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Organic Certification as the Basis of Regenerative Agriculture?
There are discussions that organic certification should be mandated as the starting point of regenerative agriculture.
Regeneration International has consistently asserted that the four principles of organic agriculture are essential in determining whether practices are regenerative or degenerative.
While we strongly support the principles of organic agriculture, Regeneration International cannot support mandating the current organic certification systems, such as the USDA and EU regulations, as the basis of regenerative agriculture. These systems need long-overdue reforms that are preventing the majority of farmers from taking up certification.
I am part of the generation of organic farmers who developed the first organic standards and certification systems in the 1970s and 80s to ensure the integrity of organic agriculture and stop false claims when people were selling their produce as organic. We did this to protect both farmers and consumers.
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Group Organic Certification
The worst thing that happened to the organic sector was when governments started regulating it. At the time, we believed that government regulation would protect the sector and stop fraudulent claims and substitutions, so we strongly advocated for it.
The certifiers became inflexible bureaucracies that charged high prices for their services. The auditing process assumed that farmers were guilty until they could prove their innocence. The auditors spent less time inspecting the farm and more time inspecting the paperwork.
Initially, certification helped grow the organic sector as it built consumer confidence in the credibility of organic labels. As time passed and more countries enacted their national organic regulations, they became more variable and complex. Inconsistencies began to emerge, with some countries allowing antibiotic use, synthetic feed supplements, and toxic synthetic preservatives. These differences started to cause trade barriers, forcing producers who wanted to export to conform to each country’s regulatory systems and pay the extra costs of multiple certifications. It meant that only the largest operators with economies of scale could export their products as organic. This facilitated the rise of industrial organics.
Certification systems need to be reformed if the organic sector wants to engage these family farmers and avoid being dominated by industrial organic corporations. They need to be simpler, cheaper, and fairer. Group certification systems, especially PGS, are some of the best options to do this.
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The Regeneration International Academy in Partnership with the South Seas University, announces the Certificate Course on Agroecological, Regenerative Organic Agriculture
Regenerative Agriculture is a holistic land management practice that leverages the power of photosynthesis in plants to balance the carbon cycle and build soil health, crop resilience, and nutrient density.
Regenerative agriculture improves soil health primarily through practices that increase organic matter, which expands biota diversity and biodiversity above and below the soil surface. In turn, this increases water-holding capacity and sequesters carbon at greater depths balancing atmospheric CO2 and improving soil structure to reverse soil loss.
Regenerative Agriculture reverses damage from tillage, agricultural chemicals, salt-based fertilizers, and mining to build a better future. Enrich your knowledge, soil, and income with this unique course by Dr. André Leu, D.Sc., BA Com., Grad Dip Ed.
SESSIONS
Lesson 1: Maximizing Photosynthesis
Lesson 2: Ground Covers and Weed Management
Lesson 3: Soil Health and Nutrition in Regenerative Organic Agriculture
Lesson 4: Using Functional Biodiversity to Manage Pests and Diseases
Lesson 5: Making It Happen – Applying the knowledge
Prof. Dr. André Leu D.Sc., BA Com., Grad Dip Ed.
International Director, Regeneration International
Ambassador, IFOAM – Organics International
Author, Growing Life, Poisoning our Children, The Myths of Safe Pesticides
[email protected]
Cost – USD $500
A reduced price will be available to anyone on a limited income wanting to take this course.
To apply, submit your name, position or profession, email, mailing address, tel #, portrait photo, and why you want to take this course to [email protected].
Send your name, address, email, tel. #, & profession to register today!
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Biodiversity is Life - Graphic Novel
The Graphic Novel “Biodiversity is Life” addresses the issue of biodiversity erosion and conservation. The story told in the graphic novel follows a group of young people who, when brought into direct contact with local agricultural ecosystems, learn how biodiversity loss is not a distant problem, but instead has a direct impact on health and food security.
The graphic novel tackles the theme of the erosion of plant genetic diversity and the uniformity of agricultural crops, highlighting how this has contributed to the decrease in the number of cultivated species and the loss of nutrients in the foods we consume. The industrial production model, based on monoculture and standardization, is analyzed as a threat to biodiversity and food sovereignty.
The educational project “Biodiversity is Life” aims to raise awareness among young people about the ecological implications of food production and to promote sustainable agricultural practices. Through visits to organic farms and practical activities, participants become “guardians of biodiversity” and are actively involved in the defense of their native agricultural diversity.
The publication of the graphic novel, illustrated by the cartoonist Federico Zenoni, acts as a reference point for the next phases of the project, which seeks to continue bringing more and more young people out into the fields.
Involving younger generations is considered crucial for promoting a paradigm shift towards more sustainable agricultural practices and for re-establishing the bond between humans and nature, in order to safeguard biodiversity and food sovereignty.
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Rewarding Farmers for Regenerative Agriculture Is ‘Critical for Decarbonising the Food Sector’
The food sector is one of the biggest contributors to the climate and nature crises. The way we grow, distribute, consume and dispose of food is responsible for one third of total greenhouse gas emissions annually. Food systems are the biggest contributor to galloping biodiversity loss, and account for 70% of freshwater withdrawals.
With half of food system emissions, down to agricultural production and land-use change in corporate value chains, food brands have an outsized role in food system transformation.
Institutional investors such as Federated Hermes are pushing companies in the land and agriculture sector to adopt more regenerative agricultural practices as part of their net zero commitments, guided by the Science Based Targets initiative, which last year issued its guidance, opens new tab for companies in the sector.
While lacking in scientific definition, regenerative agriculture is an approach that reduces the use of water and chemicals, prevents land degradation and deforestation, and restores and enhances soil, water, biodiversity and carbon on and around farms.
Agroforestry has benefits for carbon and biodiversity benefits, as well as farmer income, he says. “It's not just about the carbon. We need to look at this holistically,” he says.
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Land Grabbing Is Not Just Back With a Vengeance. It Is Taking on New Guises Such As Carbon Offsets, Green Hydrogen Schemes, and Other “Green Grabs”
In recent years, Africa has been at the epicentre of an alarming global trend: the land squeeze. The 2007-8 global financial crisis unleashed a huge wave of land grabbing across Africa and the world. Though the crisis eased, the pressures on farmland never went away. Now 15 years on, global land prices have doubled, land grabbing is back with a vengeance, and farmers are being squeezed from all sides.
As a major report by IPES-Food reveals, today’s land squeeze is escalating dangerously in new and varying forms – including for carbon and biodiversity offsetting schemes, financialisation and speculation, resource grabs, expanding mines and mega-developments, and ever-more industrial food systems. We are seeing a new rush for land that is displacing small-scale farmers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, and rural communities – or removing their control over their land. The consequences are dire, exacerbating rural poverty, food insecurity, and land inequality across the continent – and putting the future of small-scale farming at risk.
Land isn’t just dirt beneath our feet: it’s the bedrock of our food systems keeping us all fed. It is not like any other commodity to be bought and sold. It is the basis of diverse cultures, livelihoods, and rural traditions for millions of Africans. It is a home to biodiversity. Yet, according to the Land Matrix Initiative, Africa is at the forefront of the land grab crisis in the Global South, with nearly 1,000 large-scale land deals for agriculture recorded across the continent since 2000.
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Local Seeds Are Still Viable-Farmers
The National President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Mr Wepia Addo Awal Adugwala has reminded policy makers that the problems bedeviling Ghana’s Agricultural sector has nothing to do with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
Mr Awal Adugwala identified irrigation, Agriculture mechanization, bad roads, and access to markets as some of the pressing issues militating against agriculture and food security.
He said the presence of GMOs in Ghana would not solve food security, saying, “already a lot of farmers in Northern Ghana and the middle belt produce a lot of food but have no ready market, storage system, bad roads among other challenges”.
He was speaking at a workshop organised by the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development (CIKOD), with Members of the Ghana Agroecology Movement in the forest zone and key stakeholders in farming to streamline issues in the Agricultural sector.
The workshop sought to review activities of the farmers as well as sensitize them and consumers on the commercialization of GMOs on the Ghanaian market.
The workshop agreed on concrete steps to strengthen the Agroecology movement in the forest zone and discussed the implications of the commercialization of the 14 novel GMO products comprising eight maize and six soya bean products by the National Bio-Safety Authority on the Ghanaian market.
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Essential Reading and Viewing
Time for Collective Action: Sign the Manifesto
Citizen-led initiatives that aim to improve people’s lives while respecting nature’s limits are rapidly growing in Europe. Over 2 million Europeans are already engaged in the energy transition alone, not to mention urban gardens, community-supported agriculture, exchange systems like car-sharing and, time banks & many other diverse initiatives. Politicians often overlook the crucial role of these collective, citizen-driven actions. These initiatives are not only hands-on, practical actions to achieve sustainability: they are rays of hope, inspiring families, friends – and now, hopefully, policy makers. They train our muscles for social imagination: what if… we could all live well within the limits of the planet? They can help trigger societal change towards a socio-ecological transformation.
We Asked Allan Savory How We Could Locally Reverse Desertification?
Allan Savory highlights that as our understanding of desertification deepens, it becomes evident that dependence on technology and fire only worsens the situation without offering solutions. If neither fire nor technology can effectively tackle the desertification issue, and humans lack alternative tools for environmental management, what alternative approaches could reverse desertification?
We Need Regenerative Agriculture, But How Can Farmers Fund the
Transition?
Unionism has seen a resurgence in popularity the past few years. The problem is, it’s very difficult to get our members organizing in their communities when they hate the way our leadership (I use that word loosely) is operating. Our unions shouldn’t be, and I’d argue weren’t meant to be, transactional—yet by and large that is what they have grown to be. By transactional I mean: I pay dues, you provide a service, and my duty ends with my dues.
Cutting Forests for Solar Energy ‘misses the Plot’ on Climate Action
I once had a sweet, brown pit bull mix named Thembi, who had impressive musculature and a magnificent nose. Often on our walks, I would feel the leash go taut and know she’d sniffed out something tantalizing, likely a squirrel or a rabbit. She would snuffle excitedly, muzzle to the ground, tracing her quarry’s skittish path, up and down and around a patch of dirt road. I remember once seeing a rabbit scurry away mere inches from Thembi’s face. The clever dog had completely missed the animal she was tracking because she was so intent on its scent.
The U.S.-Mexico Tortilla War
A trade dispute puts a spotlight on food sovereignty, GMOs, a controversial weedkiller, public health, and the fate of Mexico’s iconic white-corn flatbread. Do nations have the right to determine their own food policies? Can they make laws to safeguard domestic agriculture, public health, the environment, and the genetic integrity of the national diet?
Indigenous People and NGO Grow a Wildlife Corridor in the World’s Oldest Rainforest
Indigenous ranger Jason Petersen remembers how he used to watch the world’s oldest rainforest in wonder as a child. When the rains arrived, they would wash the dust from the trees, revealing the lush colors of the forest. Now, as an adult, he says he hopes his son will experience the same awe as he plants a new wildlife corridor on this same land.
Quinn Institute to Foster the Evolution of Regenerative Organic Agriculture
Quinn, who has been a pioneer in the regenerative organic agriculture movement for many years, has long envisioned a rise in the number of successful regenerative organic producers growing nutrient-dense foods. He had constructed the institute to serve five pillars for system change.
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Support Our Work
Dear Friends of Regeneration International
Regenerative Agriculture is under attack by agribusiness. The poison cartels such as Bayer/Monsanto and Syngenta, along with their captive government departments, are trying to hijack regenerative agriculture to greenwash their degenerative systems.
“We need your participation and support as we move forward in this world-changing campaign we call Regeneration International. We need to build a massive international alliance to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, to sequester billions of tons of excess atmospheric carbon in our soils and biota, to regenerate billions of acres of degraded ecosystems, to eliminate rural poverty, to reverse our deteriorating public health and to revitalize rural communities all over the globe. The hour is late, but we still have time to regenerate.”
Please support our campaign to stop this greenwashing and ensure Regenerative Agriculture’s integrity by restoring farmer’s independence, promoting social justice, fair trade and regenerating ecological health.
Can you give $10 monthly or a one time donation today to support Regeneration International and our campaigns?
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Upcoming Events |
In Person:
06/18 - Farm Walk: Grow Profits from Health Soil – Pembrokeshire
06/19 - Organic Blueberry Marketing Field Day at Mitchell’s Patch of Blue
06/20 - 4 Day No-dig Market Gardening Masterclass
06/20 - Regenerate - Europe Conference 2024
06/20 - Jornada “La ganadería y los ecosistemas agrarios y naturales”
06/20 - Utilizando los principios de la agricultura regenerativa para mejorar la resiliencia agrícola
06/21 - Workshop: Herbalism on the Farm—Summer Solstice
06/25 - 3rd ISCRAES 2024
06/25 - Cumbre de Agricultura y sistemas alimentarios regenerativos
06/25 - 3rd ISCRAES 2024
Online:
06/18 - Webinar – Best Practices for Unlocking Supplier Engagement on Your Net Zero Journey
06/20 - Summer Camp Webinar: Regenerative Agriculture & Certification
06/25 - Webinar: Hora Del Café Virtual: Producción De Granos Orgánicos a Mediana Escala En Las Grandes Llanuras Centrales
06/28 - Webinar: Hora Del Café Virtual: Cultivo De Cereales Orgánicos Para La Salud Del Suelo Desde El Sudeste De Nebraska Hasta El Noreste De Kansas
06/28 - Webinar - Agricultura Regnerativa
*Click here to view full events calendar and submit your own
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Regeneration International is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, dedicated to building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, policymakers and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revitalize local economies; regenerate soil fertility and water-retention capacity; nurture biodiversity; and restore climate stability by reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time drawing down excess atmospheric carbon and sequestering it in the soil.
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