As the Newsom administration attempts to move agriculture away from the use of conventional pesticides, it is embracing a movement toward regenerative farming. Yet the state needs to pin down a definition of the emerging concept to enact new policies, and its effort is now raising questions over the potential to influence federal law, disrupt markets and drive regulatory mandates in Sacramento.
The issue came to a head last year when the California Energy Commission submitted a $625 million budget proposal for an incentives grant program aimed at climate innovation, with a portion targeting regenerative agriculture. That spurred CDFA Secretary Karen Ross to task the State Board of Food and Agriculture with developing a definition. The board leaned on a CDFA advisory panel focused on environmental farming, with input from scientists at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
NRDC has long pushed for regenerative agriculture as a means to farm and ranch in harmony with nature and the community — promoting social and spiritual connections. The environmental group sees regenerative as based on Indigenous knowledge of natural ecosystems and steering away from many of the modern tools used in “industrial agriculture.” In a recent report lauding the benefits of regenerative farming, the group argues that reducing harmful pesticides would “protect natural resources, farmworkers and surrounding communities from exposure to toxic chemicals.”
CDFA’s effort also builds on work at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, a rival to UC Davis in publishing agricultural research. The Dutch scientists have found that “a variety of actors perceive regenerative agriculture differently and a clear scientific definition is lacking.”
Building on that work, the panel has established a framework for a definition and plans to shop it around with stakeholders in upcoming listening sessions, with help from mediators at California State University, Sacramento. The board will deliver the panel’s final recommendation to CDFA in June 2024.
The focus is to build soil health and underground biodiversity to achieve positive environmental, social, health and economic outcomes. The panel acknowledged that a single definition must account for California’s vast geographical diversity and more than 2,500 soil types and that it must be applicable, relevant and useful to farmers and ranchers.
During a board hearing last week on the topic, Ross stressed that the purpose of drafting a CDFA definition is to “replace a generic placeholder” in the state food and agriculture code with language that would more clearly inform state climate policies and programs — capitalizing on the potential carbon sequestration benefits.
The effort dovetails with the administration’s attempts to expand organic and regenerative farming practices in California. Last year the Air Resources Board approved an update to the AB 32 Climate Scoping Plan, the blueprint for the agency’s climate regulations, with provisions that give regulatory credence to regenerative practices like prescribed grazing and composting and call for converting 20% of agriculture to organic.
In January the Department of Pesticide Regulation unveiled its Sustainable Pest Management Roadmap, a strategy for phasing out the use of certain controversial pesticides by 2050, and has been searching for alternatives for controlling pests in more environmentally sustainable ways.
CDFA then released its own strategic plan to guide department policies through the next decade. The top priority for the “ag vision” plan is fostering climate-smart and regenerative practices. The report notes that the regenerative terminology is gaining ground in part due to the belief that it “moves beyond the philosophy of do no harm to one of making things better” and reasons that establishing a definition would improve agriculture’s relationship with consumers.
CDFA has also commissioned a study examining policy options for promoting below-ground biodiversity. In a report issued this month, the researchers found that enhancing soil health and conserving soil biodiversity are essential for the state to reach carbon neutrality and tackle climate change. According to Ross, the board and the science advisory panel are seeking to apply the findings to CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program.
A definition for regenerative agriculture would similarly inform such voluntary incentive programs. But fleshing out the language is already drawing contention within the board.
“This is [intended] for us, across all agencies, as we deal with climate and the recognition that agriculture can be part of the solution,” Ross assured board members last week. “This is not about establishing a certification program. People feel that there needs to be a set of practices defined in code like organic, which is very prescriptive. That's for another day.”
Bryce Lundberg, vice president at Lundberg Family FarmsRoss found broad support from the board, though it came with many questions. Board member Bryce Lundberg, who is vice president at Lundberg Family Farms, worried a broad definition would allow for corporate greenwashing and would not provide consumers with an understanding of agriculture’s vast diversity in California.
“That's a consumer marketing thing,” responded Ross. “This is about being big and bold. This is about healing the Earth and addressing climate change.”
When CDFA staff asserted the purpose is for internal state policies and programs, Lundberg called that naive, arguing that even with the best of intentions it would still get co-opted and used as the de facto definition.
“We want to avoid that,” said Lundberg. “We don't want this just to become a word for anything and everything.”
He feared that such a big tent approach would dilute the goals and worried about rushing to incorporate a definition, noting that the University of Wisconsin, Madison, took several years to develop a definition for sustainable agriculture, deploying a rigorous scientific process established by the American National Standards Institute.
His concerns were similar to those expressed by Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, who told the board that regardless of intent, the definition will be influential on national and global scales. California’s trailblazing efforts in organic agriculture have informed federal laws and policies, she explained. Likewise, 31 other states have followed California’s lead with grants for soil health practices.
“Despite your best intentions, what you do will impact the marketplace significantly,” said Whitlow. “What California does always affects the marketplace.”
Whitlow also argued that decoupling regenerative from organic would set up unfair competition between the two, with standard regenerative products not held to robust third-party verifications and misleading consumers who are drawn to the cheaper prices. According to data from the consumer analytics firm SPINS, products certified “regenerative organic” fetch a 60% price premium, while more than 70% of millennials and the Gen Z generation are willing to pay more for products that align with their values.
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Major brands are investing heavily in the regenerative space as well, with new initiatives recently launched for almonds, beverages and dairies. Bayer Crop Science sees a sales potential exceeding $32 billion for regenerative.
According to Whitlow, natural and organic food retailers like Whole Foods, Sprouts and Erewhon Market are upholding higher standards under the regenerative organic claim. She pointed out that five new certification programs for regenerative agriculture have appeared in the past year.
Her organization has been certifying regenerative organic farms since 2017 through the Rodale Institute and with funding from the Patagonia clothing company and Dr. Bronner’s, which sells vegan personal products.
Elizabeth Whitlow, Regenerative Organic AllianceCannon Michael, president and CEO of Bowles Farming Co., on the other hand, hoped all consumers could benefit from any regenerative practices he adopts. About 10% of his 11,000-acre farming operation is certified organic, and Michael is experimenting with two different regenerative programs.
“The woman living from paycheck to paycheck deserves healthy tomatoes and watermelons from our farm just as much as anybody else does,” said Michael.
The growers he talks with are more worried about maintaining the viability of their operations each year under California’s strict regulatory standards and amid a continual flip-flop from drought to flood.
“The realities of farming are so challenging that when you think about changing to a whole other production methodology — a whole other set of criteria like organic — that's another level of challenge that most guys I know aren't taking on,” he said.
“Saddling” regenerative to organic would add further restrictions and close markets to the farms in need of such an opportunity while preventing the broadscale adoption needed to gain the climate benefits, he explained. With a devastating lygus infestation in cotton this year, his farm has relied on nonselective oils to combat the pest in its organic crop, requiring up to nine applications to achieve the same success as a selective conventional pesticide, which would take just one or two applications and preserve the beneficial insects.
Yet farmers who put in the work for regenerative agriculture would see the benefits through reduced inputs, which lowers overall production costs, according to Cindy Daley, who directs the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at California State University, Chico.
“There's no farmer alive that isn't looking to reduce their inputs,” said Daley. “They really do want to sign the back of the check and not the front of the check.”
She agreed that regenerative practices must be scalable and felt the state needs innovators to “figure out how to make it work in all cropping systems.” She viewed a state definition as building credibility for the movement and a necessary first step in a pending paradigm shift for agriculture.
Daley’s center developed a “straightforward” definition for regenerative five years ago, explaining it as “a holistic approach to farm and ranch management that aims to enhance soil health and improve ecosystem services.” She leaned on established conservation agriculture practices like reducing tillage, integrating livestock, using cover crops, rotating crops and reducing inputs, and pushed for more technical assistance funding to expand those practices to more farms and ranches.
Heeding that call, Ross has boosted CDFA’s technical assistance offerings in recent years and helped to enact new state funding to do the same for UC Cooperative Extension. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources used that money to launch a new position for a regenerative agriculture specialist at UC Merced last year.
UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston, who serves on the state board, sympathized with Whitlow’s fears of disrupting marketing efforts.
“On the other hand, I'm fearful of allowing state agencies — particularly state agencies that don't always work closely with agriculture — to come up with their own definition,” said Humiston.
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