To date, anecdotal studies and farmer experiences have driven the uptake of regenerative agriculture practices, but now a major research project will validate the benefits.
Ecdysis Foundation, a not-for-profit research organization, has studied regenerative agriculture for several years, finding that regenerative practices increase biodiversity and profits. Now it plans to scale up its research and gather data across more than 1,000 U.S. farms by 2023 to provide information that has been lacking up until now.
Researchers will study farms with varying levels of adoption of regenerative principles, which include planting cover crops, growing a more diverse mix of crops, grazing livestock on harvested fields and reducing pesticide use.
Ecdysis Foundation Director Jonathan Lundgren says that the research has two main goals, “Number one will be testing whether regenerative agriculture works no matter what you grow and where you grow it. And then we also will be providing road maps that farmers develop for successful transitioning to regenerative systems.”