In Iowa, as much as 90% of the land is devoted to agriculture, and many farmers produce both soy and corn. The non-profit and two food brands plus their suppliers began working together on a regenerative agriculture project after realizing there was overlap both in the region where they sourced soy and corn, respectively, and in their long-term sustainability goals. In an attempt to overcome those barriers, a group of unlikely allies came together in 2018: the Practical Farmers of Iowa, Unilever, PepsiCo, Cargill and ADM. This same type of transition-centered investment is faced by farmers thinking about converting to organic. Whereas conventional agriculture is practiced in a very prescriptive way, regenerative is “almost limitless”, with regard to the cultivation and management options it might encompass, she explains.Īnother barrier to the transition is upfront cost: seeds for cover or companion crops need to be bought, new harvesting or storage equipment procured, livestock potentially integrated. “Meaning you had to have treated with an herbicide, or if you had a cover crop, you had to terminate that cover crop by a particular date you had to have added the recommended amount of fertilizer.” If farmers want to receive crop insurance for something that happened in the growing season, they need to have followed certain rules, she says. Nichols and Brown both point to crop insurance as a major sticking point. The Forum for the Future report says that there have been some positive shifts in the last few years, “around policy change, valuation of ecosystem services, alternative types of financial flows, demonstration of the business case and coalition-building amongst farmers”, but these shifts are still nascent. It all sounds very altruistic, but what’s the true scale of this movement? According to Dr Kristine Nichols, a soil microbiologist and regenerative agriculture expert, of the 900 million arable acres in the U.S., only about 1.5% is being farmed regeneratively. and Canada for 'improved ecosystem services' Acquire Licensing Rights General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios, is founding member of a program that provides credits to farmers in the U.S.
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