promote the regeneration of ecological functions and biodiversity, support native wildlife, and improve public health.

Truly regenerative practices should also ensure workers’ rights and environmental justice and prioritize plant-based and small-scale producers. 

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Despite the positive goals of regenerative agriculture, definitions remain vague, standards are unclear, and claims often don’t hold up to rigorous analysis. As a result, increased government funding for regenerative agriculture comes alongside agribusiness greenwashing of business-as-usual practices under the guise of regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture must be implemented in a scientific and transparent manner, with clearly defined practices and standard, trackable outcomes, to become a serious contribution to a sustainable food system.

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Regenerative policy and funding opportunities should support the goals of regenerative farming at its best. The problems of our food system are urgent, and our solutions must be meaningful. Food production is a leading driver of biodiversity loss and is responsible for more than one-third of global agricultural emissions. Food systems policy must not only focus on soil health but also protect wildlife and habitats and support sustainable diets. Yet the impact of farming on wildlife is consistently left out of the debate about what regenerative agriculture is and is not. Intensifying livestock, a leading source of agricultural emissions and deforestation, is not a regenerative solution. 

Finally, regenerative farming must be a whole system approach. Adding eco-friendly practices such as cover crops, no-till farming, crop rotation, composting, water and soil contamination prevention, and prohibiting toxic inputs, can be helpful for reducing harmful impacts, but do not in and of themselves qualify as regenerative farming, without further criteria. 

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• Tracking and transparency: Require accountability in verifiable reporting, tracking, and transparency about emissions, biodiversity and other production metrics to ensure outcomes are achieved. Violations of environmental laws should not be tolerated.

• Assessments of ecosystem integrity: Practices should address the entire ecosystem, including the integrity of native ecosystems and biodiversity. Incentivized policies should protect wildlife and minimize pollution and biodiversity loss. 

• Whole-operation metrics: Metrics should reflect 100% of farm practices. If an operation is piloting practices or in the process of transitioning, incentives and programs must weigh the impact of the entire operation (including portions using industrial practices).

• Timebound plans: Clear, timebound plans for expanding regenerative practices must include deadlines for reporting and meeting standards to acquire funding. Long-term plans should account for maintaining soil and habitat and addressing soil carbon saturation.

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This should include mandatory standards and definitions for promoting and protecting native biodiversity and intact ecosystems; providing clear and mandatory metrics for measuring and reporting carbon sequestration and methane emissions; protecting water quality by establishing clear and mandatory methods of measuring and reporting the quality of ground and surface water; and incorporate the environmental impacts of slaughter into measurements and reporting. 

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The following practices cannot be considered regenerative:

Beef production (large scale).
"Regenerative beef” claims must be held to rigorous scientific methodologies and only incorporate beef cattle in limited circumstances via significantly reduced herds, well-managed practices, favorable climates, and using nonlethal coexistence with wildlife. 

Cattle production is a key driver of wildlife and biodiversity loss, and is the largest agricultural source of climate emissions, water use, land conversion, deforestation and habitat loss, and is a leading source of manure pollution and slaughterhouse impacts. 

Neither grass-fed nor finished beef is inherently regenerative in practice. Feedlots contribute air, water and land pollution, overconsumption of groundwater resources, and harms to native species and habitats in addition to greenhouse gas emissions. Feedlot fattening animals rapidly and unnaturally for slaughter also removes that animal from the environment, preventing carcass regeneration in the ecosystem. Yet many grass-fed products are from cattle “finished” in feedlots. Grass-fed cattle also contribute more methane emissions and manure pollution than feedlot-finished cattle. 

In addition, peer-reviewed science shows it is not possible to meet current U.S. demand for beef with a regenerative model. Carbon sequestration benefits are temporary, limited, regional, and conditional, and come with additional methane emissions, wildlife threats, and other harms. Studies have shown the vital carbon sinks found in grasslands are canceled out by well-managed grazing. 

Commercial biogas.
Commercial biogas production is a false solution used to justify new subsidies and the unchecked expansion of factory farms — which will cause even more manure pollution and greenhouse gases, while we all pay the price. The most widely used technology relies on outdated lagoon and spray field waste management systems at industrial hog operations, which store hog manure in often-unlined pits and spray the waste on to nearby agricultural fields. This system pollutes streams, waterways and terrestrial ecosystems, harms public health of communities living nearby and downstream and creates noxious odors. These harms are disproportionately felt by marginalized communities and worsen environmental disasters in climate-driven weather events.

Carbon offsets and carbon markets.
The concept of offsetting carbon rather than drawing it down is a common greenwashing practice used to mislead consumers and regulators. Studies have shown offsets are essentially worthless as a climate solution. In its own assessment, the USDA admitted “the identified inadequacies in carbon credit projects” have led to concerns over the quality of credits and the accuracy of emission reduction claims. Carbon markets lack accountability, mostly benefit pollution-heavy corporations, and are ineffective. Attempts to sequester carbon in fast-exchange reservoirs may result in the re-release of carbon within a few decades or even sooner due to land erosion or conversion. 

Industrial Scale Animal Agriculture.
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are intensive, industrial-scale operations, for example confining more than 1,000 cattle or 2,500 swine weighing at least 55 pounds or 10,000 swine weighing under 55 pounds. No concentrated animal operation can meet the requirements of regenerative food production due to the sheer amount waste and air and water pollution generated and its impact on surrounding soil, waterways, biodiversity, and communities as well as the farmed animals themselves. 

Lethal predator management.
Animal agriculture is a leading threat to many wild species, especially predators like bears, coyotes and wolves. Lethal management and slaughter of wild animals in their native habitats on behalf of commercial livestock producers is destructive to ecosystems. Effective, nonlethal management practices should be implemented instead. 

Pesticides.
Pastures should remain free of pesticides and feed should be organic or certified chemical-free at all stages of production. However, while certified organic qualifications are part of the baseline definition of regenerative production, additional criteria as listed in this document are needed. Use of pesticide (especially insecticide) treated seeds, herbicides to replace tillage and rodenticides, especially second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, are all practices that are not compatible with regenerative agriculture. 

Preemptive antibiotics.
Prophylactic use of antibiotics is a required part of intensive farmed-animal confinement to limit the spread of disease for financial purposes, amounting to 80% of the antibiotic use in the United States. This creates conditions for antibiotic resistant bacteria.  

Water Pollution.
A leading point source of U.S. water pollution is slaughterhouse waste and other forms of agricultural pollution. Grazing cattle across western states are also a source of both water use, and pollution, degrading native habitats for countless wild species and contaminating community waterways.  

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The regenerative movement should be wary of promoting “regenerative beef” production (also referred to as “carbon farming” or “rotational grazing”). Proponents proffer the potential to reduce carbon through carbon sequestration. The reality is that while some carbon can be sequestered through improved practices, it is temporary and comes with massive tradeoffs in increased methane emissions and biodiversity degradation. 

Greater scrutiny is needed for claims about radical improvements in soil health via grazing, especially as the basis for funding decisions. Grazing lobbies claim that ungrazed land will lead to desertification, for example, though desertification is linked to the presence, not the absence, of cattle. Furthermore, in models labeled “regenerative,” too often harms to wildlife and natural ecosystems are overlooked and/or ill-defined. Download our “The Problem with Regenerative Beef” factsheet.

There are currently no official standards or science-based metrics to hold producers accountable. Claims about climate mitigation are overstated and downplay methane emissions. Limitations are downplayed or ignored, including soil carbon saturation, the temporary nature of soil carbon sequestration, the opportunity cost of land conversion for increased pastureland, and impacts on biodiversity. Benefits are not feasible at scale and are dependent on region and other factors. And most of all, efforts to scale up beef production would have devastating effects on wildlife. 

Regenerative grazing claims are based more on anecdote and theory than objective peer-reviewed, replicable, long-term studies. While many practitioners of regenerative agriculture do not use livestock, the appeal of “regenerative farming” been coopted by livestock producers and agrifood conglomerates that manipulate corporate sustainability schemes with unproven strategies and to produce harmful products. The contemporary push for “regenerative beef” is not a sustainable solution to the extensive harms of beef production.

Policy decisions must be driven by evidence-based conclusions about grazing, especially given the environmental harm caused by the presence of livestock. Ultimately, for any practices to work as regenerative in beef production, there must be substantial reduction in beef consumption and production to make such practices viable. Read more at GrazingFacts.com.

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Regenerative agriculture — with proper definitions, standards, and tracking and accountability — could become more than a set of disembodied on-farm practices and be a stepping stone in the just transition to sustainable food production. 

Currently the U.S. food system favors low-quality products that maximize corporate profits at the expense of workers, local communities, animals, public health and the planet. It is fundamentally inequitable, inefficient, financially flawed and environmentally unsustainable. 

Regenerative agriculture policies must not replicate this system. Farmworkers are disproportionately harmed by adverse effects of agricultural inputs and practices, but this is often left out of discussions about regenerative policy. Regenerative policies should integrate environmental justice and support marginalized and small-scale producers. This includes worker protections, community-based models and compensating producers working toward just transitions and regulatory compliance with strong environmental standards. 

Meanwhile other existing methods of farming are more sustainable, just and effective, such as systems of agroecology that approach living landscapes as a set of interconnected ecosystems, advancing equity and justice while boosting respect for the workers, wildlife, cultures, local economies and communities connected to the land. Agroecology aims to address all dimensions of nature, where regenerative has for too long been limited to a focus on soil. Embracing the principles like these can help shift power to communities, promote conservation values, and invest in climate justice and equity to build a democratic, fair, and resilient food system. Read more at JustTransitionRoadmap.com. 

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The Center for Biological Diversity is a bold proponent of sustainable agriculture and a watchdog on industry greenwashing. We are actively fighting for meaningful standards in state and federal policy and funding for regenerative agriculture and guiding industry practices toward a just and sustainable model of farming in which wildlife and human communities thrive.

To that end we have created informational resources on the harms of livestock grazing and more sustainable solutions at GrazingFacts.com and TakeExtinctionOffYourPlate.com.

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• A Guide the Impact of Beef Production on Wildlife and Biodiversity (Center for Biological Diversity).
• A Policy Primer for Regenerative Agriculture (Center for Biological Diversity).
• Cattle and Climate Change (Center for Biological Diversity factsheet).
• Center Grazing (Center for Biological Diversity webpage on public lands grazing work). 
• Collateral Damage (Center for Biological Diversity and World Animal Protection report highlighting the impacts of livestock feed crop pesticide use on endangered species).
• Costs & Consequences - The Real Price of Livestock Grazing on America’s Public Lands (Center for Biological Diversity report on grazing subsidies).
• Grazed and Confused (Report by Oxford University, not affiliated with the Center).
• Position Statement on Cattle Grazing (Center for Biological Diversity).
• The Problem with Regenerative Beef (Center for Biological Diversity factsheet).
• Under Their Skin: Leather’s Impact on the Planet (Center-endorsed report).

You can also watch our webinar series Grazing the Wild with leading scientists and experts and learn more about our work by signing up for our Food X newsletter.

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