Will the regenerative agriculture movement be hijacked away from farmers by ‘big corporations and hungry start-ups’?

In farming today, it sometimes feels as though whatever the problem, whether it’s soil health, yields, carbon or profitability, the answer always lies in regenerative agriculture.

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I am not opposed to regenerative practices. Far from it.

With more than four decades in large-scale agriculture, I have introduced many regenerative techniques across substantial areas of operation, and I saw the benefits such implementation did and did not deliver.

But crucially, these techniques were applied as part of a wider farm strategy, not as a “one-size-fits-all” policy.

Regenerative practices undoubtedly deserve a place in that mix, but they must be judged in the same way as any other farming practice: on their results in both environmental and financial terms.

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So, my concern is not about regenerative farming practices per se; it is about these practices being hijacked by big corporations and hungry start-ups without farming intel or scientific rigour.

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[When] regenerative farming is put forward as the answer to it all, the risk is farms that will be judged by labels rather than results and by hashtags rather than healthy outcomes.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here