Why does regenerative agriculture matter?
by Nico Gaviria
What is regenerative agriculture?
Regenerative agriculture has increased in awareness in recent years, though there still lacks a consensus definition. Simply put, regenerative farming means improving the land every year. Rather than extracting nutrients from the soil with conventional agricultural practices, regenerative agriculture and holistic grazing practices help restore degraded land, improve soil health, and increase biodiversity.
Regenerative agriculture effectively is an umbrella term for land managing practices that can include implementation of cover crops, no-till farming, and managed rotational grazing, among other practices.
Acreage planning differs greatly based on the context, which is in part why regenerative practices are rarely adopted at a commercial scale – awareness and adoption remain very low at the farmer level.
Implementing a successful regenerative agriculture land and grazing plan requires being context-specific and understanding each area’s native species.
Our Rebellion Energy Solutions acreage plans, with the help of our land partners, customize native species seeding plans with measurable biodiversity indicators over time to grade the soil health and progress of the acreage dedicated to restoration.
Why do we care about native grasses and soil health?
Native grasses are often overlooked in livestock and farming operations despite offering a host of benefits that impact the sustainability of your land. Healthy soils sequester carbon, impact the quality of water and air, and contribute to the resiliency of our ecosystem.
Soil carbon, or the amount of organic matter found in soil, is recognized as one of the key metrics of soil health and is linked with greater water infiltration and carbon sequestration. Soils high in soil carbon have a darker color and help improve water filtration and holding capacity of the soil, helping withstand droughts, preventing erosion, and improving the long-term health of the land.
In order to have an outsized ecological impact on the land we serve, we integrate four key regenerative agriculture principles to our land restoration operations:
Focus on soil health and deep roots: Cover crops enhance soil structure, increase organic matter, and promote microbial activity for healthier soils. Native grasses have deep roots that can reach up to eight to ten feet, increasing their resistance to heat and drought. Roots are important for energy storage in perennial plants and help plants transfer carbon in all three states of matter. In doing so, the deep roots accelerate the sequestration of carbon.
Implement cover crops: Soil needs protection from the sun, water, and wind, and cover crops provide soil the protection or “soil armor”, to act as a shield to prevent soil erosion and maintain valuable topsoil to prevent nutrient loss. They also provide a diverse forage supply to help restore wildlife habitat.
Promote biodiversity: Soil armor provides food and habitat for organisms above and below ground, specifically for beneficial soil organisms like earthworms and microbes. These organisms play a key role in breaking down organic matter, cycling nutrients, and improving soil structure, which improves the overall health and resiliency of any balanced agricultural system.
Minimize soil disturbance and external inputs: Regenerative practices seek to minimize any unnatural disturbances to the soil, like mechanical tillage, and instead seek to replicate the natural disturbances caused by grazing or periodic fire. Unnatural tillage exposes fresh soil, along with carbon and microbes, to oxygen, causing soil carbon to “burn off.” Relatedly, regenerative agriculture also aims to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides and instead to cultivate an ecological balance.
In addition to plugging orphan wells to abate methane leaks, the Rebellion Energy Solutions team is focused on co-benefits of the land restoration process such as environmental and community benefits. When we regenerate the surrounding land bases, restore spoiled ecosystems, and return the land to its original, natural state, we support several UN Sustainable Development Goals and partner with SnapLands to restore native prairie.
