What is regenerative agriculture?
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
‘To be regenerative isn’t an endpoint. You have to constantly be working at it.’
By Emily Mckinlay
Regenerative agriculture has been a popular topic among the farming community and the public, as environmental sustainability is a growing concern.
Often a buzzword, it can be unclear which practices and what degree of implementation qualifies farms as regenerative operations.
Dorthea Gregoire, director of education, extension and outreach at Canadian Organic Growers, says that current definitions are often debated within the regenerative community.
“Almost no one is satisfied with any one definition,” says Gregoire.
“That’s the one thing everyone can agree on. For us, when we are talking about regenerative agriculture, it’s not so much about an endpoint, but it’s a continuum or journey focusing on soil health. It’s more about the outcomes than the specific practices.”
A few general principles guide those with a regenerative mindset, who will then seek practices that serve their goals. The application of these principles can look different depending on farm type, geography, and producer objectives.
What is regenerative agriculture?
Regenerative agriculture looks different in varying contexts.
Rather than a list of specific practices and activities, farmers should assess how the principles of regenerative ag fit into their own operation.
“The exact practices will differ from place to place and farm to farm,” says Gregoire.
“The overall end goal is soil health, and not only improving it but continuously supporting it.”
While verbiage and specifics can change depending on the sources, there are generally five principles of regenerative agriculture:
- Keep the soil covered;
- Maintain a living root as long as possible;
- Promote plant diversity;
- Minimize disturbance, which includes avoiding disruption of the soil and ecosystem with synthetic products and tillage; and
- Incorporate livestock or livestock products when possible.
Edda Boettcher, from Brussels, Ont., and Chris Raupers, from Cardale, Man., are both regenerative farmers, but they apply these principles differently to suit the goals of their own operations.
Boettcher’s Capella Meadows is a mixed dairy goat, cash crop, vegetable, and meat goat farm. They operate a cheese business and are currently constructing a cheese plant on the farm. Boettcher says they are primarily organic biodynamic farmers, but many of their priorities fall under the regenerative umbrella.
“Biodynamic farming hits everything that’s required for being regenerative. Basically, it’s making sure you improve your soil health and increase biodiversity,” says Boettcher.
“For biodynamic farming, the goal is to build an ecosystem. We produce our own feed, fertilize our land with nutrients from the goats, and buy very little in. We wouldn’t want to deplete our soil, so we make sure we have enough that is going into the farm to have enough nutrients coming out. For me, personally, the most important part is the circularity.”
Boettcher’s goal is to produce a circular system, providing feed for the animals, who will provide manure for the land and milk for their cheese business. The whey from the cheese-making process also goes back into the nutrient cycle as animal feed or will be applied on their land. Self- sufficiency and balance are some of the primary values at Capella Meadows.
Raupers and his family run Cardale Grain Corporation and Engrained Flour Co. on their farm. His main goal is to produce nutritionally dense food while implementing the five regenerative principles.
“The goal is to regenerate the soil and make it better,” says Raupers.
“I am fortunate enough that I farm on soil that is of good parent material. We have good soil to work with and we farm in a moisture-friendly area, so we usually have enough rain.”
Raupers grows small grains, including wheat, barley, oats, peas, canola, flax and some alfalfa hay. In his crop rotation, Raupers puts an emphasis on intercropping to achieve more plant diversity and cover crops to keep the soil covered. He has grown combinations of oats and peas, peas and camelina, canola and peas, wheat and faba beans, and clover and wheat. His intercrops are often harvested together and separated by seed-separating equipment post-harvest.
Enjoy Today Photography photo
Raupers has grown full-season cover crops to be grazed by a neighbour’s livestock in four of the last six years.
To get started, he eased into regenerative agriculture by combining two or three principles at a time in his fields, and carefully working through the challenges. Raupers says that regenerative agriculture is all situational and looks different based on the farm and its conditions.
Benefits and challenges
While the goal of regenerative agriculture is to improve and regenerate soil, there are benefits beyond soil measurements.
“There are a ton of benefits from both the economic and environmental perspectives,” says Gregoire.
“With changes to inputs and practices, hopefully it allows farmers to find a way to change or decrease their workloads or make those workloads more enjoyable. On the environmental side, it is intentionally creating more room for diversity and the water cycle and is working with the land instead of trying to force it to be something it’s not.”
Gregoire notes that improving soil health can help mitigate some common challenges faced by farmers, like plant diseases, weeds, and moisture problems.
“Once you have healthy plants, they are less susceptible to pests and disease, and there is less of a need to react to problems. It’s taking a more proactive approach, with the whole system functioning in a collaborative way.
“With soil, it will develop a soil sponge so it can absorb more moisture if it’s raining, and when it’s dry, plants have more access to stored water.”
Boettcher says they’ve observed these benefits at Capella Meadows but also noted that it takes a few years for regenerative practices to develop these healthy systems.
“We’ve noticed that our yields are very stable now. They don’t fluctuate a lot, even if the weather is more extreme. The soil offers us so much.
“We also have low weed pressure. It feels like there’s no need for a lot of weed management. It’s a very stable system for us.”
Raupers says that he feels these principles have also given him a better understanding of what it means to be a steward of the land.
“Learning and understanding these principles has given me a lot of pleasure and a sense of really truly being a farmer and steward of the land.
“I believe that the conventional or commercial ag world’s focus has been too concentrated on simply producing bushels. That has led to soil degradation. You learn so much when studying each of these principles.”
The shift to regenerative farming does come with some challenges. Specifically, there is no set of practices or decisions that will work for every farm.
“The challenge is to make the principles work on different farms with new parameters and climate and soil conditions,” says Raupers.
“There are so many things that are different for each one of us, and that’s what makes each situation unique. If you’re trying these principles, you’re also often the first in your area, and there aren’t a bunch of experienced local farmers around that you can go to and ask how to do it.”
He says it was hard to learn that if it works for a farm somewhere else in the province, it doesn’t mean it will work for his farm.
Boettcher adds, “It takes a lot of adjusting to find a system that works for you. It’s very individual. You have to be very attentive to what works and what doesn’t, and go from there.”
Striving for better
Regenerative agriculture has been a buzzword among farmers for a few years and there are a number of interpretations about what being a regenerative farm means.
“Right now, there are a lot of people claiming to be regenerative and talking about regenerative agriculture,” says Gregoire.
“That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which is good on the side of innovation and creativity and for people to take things to the next level. On the other hand, some people see it as they have already been doing one practice but then leave it at that.”
Boettcher questions the application of individual practices: “The question is, what markers you should meet in order to consider yourself regenerative? It is a buzzword. Everyone wants to claim they are sustainable, but there are no real regulations around it yet.”
In being based on principles, rather than specific practices, the concept of being a regenerative farmer encourages continuous growth and evolution in pursuit of improved soil health.
“To be regenerative isn’t an endpoint. You have to constantly be working at it,” says Gregoire.
“One farmer I worked with said, ‘You should never be satisfied. Look at how you can improve, how the land is changing, and how you need to respond.’ The same practices you did 10 years ago may no longer be applicable or may need to be adjusted.”
As the conversation around regeneration grows, more farmers may continue to look at how these principles could fit into their operation.
“Generally, regenerative agriculture is a great idea and I think a big focus of farming should be soil regeneration” says Boettcher.
“As farmers, a large basis of our life is the soil, so we should try to improve it.” BF