Agroecology and regenerative farming have a lot in common, in the view of many, or nothing in common, in the view of others. The question seems to be to what extent does regenerative agriculture embrace the political aspects of sustainability and resilience that are central to the Agroecology movement. But there is more than one single type of regenerative agriculture, as this article argues.
Full paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.844261/full
Summary
Agroecology and regenerative agriculture have plenty in common: soil and ecosystem restoration, reliance on biological interactions and ecosystem services, integration of domestic plants and animals, efficient use of the photosynthetic potential of annual and perennial combinations, amongst other principles. One aspect of agroecology that does not always fit comfortably in the realm of regenerative agriculture is political activism, or the place and emphasis that the ‘social’ dimension takes in the definition of the social-ecological system. This is perhaps one of the reasons why agroecology is more closely associated with peasant movements, for whom claims on rights and access to natural resources are urgent. Regenerative agriculture is an approach increasingly – but not exclusively – adopted by commercial, often large-scale farmers or external investors less concerned with e.g. land tenure security or access to water or genetic resources.
Research questions
As regenerative agriculture is influencing the agendas of governments, farmers, companies, academia and development organisations, it is necessary to examine if we are all speaking about the same thing when referring to regenerative agriculture. Is it legitimate to think about resilience, adaptability or sustainability without considering their overarching political and social dimensions? Here we explore to what extent different types of regenerative agriculture (RA) approaches internalise social and political issues, as well as other principles of agroecology.
Methodology
We examined the websites of organisations and companies promoting RA and 647 scientific publications, and preformed a lexical analysis of the concepts and discourses associated with RA. We analysed these data corpus under the light of the first-hand experience of the authors in both agroecology and regenerative farming approaches in different parts of the world. We compared the various definitions of RA found in the literature by examining to what extent they fulfil the 10 principles of agroecology (Barrios et al., 2020).
Three types of regenerative agriculture
Three types of regenerative agriculture (RA) were identified: ‘Philosophy RA’, ‘Development RA’ and ‘Corporate RA’. They share in different degrees the ecological and social principles of agroecology, more easily at farm than at community level. ‘Philosophy RA’ refers to the approach proposed by the pioneers, which in many senses resembles permaculture or biodynamic farming approaches. ‘Development RA’ refers to the approach to regenerative agriculture followed by large International NGOs, directing their efforts to restore degraded soils at scale. ‘Corporate RA’ refers to the approach to regenerative agriculture taken by private companies, mostly large multinationals (e.g. General Mills; Syngenta; Nestle), which is often regarded with suspicion, criticised as being possible green washing strategies.
Building legitimacy
RA is not devoid of politics: even the omission social and political issues in most definitions of RA is political. On the other hand, while RA has plenty in common with agroecology, the latter is much wider, and not only in terms of social aspects. By creating tighter links with the science and movement of agroecology, and fundamentally, by engaging in much needed political debates to foster agri-food transitions and transformations, RA will be able to build broader legitimacy among the relevant stakeholders.
Reference: Tittonell Pablo, El Mujtar, Verónica, Felix Georges, Kebede Yodit, Laborda Luciana, Luján Soto Raquel, de Vente, Joris, 2022. Regenerative agriculture—agroecology without politics? Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 6, DOI=10.3389/fsufs.2022.844261.