What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is an effective way to restore biodiversity and stabilize the climate, but what exactly is it? This video explores three different regenerative practices that have great potential both in food production and in healing the land.

Music: Dubious Doings by Thomas Howe (used with permission)

Sources:

Organic Agriculture does more harm than good
Searchinger et al., Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change, 2018.

Bacteria Converts Ammonium into Nitrite and Nitrate:
Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, Teaming with Microbes, 2006, 48.

Myceilium brings water to plants:
Ibid, 57.

Worms increase water absorption and allow plant roots to penetrate deeper:
Ibid, 89.

Fertilizer leeches into water:
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005.

Regenerative grazing can sequester carbon:
Sanderman et al., Impacts of Rotational Grazing on Soil Carbon in Native Grass-Based Pastures in Southern Australia, 2015.

Regenerative grazing can build soil and reverse desertification:
Allan Savory, Holistic Management, 1999, 244.

The growth of grass:
Global Rangelands, Basics of Grass Growth
Julius Ruechel, The Daily Pasture Rotation, 2009.

Overgrazing leads to erosion, drought, and desertification:
Ibanez et al., Desertification due to overgrazing in a dynamic commercial livestock–grass–soil system, 2007.

Food forests consist of 7 layers:
Toby Hemenway, Gaia's Garden, 2001, 172.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:21 What does it actually involve?
0:41 No-Till Farming
1:25 Regenerative Grazing
2:35 Agro-Forestry
3:21 Conclusion

[wafiqessop]

As an Agricultural Scientist, this was very well made. I will use this to explain to others what Regenerative(or as we call is, Sustainable Agriculture) is.

[vivalaleta]

This video should be taught in schools. You've really presented this in an entertaining but memorable way.

[RancidToadTim]

The grazing technique is standard practice in New Zealand

[etiennelouw]

I started my veggie garden in August 2021 and also planted 6 trees (Guava, Fig, Mulberry, 2 Avo together and Moringa). I dug up the tough Kikuya grass in the veggie patch and made a barrier using cement slabs I had. When I started I did not find even one earth worm in the soil I dug up. Being a pensioner, therefore a lack of capital, I covered the soil in the veggie patch with cardboard and cut holes in the cardboard and inserted "grow tubes" (tubes cut from soda bottles) in the holes. I planted the veggies inside the tubes and only watered inside the tubes using a 5 liter water bottle with a hole in the lid. Water smart veggie garden as I live in Cape Town, South Africa where we almost ran out of water 3 years ago. As I expanded the veggie patch I had 1 piece that was also covered with cardboard that I would lift and dig in my kitchen scraps so no planting there yet. Good news is I have found lots of earth worm in the veggie patch now so the soil is getting better, I have had a good harvest.

[CoolHand]

I toured a coffee plantation in Costa Rica that was exercising the agro-forest concept, though they didn't call it as such. They just found what worked best for them and executed it. It was inspiring!

[gravesdmr]

Excellent explanation - let's share this everywhere - it needs hundreds of millions of views!!!

[hamstersniffer]

Interestingly, my grandfather who was a subsistence farmer (now viewed as a derogatory term) understood the age old value of building soil, grazing animals that fertilize, regenerative cover crops, rotating crop fields, and using pest repellent plants adjacent to food crops. Yes, he did plow the fields but they were allowed to recover and enrich between plantings. His soil was BLACK and loose and rich. He's been dead for many decades but understood the need to care for the land that feeds you.

[robinthomas]

TRANSCRIPT:

Regenerative agriculture is a set of farming practices that increase biodiversity in soil organic matter.
Currently most agricultural practices are devastating to biodiversity. Even organic agriculture, while not as bad, still does more harm than good. Regenerative agriculture is a way to reverse this trend, to actually make a positive impact on the land.


So what does regenerative agriculture actually involve?
Answering this question is actually pretty tricky, because the practices that work best largely depend on the land that's being worked with, so the variety of different practices border on infinity, a bit more than this video can cover.



However, let's look at three common forms that regenerative agriculture can take:

*** No-Till Farming
***
The soil is full of organisms which are helpful for plants. Some convert soil nitrogen into a plant-usable form. Some bring water to the plants that would otherwise be out of reach. Others loosen and aerate the soil, increasing water absorption and allowing plant roots to penetrate deeper. When soil is turned over by a machine, most of these organisms are killed, so the crops must rely on chemical fertilizer which ends up leaching into the water.
Central to no-till farming is to NOT DO THAT. Instead of tilling, plant cover crops whose roots break up the soil. Let the worms aerate the soil and bring down nutrients. Keep the soil covered with an organic mulch which will break down over time, adding more organic matter to the soil.

*** Regenerative Grazing
***
From the release of methane, to clearing forests for pasture land, cattle raising is known for being very environmentally destructive. But this is not inherent to grazing animals! If the right practices are put into place, enormous amounts of carbon can be sequestered into the ground, soil can be built, and even desertification can be reversed in a matter of years.

Here's how it works:

The growth of grass tends to start slow, accelarate, and slow down again. This middle area is where it accrues the most biomass the most efficiently. If it's eaten before it gets to this point, its growth will never speed up. This is what happens with traditional pastured animals: They eat all the grass, which doesn't have the chance to grow back fast enough before getting eaten again, and we have overgrazing. This leads to soil erosion, drough, and desertification.
But if the animals are kept in a tightly packed herd, like they used to be in nature, the grass has time to grow before being eaten. All that biomass in the grass is carbon that comes from the air. Not all the grass gets eaten, however. Some of it gets pooped on and trampled, which ends up creating the perfect conditions for new topsoil to be built. This ends up happening incredibly quickly.

*** Agro-Forestry
***
This is one of the most complex and location-dependent practices there are. I will therefore be over-generalizing.
It always starts with observing a local forest and the relationships between everything in it--the plants, the animals, the fungi, the landscape, the soil, the water--and then re-creating these relationships in a way that's just as ecologically resilient, but produces more food.
Food forests are often thought of as comprising seven layers: The root layer, the ground cover layer, the herb layer, the shrub layer, the low tree layer, the high tree layer, and the vine layer. Every one of these layers either produces some sort of food or medicine, or is in some way helpful to the system as a whole. The plants are mostly perennials, and include as many native species as possible.



These three examples of regenerative agriculture, plus all the rest of them, all have something in common: whereas in conventional agriculture you seek to create as many of one thing as possible, in regenerative agriculture you seek to create as many relationships between things as possible.

You are one of those things! What sort of relationship with the land do YOU want to foster?

[Atho-who-what]

I know what is regenerative agriculture now, my parents are going to be so proud of me! Thank you❤😊

[RealGoldRealWealth]

This presentation is so informative, so succinct, so well paced and soooo... good to share with anyone who is interested in restoring our soils to fertility. Thank you. Very well done.

[hakkakdeniz]

As an Agricultural Scientist in Türkiye, your vodeos are very benefical for us and others concerning wlth those things. Please keep goning like this and thanks a lot for helping.

[gardenlikeaviking]

I deeply appreciate the concise delivery and easy to follow visuals... I will definitely be recommending people watch this video... thank you and please make more!!!!

[mytreasurechess]

This is a real gem. Sending this to my County for reforestation program on some pasture I've spent 3 years converting its biology to permaculture, for their choice of trees. Very exciting find!

[prophecyrat]

Wow, I have never seen such a well designed presentation on sustain level farming and soil health.

I live in El Paso, they are still monocroping, but there is initiative for protecting the land, like establishing national parks and nature reserves.

Most people are to ignorant and can’t comprehend that we NEEED WEEDS. They usually come form the “civilized farming” background, they know nothing else.

How would you suggest one could start making a difference in the community?

And what challenges have you faced with people who even after watching this presentation, still cannot comprehend the gravity of soil health?

It’s frustrating, because everyone think that having weeds in their yard is lazy, and they also believe that if they have weeds or “unkempt property”, it will deface the value of their land.

Coming from me, I don’t even have a degree yet, and even if I did, I feel like these people couldn’t comprehend a single word about soil health.

Pleas message me, I’m trying desperately to keep this community from tilling this earth into dust.

[cwong]

The YouTube algorithm brought me to your channel and I instantly subscribed after watching this animated explanation about regenerative farming. It is very well explained and well produced. Thank you!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻😄

[SoilSage]

Awesome simplified breakdown of regeneratie farming. Thanks a lot, Jimi. I'm hoping to get others on board to start a regenerative community. This serves as a great introductory video to inspire others that it is possible.

[Fjuron]

1:47 brilliant! Makes so much sense!
The entirety of the video, actually. Very nice explanations and animations.
Organic is a too small step in the right direction. Regenerative and permaculture all the way.

[emdiesus]

Fantastic video. Thanks for this! It would be awesome to have it translated different languages.

[originofenergy]

awesome work simple teaching animation that explains what all of humanity needs to learn in less that 4 mins. Well done:)

[tokyons]

I don't know where are you now but I hope you all have good times. Thanks for information. You maybe not a rich athlete or a well known scientists but you are inspiring us to be one.