What is the regenerative movement?
Loosely defined, the regenerative movement aims at transitioning our food supply toward goals related to human health, economic resilience, and environmental stewardship. The work involves sharing a new vision for how regenerative food production, distribution, processing, sales, and consumption, can benefit all.
- Regenerative Agriculture: This involves farming practices that focus on rebuilding soil health, enhancing biodiversity, and restoring ecosystem functions. It often includes techniques like agroforestry, cover cropping, rotational grazing, and minimal tillage to improve soil fertility, water retention, and carbon sequestration.
- Regenerative Economics: This branch of the movement seeks to create economic systems that prioritize long-term well-being for both people and the planet. It promotes circular economies, local production and consumption, fair trade, cooperative ownership models, and alternative currencies to foster economic resilience and social equity.
- Regenerative Design: In architecture, urban planning, and product design, the regenerative approach involves creating built environments and products that mimic the resilience and efficiency of natural ecosystems. It aims to minimize waste, energy consumption, and environmental impact while maximizing resource efficiency and human well-being.
- Regenerative Culture: This aspect emphasizes fostering social cohesion, cultural diversity, and individual well-being within communities. It involves practices like restorative justice, participatory decision-making, holistic education, and community building to create thriving and resilient societies.
Find links to research reports to help you answer these common questions:
What if farmers were not at the start of the supply chain?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-farmer-share-20?blogcategory=Issues
Why do farmers only get 14.3 cents on the dollar for food sales?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-farmer-returns?blogcategory=Issues
What do we know about glyphosate?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-glyphosate?blogcategory=Issues
How do carbon markets affect regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-carbon-markets?blogcategory=Issues
Is livestock mandatory as part of a regenerative agriculture system?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-livestock-meat-production?blogcategory=Issues
Why is cropland increasing in value in the United States?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/farmland-values-data-report-a-quandary?blogcategory=Issues
What does regenerative agriculture have to do with greenhouse gases?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-greenhouse-gases?blogcategory=Issues
Why is farmland consolidation a problem for regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/debrief-farmland-consolidation?blogcategory=Issues
Where can I learn about the Farm Bill?
https://thinkregeneration.com/farm-bill
Where can I learn about climate issues in regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/climate-desk
Where can I learn about economics issues related to regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/economics-desk
Where can I find key studies about soil health and regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/soil-desk
Where can I learn about investment and infrastructure research regarding regenerative agriculture?
https://thinkregeneration.com/infrastructure-desk
Where can I learn more about tillage and no-till systems?
https://thinkregeneration.com/tr-journal/f/regenerative-research-tillage-no-till-systems
Questions we are working on:
- How can the fabric and textile industry become regenerative?
- What is organic certification and how has it changed since 1990?
- What is regenerative organic certification and how is it different?
- What issues around water should regenerative leaders know?
- Where is the current research into nutrient density related to growing practices?
- How does healthy soil function in an ecosystem?
- How can crops and plants be used to restore soil and ecosystems?
- Where is the packaging industry related to regenerative goals?
- How are grocery stores educating (or not) about nutrition?
- Why can restaurants charge so much for food?
- Are CSAs and Farmers Markets a long-term fix or short-term fad?
- Who controls the global food distribution?
- How does the SNAP program factor into our food supply?
- What studies are available to show how food and cancer/chronic diseases are related?
- What role does sugar play in our diet?
- Can alcohol and spirits be regenerative?
- Is agroforestry a practical regenerative growing practice?
- Why is soil testing industry without norms for testing and reporting?
- What type of crops are being grown for medicine?
- How do land grant universities and 1890 universities factor into our food supply?
- What are the big weather trends we should be aware of?
- … and more