“If everyone uses the word ‘regenerative’, the risk is that it will become trivialized and empty of its meaning”

2023-08-26 05:00:09

Developed in the 1980s by the Rodale Institute, an American organic pioneer, to fight against the hijacking of organic production systems by agribusiness, the concept of “regenerative agriculture” was once the concern of historical activists of agroecology, like the Indian activist Vandana Shiva.

Their objective was to develop a “regenerative organic agriculture”, by strengthening several aspects of the specifications“to ensure not only the absence of chemicals in our food, but also the health of the soil, the well-being of animals and that of agricultural workers” (Agriculture that repairs the planet. The promises of regenerative organic farming, by Jacques Caplat, André Leu and Vandana Shiva, Acte Sud, 2021). With the support of committed companies such as Patagonia or Dr. Bronner’s, a certification was born in 2017, Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC).

It was at this point, according to Helena Norberg-Hodge, activist and philosopher, that the expression “regenerative agriculture” was taken up by large agrifood groups to “green” their productivist approach, certainly enriched by virtuous practices of soil conservation (refusal of plowing, soil cover, crop rotation, etc.), but without the local organic that they persist in refusing!

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It must be said that in the meantime, these groups have discovered that upstream agriculture weighs 75% of their carbon footprint and that intensive agriculture tires the land, threatening yields. They are therefore developing “regenerative agriculture” programs to encourage producers to reduce their environmental impacts and restore carbon to the soil.

An impossible goal

But unlike organic, which was the basis of the concept and whose practices are strictly regulated, regenerative agriculture is based on discretionary strategies, without legal definition or control. Moreover, these industrial players, in search of flexibility with respect to the strict requirements of organic, do not commit to ROC certification. And activists also criticize them for not investing much in these programs, leaving farmers to cover the cost of these new practices and distracting attention from their direct emissions, while keeping the use of “well-dosed” synthetic chemistry, such as glyphosate, which does not exactly regenerate groundwater… of which it is the main pollutant!

Soon enough, the textile industry followed – and brands like Prada, Gucci and Stella McCartney made “regenerative” the new buzzword. Result: clearly freed from any constraint of landing in reality, the term now wanders in various fields – from luxury to leadership, from economics to management, everything becomes regenerative.

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