Regenerative agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is a diverse, highly contested, and rapidly developing sustainable agriculture movement. It has been lauded for its transformative potential, and criticized for its incoherence and susceptibility for corporate co-option. At the heart of regenerative agriculture is an effort to engage with soil life rather than bypass it; this ethos and the messiness of the movement indicate that a range of novel human-soil relations may emerge within this space.
Zoom In: Soil Carbon
Overall, narratives indicate that a wide range of human-soil relations can be identified within regenerative agriculture, including care, exploitation, and relatively novel mechanisms of commodification and financialization of soil life through the development of soil carbon credits. Further, results indicate that this variation is produced by differences in human approaches to understanding, analyzing, and managing soil life; different approaches to producing knowledge about soils facilitates the creation of different kinds of relations.
Zoom In: Knowledge Commons
Building on the narratives, it is argued that the human should be theoretically (re)centered in the social science study of regenerative agriculture and human-soil relations, in order to maintain a uniquely human sense of responsibility to address, among other challenges, climate change. Similarly, the role of alternative ontological outlooks on soils and nature in food system transformation is discussed.[1]
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Turtle Island
Indigenous Persons across Turtle Island have long utilized place-based regenerative agriculture techniques. Placed-based regenerative agriculture is predicated around the reality of humans being but one part in the web of life, and understanding our role as stewards to the environment.
Fully comprehending our stewardship role on Earth is vital to reversing the destructive effects of industrialized society and agriculture. Anything short of fully embracing this role (which we all must fulfill) will have long lasting devastating effects for us, future generations, and all other life on Earth.[2]
Academic Institutions
MSU Center for Regenerative Agriculture
Directed by Jason Rowntree, a Savory Hub. Leading a $19 million project funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research in 2022 to research and develop the Savory Institute's EOV protocol (based on Allan Savory's Holistic Management) in collaboration with the USDA, Savory Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and others.[3]