Healthy people, soils, and ecosystems

Summary

The article investigates the relational values and economic and environmental factors which drive adoption of regenerative agriculture of farmers and ranchers in the United States. The authors build their analysis from an understanding of regenerative agriculture as both a set of practices and a social movement. They view social movements as often being guided by values that extend beyond economic or environmental benefits, citing the emergence of the organic movement and La Via Campesina as being rooted in desire for healthy social-ecological relationships and a belief in food sovereignty. Their inquiry began with a recognition that little is known about factors driving adoption of regenerative agriculture and that understanding these drivers can support decision making around this emerging social movement. The authors take a relational lens, investigating the values which connect people and ecosystems through tangible and intangible relationships to nature. They cite relational values as a tool to explain participation in and adherence to a range of social and environmental behaviours and practices as well as a means to elucidate social and ecological relationships.

The authors analysed qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with thirty-one US ranchers and farmers. They coded interview transcripts to find themes related to relational values of regenerative agricultural adoption. Participants were found through two not-for-profit regenerative agriculture organisations; the Savory Global Network and Mad Agriculture. The authors note this method would result in a potential bias of participants who engage with similar organisations. They employed further snowball sampling to broaden the scope of the participant pool. Participants came from a wide geographic range covering a substantial portion of US states, which can be seen visualised in Image 1. There was also a mixture of farm sizes ranging from small homesteads to large multi-thousand acre properties. Practitioners engaged in at least one of the following: vegetable production, livestock production, or non-timber forest product production (e.g., maple syrup).

Image 1: A map of the United States highlighted by the number of study participants from each state included with Colorado containing over a third of total participants.

The study found fourteen relational values, with the most commonly shared values being social responsibility, enjoying a ‘Good Life’, and generational eco-stewardship. A full list of relational values can be seen in Image 2. The study also explored economic and environmental factors which drive regenerative agriculture adoption, finding fourteen economic factors, including profitability, livelihoods, and access to markets, and eleven environmental factors, including soil and/or land care, ecosystems well-being, and animal welfare as the most commonly cited factors. The authors also found a range of factors that either did not fit or went beyond the frame of relational values or economic and environmental factors. These included health and/or healing, which intersected all of the coded themes the authors identified, and teaching and learning, which was seen by participants as a way to “spread the word.” The authors note, however, that these are often aligned with a shared belief that finding a balance between economics and the vision of regenerative agriculture is a real possibility.

Image 2: A table representing relational values identified by the researchers and their corresponding definitions

The authors sought to summate their findings in relation to the question: how do practitioners report the contribution that the interaction of relational values and economic and environmental factors has on their choices to adopt regenerative agriculture? They found four answers that cover the identified values and factors from their analysis.

1. Improving the health of people, soils, and ecosystems  - through farming practices and related social configurations  - was a primary driver for adoption.
2. Relative economic privilege, particularly across two extremes, correlated with different drivers for adoption. Relatively privileged practitioners often emphasised large-scale drivers for adoption, such as planetary well-being and incremental change whereas relatively less privileged practitioners focused on trade-offs among different practices, and steady transitions towards regenerative agriculture respectively. 
3. A shift away from industrial agriculture was at once a moral, economic, and environmental imperative for many practitioners.
4. A systems view of social-ecological relationships was seen as a key to adoption and societal transitions.

The authors build from these findings to discuss three key topics. First, they explore the relationships between practitioners’ relational values and regenerative agriculture as a sustainable agriculture movement. They claim that relational values are important in understanding farmers’ sense of agency in adopting more sustainable practices and engaging with social movements. They may support insights that economic or ecologically focused investigations cannot capture alone. Second, they examine the roles of definitions and diverse narratives in the emerging regenerative agriculture social movement. They cite the need for clarified definitions to support policy decision-making as regenerative agriculture continues to grow in popularity. They caution, however, against potentially negative impacts of fixed definitions, driven by Western-centric producer-consumer frameworks. They argue that homogenising perspectives of regenerative agriculture to form a dominant narrative may also contribute to the erasure and appropriation of the contributions of marginalised and Indigenous peoples to the movement. And third, the authors investigate the connections between food systems transitions and the drivers for adoption of agricultural practices. They present two relevant dynamics present in their discussion of socio-technical systems change. First, values are a major driver of adoption of regenerative agriculture. And second, the mobilisation of these values can contribute to changing the underlying rules and logic of the dominant agri-food system.

Key limitations of the study include the potential limited and biased sample pool which may not fully represent the movement in terms of definitions, practices, relational values, economic and environmental factors, and geographies in many ways. Additionally, the authors also point out  that these findings may not be unique to regenerative agriculture, other sustainable farming practices and movements may share similar values including more conventional forms of agriculture. Finally, participant inclusion was based on self-identification as a regenerative practitioner, which prevents the researchers from being able to have a clear picture of how similar participants are to each other due the the diversity of definitions around regenerative agriculture.

The authors conclude their discussion by emphasising the coherence of values amongst practitioners of regenerative agriculture as a potential key participant identification tool of members of this emerging social movement. The authors note the participants of this study sought to build the movement of regenerative agriculture through peer-to-peer scaling which supports findings related to the perception of regenerative agriculture as a method of superseding failing policy structures and collectively reaching desired sustainable futures. The authors note, however, that these findings represent only a segment of the regenerative agriculture movement and are representative only of the thirty-one participants of this study. They urge future research to explore the full scope of this social movement, and why it has gained traction as an emerging transition in the food system. They emphasise the potential of regenerative agriculture to contribute to a set of egalitarian food systems policies that could align with both global aims and underlying community needs.

Abstract
As regenerative agriculture grows in popularity, policy and decision-makers have become interested in its practices. Yet, little is known about those factors driving its adoption among farmers and ranchers. To better understand these drivers, we conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty-one farmers and ranchers across the United States (US) who self-identified as practitioners of regenerative agriculture. In doing so, we asked about relational values, which reflect one’s perspectives around the links between humans and nature. We also asked about economic and environmental drivers for adoption. In the analysis, we used qualitative coding to identify the range of values and factors driving adoption across our sample. We found that 1) improving the health of people, soils, and ecosystems  - through farming practices and related social configurations  - was a primary driver for adoption, 2) that relative economic privilege, particularly across two extremes  - privileged idealism and less privileged necessity  - correlated with most drivers for adoption, 3) that a shift away from industrial agriculture was at once a moral, economic, and environmental imperative for many practitioners, and 4) a systems view of social-ecological relationships was seen as a key to adoption and societal transitions. While our sample represents only a narrow segment of the regenerative agriculture movement in the US, our findings can serve as a useful starting point for understanding the drivers for its adoption. Our findings may also inform conversations on regenerative agriculture’s potential to support food-related sustainability transitions. The discussion situates our work amidst sustainable agriculture and social movement studies, questions of equity in food systems transitions, and the benefits of studying values in developing policy-relevant solutions.

Reference 
Frankel-Goldwater, L., Wojtynia, N., Dueñas-Ocampo, S., 2024. Healthy people, soils, and ecosystems: uncovering primary drivers in the adoption of regenerative agriculture by US farmers and ranchers. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 7.

Read the full paper here. See also the TABLE explainer What is regenerative agriculture? and our visual Exploring the ebbs and flows of Regenerative Agriculture, Organic and Agroecology