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Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map

Welcome to the first graphical map of the Regenerative Agriculture Industry.

Companies, investors, organizations, and farms are included in this map based on the following criteria:

  1. They explicitly use the term “Regenerative Agriculture” or “Regenerative Farming” in public-facing communications.
  2. Or they invest financial capital into an entity meeting Criteria 1.

Hear Ethan & Koen discuss the map in the December ‘Investing in Regenerative Agriculture Podcast!

Why this criteria?

As I’ve described elsewhere, there are multiple divergent meanings of “Regenerative Agriculture” in use today. Instead of subjectively applying any particular definition, I’ve chosen to start with a simple objective approach: Who is using the term?

While this may seem overly simplistic, it turns out that even using the term is a non-trivial step for most organizations. It implies, at least, that the decision-makers have explored the definitional landscape and decided that something about “regeneration” is important enough to publicly align with and proclaim.

I recognize that this is a lowest-common-denominator approach, and invites onto this map entities whose usage of the term I disagree with — even entities whose approach I believe will degrade and banalize the deeper meaning of the term. Over time I will add more layers of analysis to discern between the different lineages and levels of regenerative agriculture that are sourcing each entity’s usage.

When I co-organized the Carbon Farming Course: Workshops in Regenerative Agriculture in 2009 and 2012, only a few small groups of organizations were using the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. Through a combination of pathways, these groups have exponentially grown the number of entities and financial scale of the industry. Through the uptake by large CPG companies starting in 2016, it’s likely that the annual revenue to companies that are explicitly promoting regenerative agriculture is greater than $50 billion.

This is a Draft

Version 1.0 is a draft. There are very likely mistakes. Please help me correct them. If the “usage year” listed for your organization is incorrect, I will happily change it — please just send me a link to the date of a public record where you use the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. If your estimated financial scale is incorrect, please tell me (with as much precision as you’d like to be public) what it should be. Thank you!

Entity Types

Organizations are grouped in five categories: 

  • Investment: Primarily investment managers and funds, though a few family offices are included.
  • Farm: Includes farms that develop and market their own products. See additional note about Farms below.
  • Service Organization: Educators, consultants, research organizations, agricultural equipment and product manufacturers, land managers not tied to a single farm, media producers, for-profit membership organizations, ecosystem platforms, and other types of organizations.
  • CPG: Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers, primarily food and beverage, but including some health and beauty products. Retailers of Consumer Packaged Goods are included here, along with fashion and clothing manufacturers.
  • Non-Profit: A diversity of not-for-profit organizations, from education to research to events convening to advocacy.

There is significant overlap in the functional work of entities in the “Service Organization” and “Non-Profit” categories, with the primary division being the choice of legal organizational structure.

Strongly under-represented in Version 1.0 of the Map are farms. The number of farms that are beginning to use the term ‘regenerative’ is multiplying exponentially. Many farms that have been using the principles of Holistic Management, Biodynamics, Permaculture, or Organic Agriculture are now saying, “we have been regenerative for a long time.” Combine that with a flood of larger US and Australian farms that are growing conventionally while adopting some form of regenerative agriculture principles, and this is a challenging category to keep up with. This is compounded by the fact that a much smaller proportion of farms maintain up-to-date websites — which makes pinpointing the year they started using the term difficult.

In summary, the distinction that I’ve chosen for version 1.0 of the Map, “Explicitly using the term “regenerative agriculture” in public-facing communications” is hard to track for farms. And, I would like to do a better job in the next version of this map recording this quickly-changing farm. I’ll keep adding farms to the list, and welcome any contributions from the wider community.

Estimated Financial Scale

Organizations are loosely clumped into one of 4 financial scale categories, based primarily on publicly available information. For most entities on the map the estimated financial scale refers to annual revenue, with the exception of Investment organizations where it refers to Assets Under Management (AUM).

One current issue with the map is that the estimated financial scale grouping is based on relatively current information (from the last 1–5 years), and does necessarily accurately depict the financial scale of the organizations at the time when they started using the term “Regenerative Agriculture.” I welcome any suggestions on a graphically elegant way to depict this complexity.

Note about Earliest Usages

This first written record of the term “Regenerative Agriculture” was in 1979 by Medard Gabel (thanks to Luke Smith of Terra Genesis for research on this). Soon afterwards (in 1983), Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute began using the term, and led the creation of the “Regenerative Agriculture Association” sometime in the 1980s. They published at least one book that I have seen (“Booker T. Whatley’s Handbook on How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres”), and began promoting early ideas about regeneration alongside their work on organic farming.

Sometime After Robert Rodale’s unexpected death in 1990, the Rodale Institute dropped the term, focusing on promoting Organic Agriculture for more than 20 years. After the permaculture community and several other organizations (especially Darren Doherty of Regrarians, Terra Genesis International, Armonia LLC, and Biological Capital) started using “Regenerative Agriculture” between 2009–2013, the Rodale Institute reclaimed the term (2014) in a modified usage that they continue today: “Regenerative Organic”.

Future Versions

There are two primary pathways along which I plan to develop I plan develop this map.

  1. Expansion. As noted, there are a lot of farms out there using the term that are not yet on this map. Additionally, this map is heavily United States-centric, and should definitely be expanded to better represent the work happening in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
  2. Depth. I will add layers of detail and complexity over time. I’ll start with characterizing the “Lineages” from which each entity is sourcing their use of “Regenerative Agriculture”. Next I will characterize the Level of Regenerative Agriculture that each entity is working from, through a combination of supported self-reporting and my subjective assessments. Then I will start to develop more detailed attributes for the different entities, including the agricultural practices, business models, and metrics utilized by each. Eventually these attributes will include locations, climate zones, and crops produced.

If you would like to contribute to the development of either pathway, please email me to discuss: e@ethansoloviev.com.

Final Questions

Will the exponential growth trend of the last decade continue? How many entities using the term “Regenerative Agriculture” will it take to reverse climate change? What would success look like for the growth of this industry? 

Will your company be the next added to the map?

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Levels of Biodiversity

The brilliance of biodiversity: A red-fleshed appe variety (‘Alma-ata’) from the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan.

Finally, biodiversity is having a moment.

At the UN Climate Action Summit in September, Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, announced the launch of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition, stating, “We thought we could engineer the life that we needed and kill the rest in the fields. The resulting monocropping consequences are standing right in front of us.”

Government and large-scale business decision-makers are coming to terms with two sides of a coin of ecological reality: Biodiversity has immense inherent value on our planet, AND the ongoing devastation of biodiversity will drastically decrease global human quality of life.

Biodiversity is a key factor in the earth’s provision of ecosystem services — including biomass production, nutrient and water cycling, and soil formation and retention — but the ongoing, mounting losses to biodiversity are not simply an environmental issue. The IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services states that “Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress towards 80% of the Sustainable Development Goals, related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.”

I can assure you: this article isn’t a fear-mongering account of the real-life implications of biodiversity loss. Rather, this is an invitation — for companies, growers, and consumers — to take stock of your current understandings of biodiversity and situate them in a more encompassing and holistic framework.

WHAT IS MISSING FROM THE CONVERSATION ABOUT BIODIVERSITY?

This level of global acknowledgment is a hopeful sign. However, it is critical to note two major limitations to how biodiversity is currently being approached.

  • Limitation #1: In the business community, “biodiversity” is often understood and recognized as “the diversity of agricultural crops used in our products.” From this lens, oats or lentils become “biodiverse” crops because they are less common agricultural commodities, even if they are still grown in industrial-scale chemical monocultures.
  • Limitation #2: In the academic community, a well-established categorization limits biodiversity to the confines of three levels: genetic diversity within a species, species diversity within a population, and ecosystem diversity within a region.

The academic approach offers more nuance than the business perspective. But in the context of increasing attention for biodiversity, there is an opportunity here: We can significantly enhance the impact of our strategies and actions by evolving the framework through which we work. The following eight-level understanding of biodiversity offers a new lens that can spark improved design and creativity towards positive global impact.

A NEW APPROACH: THE EIGHT-LEVEL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK

Corporate decisions about product design, raw materials, farming practices, and sourcing standards have significant impacts on all levels of biodiversity, and potential outputs vary accordingly. While each level can be a source of innovation — for ingredients, flavors, chemical compounds, and even culinary creativity — companies must design for net-positive impacts on biodiversity or risk serious destabilization to their supply chains and the global stock of natural capital upon which all life depends. 

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY

This level accounts for the sum total of life and total variability of life forms on Earth. It’s where we identify endangered and threatened species and map biodiversity hotspots. At least 10,000 species are going extinct every year. Addressing the long-term consequences of biodiversity loss through the lens of this level is critical in fighting to work against species extinction for global health.

This map (NatureMap Explorer) focuses on the Global and Ecoregion levels of Biodiversity. Many others are available, including the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas and the Global Forest Watch map.

ECO REGION BIODIVERSITY

Here, we look at biodiversity across an entire region, taking into account the makeup of the land and the richness of species across it. Most rarefied and sought-after provisions, from a Bordeaux wine that can only come from Bordeaux, to a Parmiagianno Reggiano that can only come from Parma, these are the products of the unique eco-regions and cultural histories from which they are cultivated. When biodiversity is supported at this level, there is potential for great culinary creativity — new dishes, new products, new remixes of ancient foods — that can emerge from healthy ecological-cultural complexes.

LAND USE BIODIVERSITY

This level looks at land in terms of form and function: the types of land that can exist in a given watershed and the diversity in how those pieces of land are used. In a given watershed, does there exist land that is being maintained as an old-growth forest, converted into a tree crop farm, or developed into an urban garden? How do those landscapes integrate and interact? An ecosystem composed of diverse landscapes with different functions directly supports nutrition and food security.

Land Use Biodiversity in tropical agro-ecosystems. Photo from Pexels.

SPECIES BIODIVERSITY

Species biodiversity accounts for the differences within and between populations of species as well as the variety of species within a habitat or region. It is critical that we observe interactions among and between species to understand how anthropogenic actions are affecting an ecosystem. We’re currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of species, losing species at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of 1–5 species per year. 99% of threatened species are at risk of extinction from the effects of human activities. Continuing to address biodiversity at the species level can create intact ecosystems and the evolution of new crops through wild cultivation.

AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY (AKA AGROBIODIVERSITY)

This is the level of diversity that most product manufacturers identify as the sum total of biodiversity. Promoting agricultural biodiversity is indeed important: while more than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food, only 9 species account for 66% of total crop production. Increasing agricultural biodiversity doesn’t just improve the variety of our diet, but enhances soil and water health, increases pest and disease resistance, and reduces the need for external inputs.

Brands are taking a step in the right direction. Lush Cosmetics is reintroducing native crops and reducing land conversion on smallholder farms in Guatemala, while integrating a breathtaking array of underutilized plants into its diverse products. Smaller brands like Kuli Kuli, Yolele, and Global Breadfruit are rapidly increasing market demand for lesser-known food crops. We know that seeking to achieve greater agricultural biodiversity can lend itself to the development of lesser-known flavors, textures, and scents.

However, the popular inclination to concentrate biodiversity efforts solely at the agricultural level can be limiting. Not only are companies who confine their scope to the agricultural level missing out on the positive impacts made possible only by addressing other levels, but they are ultimately foregoing innovation, creativity, and market differentiation in their products. There are clear benefits to both the brand and the planet.

Genetic diversity in carrots. Photo from USDA via Wikimedia Commons.

GENETIC BIODIVERSITY

Genetic diversity, the variety of genes within a species, is critical: high genetic diversity allows for species to maintain resilience against pests and pathogens and adapt to changing environments. Of the over 10,000 varieties of apples that have been ever cultivated, only 100 are now grown commercially in the US, and only 15 account for almost 90% of national production. Addressing genetic biodiversity can produce different varieties of crops, colors, and flavors, with different tastes, resistances, and nutrient profiles.

MICROBIAL BIODIVERSITY

The health of all living things — of the soil, the microbiome of animals, the leaves of trees — is indicated by and depends on its microbial composition. Healthy soil is resilient, teeming with bacteria, fungi, algae and protozoa, and is able to cycle nutrients and make them available to organisms. Some of the most treasured heritage foods in the world are a product of the unique sets of microbes that live within the soil in which it is grown. Innovation at the microbial level is directly responsible, for example, for the lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria in sour beer and probiotic yogurt. Allowing for a diverse set of microbes to flourish in the soil can give way to creative fermentation and novel processing.

CHEMICAL BIODIVERSITY

Brands are realizing the myriad of opportunities at the chemical level in creating new compounds, nutrients and bioactive functionals that can boost skin health, heart health, and digestion. Cultivating a diverse variety of grapes can produce a wider range of wines packed with different antioxidants, while developing diverse probiotics can maintain a healthy skin microbiome. A greater biodiversity of food can create a greater variety of chemical compounds, each with its own set of benefits for human and ecosystem health.

WHY SHOULD BRANDS PAY ATTENTION TO BIODIVERSITY?

Quite simply, because biodiversity loss benefits no one. Most current agricultural practices and the majority of the ingredients in our food are significant contributors to global biodiversity loss.

Orangutan, whose habitat has been significantly reduced and continues to be threatened by industrial-scale palm plantations in southeast asia. Photo by Dawn Armfield on Unsplash

Take palm oil, for example. It thrives in the tropics, is largely grown as a monoculture, and is in approximately 50% of consumer products. Its production requires large-scale land conversion that not only increases greenhouse gas emissions, smoke-haze and water pollution, but also affects at least 405 species globally, 193 of which are critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. Despite the attractiveness of short-term financial gain, no one profits from species going extinct.

Brands are beginning to understand the impending threat of biodiversity loss and realize the opportunity for greater market growth and differentiation in their products. The OP2B coalition, formed by 19 companies with combined total revenue of $500 billion, is pledging to diversify their product portfolios and initiate large-scale change across their brands. Emmanuel Faber of Danone promised: “Using the thousands of brands we have in our [OP2B] portfolio, we will create a demand for a variety of crops, of species, of traditional seeds that are forgotten today, that are dying.”

Measuring progress in biodiversity impact can be difficult, but incorporating it as a key performance indicator will prove to be transformative. Brands that utilize metrics for tracking biodiversity, then subsequently place an emphasis on improving their practices across multiple levels, will inevitably put into motion a multiplier effect of positive impact on sustainability.

Crossroads by Ely Penner

We’re at an exciting crossroads. Choices are being made today that will impact our planet for generations. Companies must soon decide: Will they continue to turn a blind eye (or support gentle greenwashing) to the agriculture-driven damage to global biodiversity? Or will they adopt a more whole-systems viewpoint to create positive impacts on multiple levels of life?

Cross-published on HowGood, Medium, and LinkedIn.

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Regeneration Newsroom – May 2019

Existing and potential forests on planet earth – Image from Tom Crowther, ETH Zurich.

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

Regenerative Alcohol, Carbon Negative Beef, and 1 trillion trees …

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Listen to the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast, a joint venture with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture. Link

Regenerative Agriculture

“Are we entering a new era of regeneration?” Not fast enough. Link

Interesting place for Regen Ag to show up: Chemical & Engineering News. Mostly the article touts standard conservation and sustainability approaches, but it does have a nice little chart of different corporate strategies – similar to the “Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map” that I am building. Link

Source: Chemical & Engineering News

$9 billlion Alcohol company touts “regenerative agriculture”, but makes no public commitment to get started until 2025. Pernod Ricard, owner of over 50 brands (including Absolut, Jameson, Chivas Regal, Malibu, Kahlúa, and Beefeater) is aligning their sustainability goals with the UN SDGs. While I have a hard time believing they’ll make it anywhere close to net-positive if all impacts are taken into account, it will be interesting to see what they can push forward in agriculture. Link and Link

New York Times – Wine, Carbon Sequestration, and Regenerative Agriculture – Link

See also ‘The Porto Protocol’, a collaborative including Toyota, Marks & Spencer, PwC, and 100+ others in the wine industry who are working on climate change – Link

Carbon-negative beef – This Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) by respected international firm Quantis shows that holistically managed grass-fed beef production can capture more carbon than it emits. Note that General Mills funded this study — we’re beginning to see real ripples of their investments in the field. Link

Bloomberg – On the other hand, “Most grass-fed beef labeled ‘product of U.S.A.’ is imported” – a fascinating article focusing on chicken giant Perdue and it’s ongoing acquisition of higher-end meat producers: Coleman Natural Foods (2011), Niman Ranch (2015), and now Panorama Meats (2019), America’s largest producer of grass-fed, certified organic beef. Link

Fewer than 1 in 4 have heard of regenerative agriculture, says a new consumer survey of 1,000 people in the US. The actual number is 22% – which to me sounds shockingly high! Perhaps more interesting is that 55% of those surveyed have not heard of it, but want to learn more. Link

Regeneration Newsroom IFIC Regenerative Agriculture Survey May 2019

GreenBiz – “The fight to define regenerative agriculture” – So far, thankfully, it’s not a fight. This article does a decent job juxtaposing Process vs. Outcome-based standards. I also think it’s fascinating that Rodale Institute is quoted saying, “A lot of people are using the word regenerative… It’s the new buzzword. There is a danger of it getting greenwashed.”  Link

Fashionista – “The Next Wave of Sustainable Fashion is All About Regenerative Farming.” Good overview article with a balanced appraoch that covers most of what’s happening at the regen ag / fashion nexus. Link

El Pais – Great long-form article on regenerative agriculture and land restoration in Spain, combining philanthropic and investment capital to kick-start ecological entrepreneurship across more than 1 million hectares. Link

CNN – “The most effective way to tackle climate change? Plant 1 trillion trees” – Link

Two important and substantive articles on the edge between Regenerative Agriculture and Government Legislation:

  • Salon – Carbon Farming taking root in NY – Link
  • “A Green New Deal must Prioritize Regenerative Agriculture”. This article is fascinating because it shows a very different trend from the middle-America Soil Profits approach… Link
    • “But the fact that farming has become a major source of emissions actually belies an important truth that sets agriculture apart from every other major economic sector: It has the natural potential to become a massive carbon sink, rather than a carbon emitter.”

Plus, businesses worth $2.5 trillion with 750,00 employees are advocating for a price on carbon: Link

Podcasts

FoodTank – General Mills’ Carla Vernon on Regenerative Agriculture. Expect more media and coverage as the $15 billion CPG giant continues its push into the space. Link

Great podcast on the Bioregional Agroforestry Suitability Analysis (BRASA), a new offering from Terra Genesis International – Link

From the Carbon Removal Newsroom at Nori, “General Mills issues grant for regenerative agriculture training”- Link

A Geological Perspective On Regenerative Agriculture with David Montgomery, interviewed by John Kempf – Link

Agroforestry

“The ultimate agricultural practice” – I’ve heard great things about this year’s World Agroforestry Conference – here’s a sweet Q&A with the event organizers Link

1100 Hectare farm & “Regeneration Academy” in southern Spain, following the principles of Commonland. Looks like they’re just getting started, but someone’s got to be managing those 300 hectares of Almonds… Link

ICYMI – India’s President announces a National Agroforestry Policy – even though this is 5 years ago, don’t you think it’s a good time for other countries to follow suit?  Link

Special Section – Global Agribusiness & Land

This comes from a more activist angle than I usually cover, but the issues of land rights and global land grabbing are important to track. This article is a summary of the new Report from the Oakland Institute. Link

From Brazil, where Amazon deforestation is being enabled by the new government. I found the ‘commodities’ section of this report illuminating — How many of these ingredients do you eat? How many are in your company’s supply system?  Link

Jobs & Events

Job – Senior Colleague @ Systemiq – Regenerative Agriculture & Nature-Based Carbon Solutions – Link

If you want  a job in regenerative agriculture, you’ll need to learn the keys of integrative design. Probably the best way to do it is through the top-notch firm Regrarians, who are now offering  a new set of hybrid in-person and online courses around the world – not to be missed. Link

Save-the-dates for 2019:

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Regeneration Newsroom – March 2019

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

Food Companies Lead, $24 Billion in Regen Ag Database,  New Soil Carbon Standard…

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Listen to the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast, a joint venture with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture. Link

Regenerative Agriculture

Regeneration Newsroom Soil Carbon Initiative

Important: A new standard for putting carbon in the soil. The Soil Carbon Initiative is backed by Ben & Jerry’s (Unilever), Danone North America, and MegaFood, and have just released their draft standard for public feedback. Comments are due by May 5th. Link 

(Note: If you weren’t at Expo, they’re doing a webinar to describe the standard – register here)

Newly released: A comprehensive global list of regenerative agriculture, forestry, and agroforestry investment funds. I worked with Gatherlab to build this list and a larger database connected to it. $200-400 million USD are invested by explicitly “regenerative” funds; the full list covers $24 billion invested by larger climate-change and forestry organizations. See anyone we missed? Email me. Link

AppleGate makes headlines last month for their “New Food Collective”. A few links:

  1. Their press release, highlighting new products with 100% pasture-raised meat certified by the well-respected American Grassfed Association
  2. The New Food Collective website, with sexy photos of their new sausages and their take on regenerative agriculture
  3. Significantly, Applegate is committing to source 100% of their meat from Savory Land-to-Market Verified farms. Here’s their VP of impact & Mission discussing Ecological Outcome Verification in a great interview

Danone aims for carbon-neutral by 2050, takes a “one size does not fit all” approach to sustainability. Aims for “regenerative agriculture practices” – which ones? Link

US Soybean farmers touting “regenerative agriculture”… continued evidence of the rapid banalization of the term. Brought to you by the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Link

I love seeing more job postings explicitly focused on Regenerative Ag. I’d say it’s still a few years till I can host a job board… but in the meantime, if you’ve got an open position, let me know.

Muir Glen, stalwart organic tomato sauce producer (owned since 2000 by General Mills), lists “Regenerative Farming” as their top “principle”. Unclear what they mean, beyond a few basic practices that are already followed by most organic farmers… Link

From the “Soil Profits” lineage, here’s a free online class by the American Society of Agronomy – “Regenerative Agriculture: How to Work with Farmers to Improve Soil”. Interesting to note this is also sponsored by General Mills.  Link

Forbes: The Caribbean has a “Dirty” Solution to Climate Change. Surprisingly good article quoting Terra Genesis International and the leader of Walkers Reserve, a 200-acre sand mine regeneration project in Barbados. Link

Regeneration Newsroom Corn Soy No Till
Corn sprouting through no-till soy stubble. Photo courtesy NRCS

“Regenerative agriculture could save soil, water, and the climate. Here’s how the U.S. government actively discourages it.” Link

“Three Takeaways On the Nexus of Food Companies, Climate Change and Regenerative Agriculture” – A new post from the folks at the Regenerative Food Systems Investment Forum taking place this fall in Oakland CA. Nice summary of regenerative at the 2019 Natural Products Expo West earlier this month; also includes a number of statistics and quotes from my presentation on the market performance of the most regenerative food products. Link

From our Europe desk: Regenerative agriculture in Belgium. Link

Free 109-page report from the J. Walter Thompson Intelligence Innovation Group: “The New Sustainability: Regeneration”. There’s a lot in here, from Green AI to Regenerative Business. Worth a skim. Link

National Regenerative Agriculture Day, anyone? Link

This is from 2017, but worth a read as a manifesto/white-paper hybrid on carbon drawdown “Regenerate Earth” by Walter Jehne of Healthy Soil Australia. Link

Former Blue Apron CEO launches a new “regenerative agriculture” business called Cooks Venture. Here’s the press release and their website. I’ll admit I’m skeptical. Their “definition” of regenerative agriculture is weak. They tout scientific proof but don’t offer any. I definitely want to support the scaling up of regen ag, but I want it done with integrity instead of hype. Link

Regeneration Newsroom Cooks Venture
Founder of Cooks Venture

General Mills announces that they will “advance” regenerative agriculture on 1,000,000 acres by 2030. Here’s coverage from:

On a contrarian note, here’s an excellent article from AgFunder News calling into question the motives of large CPG moves on sustainability & regenerative ag. Link

And here’s another one from Grist. “Regenerative agriculture’: World-saving idea or food marketing ploy?” Link

Podcasts

Three top podcasts for this month:

Investing in Regenerative Agriculture: an interview on water & water cycles with Zach Weiss Link

Shift to perennialization in agriculture & culture – longer form interview of the Land Institute by Nori. Link

Tech accelerator seeking carbon drawdown – and other stories. From the new(ish) ‘Carbon Removal Newsroom’ (I wonder where they got the name;) Link

Regeneration Newsroom Terra Mera

Investing

Terramera snags another $10mil investment. They claim “regenerative solutions”, but it looks like they’re firmly focused on conservation – they want to reduce synthetic chemicals in agriculture by 80%. Their two main products are broad-range biocides. Link

Financing Regenerative Agriculture – London April 2019. Jeremy Grantham @ GMO, Satya Tripathi @ United Nations, and Christian Didier @ Danone. If you go, I’d love to hear a summary for the next newsletter. Link

Events

There are a lot of awesome events happening this year. I’m speaking at a few of them.

Regeneration Newsroom - Living Soil Symposium

Living Soil Symposium: March 28-31, Montreal. I’m on a panel Saturday, speaking about: 

  • Quantitative data on regeneration: How are the most regenerative products performing in the marketplace?
  • Comparing and contrasting the new ‘regenerative’ standards and certifications that have popped up this year
  • How can we reconcile local food systems, transparency, and blockchain technology in an age of online shopping and eroding consumer trust?

Transform: Climate, Capital, Communities – Regenerative Agriculture, Investing, and more. From the folks who started SOCAP and built it into a behemoth. I’m hosting a panel Regen Ag Investing, plus a private gathering for investors. Link

Other save-the-dates for 2019:

  • Natural Products Expo East: September 11-14
  • SOCAP 2019: October 22-25
  • Regenerative Earth Summit: October 28-30
  • Regenerative Business Summit: November 12-14

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

Companies are leading the move towards regenerative agriculture. Other food movements (e.g. organic, Biodynamic) have been pushed forward primarily by farmers and consumers. They grew more slowly, with grassroots organizing and farmer-led furor, slowly building alliances with small food companies and local retailers. Eventually larger companies began buying up smaller organic brands, using acquisitions to get ahead of consumer demand.

So far, the story is unfolding differently for regenerative agriculture. Starting in 2016, food companies have been more active than farmers in promoting regen ag. Consumers seem to be almost left in the dust, wondering, “WTF is this new term?!?” just as they were getting used to “organic.” 

Not-for-profits have played a role in catching up consumers, especially Kiss the Ground, the Rodale Institute, and At the Epicenter. But their primary focus (and funding?) seems to be CPG companies, who are clearly (based on this month’s news) leading the way.

Companies doing the work that citizens and farmers have done in other movements leads to several interesting dynamics. One is the danger of marketing hype overpowering on-the-ground impact (highlighted in the Grist and AgFunder articles). Another is that product-creating businesses are investing big bucks to help “train” and “educate” farmers in the methods they want them to use. It remains to be seen if this approach will generate real improvement in soils, ecosystems, or farmer livelihoods – I am hopeful that it can, but wary of the many pitfalls on the path.

                           – Ethan Soloviev

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Regeneration Newsroom – December 2018

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

Global Land Degradation, Gucci Goes Regenerative, and Why Certifications Don’t Work…

 

Land Degradation - Regeneration Newsroom

Land Degradation – Image Credit Tomasz Stepinski, University of Cincinnati

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Check out a new joint venture between Koen van Seijen and Ethan Soloviev, the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!

Regenerative Agriculture

New map of global environmental degradation in a peer-reviewed journal – important up-to-date information for arguments about WHY regenerative agriculture is important – Link

30 for 100: Savory launches a new global campaign to transform landscapes. Link

The four E’s: “ethos, economy, elegance and empowerment”. It’s been curious not to hear much from Joel Salatin in the recent hype around regenerative agriculture. Glad to see he’s making the rounds in North Dakota and beyond –Link (P.S. Joel Salatin and I will both be speaking at the 2019 Living Soil Symposium in Montreal – this will be an awesome event!)

These small but steady mentions of regenerative agriculture are important: Tri-state Livestock News (Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota) promotes the “Western Dakota Crops Day”, which focuses on “Regional agronomy research results, dealing with saline and sodic soils and the latest research on regenerative cropping systems…” Link

Glad to see Pipeline Foods getting Rabobank’s attention. Their notion of “regenerative” is from the ‘Soil Profits’ paradigm and is not particularly nuanced, but their work as a broker for organic commodities is great. Link

Land to Market™ takes another big step: first EOV™ (Ecological Outcomes Verification™) Wool goes to market in South Africa. I think this is important, and worth watching – what will the market say about ecologically net-positive practices?!? Link

Gucci Goes Regenerative? Regeneration Newsroom

Towards Regenerative (Luxury?!?) Fashion – Kering, who owns brands Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and others, is teaming up with the Savory Institute to develop supply chains for grass-fed Land to Market™-verified leather and other raw materials. With most Gucci purses costing more than  $2,300 USD, it would be great for some of that margin to support regenerative agriculture. Here’s the Kering Press Release, and more coverage from Sustainable Brands.

2 million chickens a week: Great and nuanced coverage by Civil Eats on Costco’s move to vertically integrate poultry production – and “RegeNErate Nebraska’s” opposition and proposed alternatives. Link

Also from RegeNErate Nebraska, check out this Resource Guide. As I’ve commented elsewhere, I think the use of “regenerative” to describe many of these organizations is dubious – they are and have been doing great work, but adding the word “regenerative” does not change much. On the other hand, I greatly appreciate the Native American voices and perspectives in this document – more dialogue and cooperative development with indigenous communities could be mutually beneficial for people working towards regeneration.

“Regenerative agriculture is actually a native concept.” –Vincent Bass, Winnebago Vice Chairman

NextFuel - Regeneration NewsRoom

Too good to be true? Nextfuel promises to replace fossil fuels with… Elephant Grass. While it may capture carbon, the whole pitch is from the “extract value” paradigm – there is no shift evident to regenerative thinking. But interesting nonetheless – watch the video! Link

Podcasts

This month on Investing in Regenerative Agriculture, Koen van Seijen interviews Chuck de Liedekerke of Soil Capital. I disagree with how he defines “regenerative ag”, but he’s taking an interesting approach with larger-scale growers. Link

Investing in Regenerative Agriculture Podcast - Regeneration Newsroom

“An Underground Insurgency: Regenerative Agriculture & Human Transformation” – Interview with Charles Massy, author of the number one regenerative agriculture book in Australia, “Call of the Reed Warbler“. Link

David Bronner on Food Tank – apparently Dr. Bronner’s has donated $8 million to regenerative organic agriculture, perhaps through the Regenerative Organic Alliance… Link

Fascinating podcast from John Kempf that breaks the mold of his agronomy-focused offerings – this one explores 5 characteristics of exceptionally successful farm managers. Very interesting. Link

Agroforestry

Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan: Unlikely locations for agroforestry? It’s actually been here for thousands of years. This duo of articles highlights the practical application of integrated tree crops for land restoration in arid mountain climates: The Innovative Polyculture Farmers of Tajikistan and the Apple-Walnut Forests of Kyrgyzstan

Tajikistan Agroforestry - Regeneration Newsroom
Respected farmer Gado Kayumov in front of his Tajik agroforestry-apple gardens. Image by Daniyar Serikov, courtesy Mongabay.

“Profit changes minds” – I love the no-nonsense practical points made here. Not all the farming described is regenerative, but it’s aiming in that direction, and go figure – it’s more profitable. Link

“Ghanaian Farmer Urges Others to Adopt Regenerative Dynamic Agroforestry” – the clearest explanations come from farmers on the ground – Link.

Are there trees in your carbon sequestration plan? Regenerative agriculture focused on soil just can’t keep up – LinkClimate Mitigation Potential - Regeneration Newsroom

Source – Negative Emissions and Land-Based Carbon Sequestration, Rocky Mountain Institute

Business 

Why Certifications Don’t Work Are you considering one of the new “regenerative” certifications for your product or business? Read this first – a comprehensive dismantling of the underlying reasoning behind certifications. There’s a podcast too if you want to listen. Link

“Value Change in the Value Chain” – New guidance for corporations to track Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Put out by the Gold Standard and Science-Based Targets Initiative, there’s just a few small companies who have signed on to try it out – Mars, Danone, Barry Callebaut, Ben & Jerry’s, Cargill, General Mills, L’Oréal, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Target 😉 Link and here’s a Sustainable Brands article with a faster overview: Link

Part of the preceding release but worth it’s own note: Value Change /Gold Standard has realeased a 40-page document to help make decisions about how to design and quantify projects that aim to change Soil Organic Carbon (aka carbon farming, or as most people mis-label it, regenerative agriculture). Nothing ground-breaking, but organized with precision and clarity. Link

Forbes – “How Investing In Regenerative Agriculture Can Help Stem Climate Change Profitably” – (I’m not sure what “stem climate change’ means;) We’ve already covered the Ecosystem Service Valuation Report and the other key farm profitability study cited (NOT regenerative agriculture, despite their use of the term), but if you’re interested to learn more about the Farmland LP Business Model this is not a bad little video to watch. Link

Fast Company – Exclusive interview with Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard. Urgency and action are front and center. Regenerative Agriculture is touted, but primarily related to a project in India growing cotton… this is a very very difficult crop to produce with a regenerative effect. Perhaps the folks running the project (Metawear / RESET) can provide more information? Link

If we have just 11 more harvests to transition the global agrifood system, this 2.8 million ha project in Fiji is not a bad example of how we can organize multi-sectoral financing for regenerating landscapes. Link

Government & Policy

US Farm bill passes with bipartisan support, miraculously containing a new program that will focus on soil health and soil carbon sequestration. Coming from an unlikely coalition of the NRDC, National Corn Growers Association, American Coalition for Ethanol, and Environmental Entrepreneurs, this provision is the best thing I’ve heard about a farm bill in more than a decade. Link

Punjab cabinet approves policies for… Regenerative Agriculture? Link

“How Regenerative Agriculture Could Be Key to the Green New Deal” – Brief high-level policy article, decent, though coming mostly from the ‘Rodale Organic’ lineage and missing the (mostly conventional, industrial, large-scale) farmers who are quickly growing a “regenerative agriculture” that works for them.  Link

Here’s a great example of government getting out of the way and supporting citizens to craft their own food systems. And it’s a boon for small business. Will more lawmakers follow Maine’s example? Link

COP24 concludes with a lowest-common-denominator agreement, but an agreement nonetheless. Not a lot of agriculture-specific discussions that I saw covered, though these two side-events each brought their own angle on soil carbonization to “Speed up the cool down”: CGIAR Event and IFOAM / Biovision / Regeneration International / Shumei

Special Section on Blockchain

Report: Navigating Blockchain and Climate Action. Interesting report, a bit more restrained than most of what’s coming out of the blockchain community but highlighting some clear characteristics and opportunity areas. If you read the full report and have deeper analysis to share, let me know.  Link

Industrial agriculture digital farm operations carbon market blockchain mashup – Nori (decentralized carbon markets on the blockchain) announces a new partnership with Granular (farm management software bought by DuPont in 2017). I’m very interested to see what comes from this, and which of Granular’s users will want tiptoe in the carbon markets. Link: “Turning Carbon Into a Cash Crop”

Regen.Network Regeneration Newsroom

Excellent new video from Regen.Network: “The Balance Sheet for Earth”. Regen is a decentralized ledger technology designed to track positive changes to ecological systems. Link 

“We’re reinventing the economics of agriculture by realigning short term economic gains with long-term ecological health” – Regen.Network CEO Gregory Landua

 

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

Many of this month’s stories came to life for me at the Regenerative Earth Summit, where I spoke along with major brands like Patagonia, Kashi, Applegate, Eileen Fisher, and The North Face. To here my reflections from the event, you’ll have to listen my discussion with Koen van Seijen – available for free at the new Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!                          

– Ethan Soloviev

 

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Regeneration Newsroom – November 2018

Global Soil Organic Carbon Map - Regeneration Newsroom

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

The Future of Carbon Measurement, Regenerative Meat, Australia Rising

Global Soil Organic Carbon Map copyright FAO 2018. With new tools, enhancing the spatial resolution of this map should be possible at 100x speed.

 

Want to hear the audio highlights of this month’s news? Check out a new joint venture between Koen van Seijen and Ethan Soloviev, the Regeneration Newsroom Podcast!

Regenerative Agriculture

Epic: First product with ecologically regenerative meat hits the market. As I covered last month, Savory Institute has been hard at work for 2 years prototyping it’s Land-to-Market™ verification program in close collaboration with hand-selected brands. Now you can taste the results. Link

“Turning around 4 disastrous years with regenerative agriculture” – Dakota Farmer. Have I mentioned how important it is that folks are reading this in the Dakota Farmer? Link

Gabe Brown’s book Dirt to Soil released! Koen and I discuss it at the end of our Regeneration Newsroom Podcast if you want a sneak preview. Link

As I discussed last month, one strain of regenerative agriculture is quickly spreading in mainstream US farming circles. Want more evidence? Just head on over to the Beef Daily column in Beef Magazine, “Did grandpa have a better way?” Link

Cows - Regeneration Newsroom

Trio of stories on regenerative agriculture in Australia:

1. The Guardian continues its excellent coverage on regenerative agriculture, this time focusing on the potential for Australia. Interesting focus on education and removing vested interests from the industry. “If we don’t go to regenerative agriculture, we will continue to mine soils, particularly of carbon. This is the great loss and it is not being admitted. If you continue to mine carbon, you are shot” Link

2. Restore the Soil, Prosper the Nation. Big-thinking policy paper from the former governor general of Australia. Link

3. Soils for Life Case Study: “Returns in excess of 8% on capital invested per year” on 8900 hectares. Very interesting investment & land acquisition model with a real focus on profit & impact. Link

Regenerative Agriculture Case Study - Regeneration Newsroom

To round these out, see the recent review paper “Conservation and Regenerative versus Intensive Agriculture” from Future Directions International. While overall the positive and research-directed tone is welcome, the author confuses regenerative and conservation agriculture, citing the paper I covered in August with terrible methodology for defining “regenerative”. Worth a quick skim, though nothing revolutionary here. Link

Very Important: This is the future of carbon measurement. Instead of expensive & slow soil testing, simple reflectometers measure soil carbon based on how dark a soil is. Eventually these will embedded in IoT sensors for real-time data streams. Several outfits are working on this, I like the tone and open source hardware approach of Quick Carbon. Link.

Supermarkets, microorganism trade systems, and super-high-phenolic olive oil. All from… Cyprus? Link and here’s the farm itself Link

This young australian farmer won an award for no-till grain growing, inspired by regen ag principles. Link

Australia: The State of Global Food Security and Implications for Rural Communities. Nice tight summary of the global food security landscape with good references. Link

Apparently, the big General Mills / Gunsmoke project will train young farmers and… robots? Link

Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees every time you search, shares its thinking on regenerative agriculture. Basic, but good.  Link

Ecosia Eco Search Engine - Regeneration Newsroom

From Andre Leu and the good folks at Regeneration International: “Reversing Climate Change through Regenerative Agriculture.” Good general article, summarizes climate change logic and makes some rather remarkable claims of what soil carbon sequestration can achieve. Main tools listed are composting and grazing; I think de-emphasizing agroforestry like this is a mistake. Link  [photo available]

Candidate running with regenerative agriculture as part of their platform. Small-scale politics, but expect to see more of this. Link

Cute little Forbes/Quora mashup: how regenerative agriculture can improve meat. Link

Great in-depth article on the first new perennial starch crop – Kernza. High Plains Journal article highlights some of the real challenges with scaling up supply, especially in the face of skyrocketing demand (which I discuss at length on this podcast). Link

Soil and Seaweed: Farming Our Wayto a Climate Solution on Scientific American. I wish I could post more about regenerative oceans – the potential is HUGE, but so few folks are working on it. Good intro here. More context over at OceanCollectiv, and amazing work on 3D ocean farming at GreenWave.Ocean Collectiv - Regeneration Newsroom

“I began questioning if I was a farmer, or a mere pawn for Big Agriculture” – Part of a great article on farmer Luke Peterson of Minnesota. He offers up my favorite quote of the month:

“So what is regenerative agriculture? Though he can easily illustrate the practices and goals, Peterson is reticent “to try to define regenerative agriculture because it’s a way of thinking that is creative, expansive, holistic, open and alive,” he says. “I’m afraid that once we think we have it defined, it will be limited or compartmentalized.”

In contrast, from Alberta, here’s an article on a 2,000-acre farmer who gives a (common) mis-definition of Regen Ag that does not actually describe regeneration: “We’re trying to practise what we would call regenerative agriculture — trying to build a profitable, resilient system that’s maintaining a good level of production while reducing the amount of inputs we’re relying on.” Reducing inputs does not equal regenerative. That said, there are some tactical intercropping gems in here. Link

I love the fiery political commentary coming out of Australia. “The froth and bubble buffoonery of political opportunity… suggests that the National Drought Summit will be largely a waste of time and result in…” Regenerative agriculture?!? Link

Third General Assembly of Regeneration International happened in India. Doesn’t sound like a lot happened? And the organization’s newly clarified mission is to promote organic agriculture? Link

I think the nascent inclusion of regeneratively produced ingredients into health & beauty products is incredibly important. See short interview with the folks at Kaibae over at Beauty Independent – Link

Videos & Podcasts

A Regenerative Secret - Kiss the Ground - Regeneration Newsroom

“A Regenerative Secret” – New mini-film by Kiss the Ground, focused on the science and practice of regenerative grazing on Joyce Farms. Awesome drone shots of rotating cattle, those alone make this excellent 8 minutes worth watching. [screenshot]

What do Baobab, Seaweed, and Cacay have in common? Check out Lost Crops – The Documentary. In just 14 minutes you can see beautiful and important footage from Ghana to Colombia touching the community economic empowerment potential of regenerative agriculture and mariculture. Link

Kaibae - Lost Crops Documentary

Cute but strange video from Patagonia Provisions. I find it a bit heavy-handed and fear-driven despite the regenerative agriculture message and digitized watercolor. This video is not going to get any large-scale farmers I know to change their practices. What do you think? Link

This farmer’s got 23 more inches of topsoil than his neighbor. From John Kempf, an interview with Gabe Brown. Link

“The Next Frontier in Regenerative Agriculture & the Power of Stories” – Poultry-centric pioneer and Ashoka Fellow Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin offers great insights on his Regenerative Agriculture work. Link

(Top podcast this month) Investing in Regenerative Agriculture – Koen van Seijen covers a new $30 million fund creator Victor Friedberg of FoodShots Global. Their first focus? Soil. – Link

 

African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative R100 - Regeneration Newsroom

Agroforestry

AFR100: The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative aims to bring 100 million hectares of land in Africa into restoration by 2030. Excellent project. Link

California indigenous groups’ revive their fire and agroforestry traditions, upending years of ill-conceived management practices. Yurok and Karuk peoples are collaborating with California and US Forest Service to restore 5,700 square kilometers. Great article. Link

Sweet little Forbes interview with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, 2018 Ashoka Fellow and creator of the “Tree-Range™” regenerative farming model. Link

Agroforestry gaining traction among mainstream timberland investors. First of its kind Report from leading forest products advisor RISI. Link

Free book from the World Agroforestry Centre on Climate Smart Landscapes. 445 Pages of multifunctional agroforestry in practice. Great academic resource with some fascinating practical details from around the world. LinkClimate Smart Landscapes - World Agroforestry Center at Regeneration Newsroom

Business & Policy

First in the US Carbon Fee – $15 per metric ton of carbon emitted, increasing by $2 per year. Could raise $2.3 billion for clean energy investment and other carbon-reduction measures. – Link

Corporate Carbon: This Australian organization has developed over 100 projects focusing on building soil organic matter. Though it looks like a journal article, this is an interview with the founder – fascinating. Link

This Bangalore-based business just won a Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leaders Award for making a turning a farming video game into real life. Link

Important Event: The Regenerative Earth Summit is in less than 3 weeks. Leading businesses like Patagonia, North Face, Danone, Epic, Kashi, Lotus Foods come together with the the worlds 5th-largest commodities trader (Bunge), indigenous leader Winona LaDuke, regenerative ag pioneers (Fibershed, Savory Institute, Rodale Institute) and many more! I’ll be speaking on the panel “Growing Traceability and Transparency”. I look forward to seeing you there!  Link

Kiss the Ground Meme - Regeneration Newsroom
#Media is trending. Simple and stark regenerative agriculture meme from Kiss the Ground.

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

As Koen van Seijen and I discuss in our audio highlights, the key trend to watch this month is the role of media in shaping public perception of regenerative agriculture.

With the quickly-growing number of consumer products making “regenerative” claims (see Epic’s product this month, North Face’s last month), more and more people will be looking or bite-sized information in the form of Youtube videos and Text/Image Memes.

Kiss the Ground is at the forefront of this media wave, consistently releasing high-quality and easy-to-digest documentary- and explainer-type videos.

But expect to see larger players with their own particular interests getting into the media game as well. See for example this meme produced (apparently) by General Mills earlier this year… look familiar?

General Mills Regenerative Agriculture - Regeneration Newsroom

The vast majority of General Mills’ products still come from farms that look like the one on the left. And “protect soil” comes from the Conservative agriculture paradigm, but is masquerading here as regenerative (I’ll write more about the distinctions in an upcoming paper).

Don’t get me wrong – I am overjoyed that General Mills (and soon, I predict) other large agriculture players are beginning to shift their paradigm towards regeneration. I just hope they can help uphold and evolve the integrity of a truly regenerative agriculture, instead of degrading it in their bid to profit from this year’s regenerative hype.

                           – Ethan Soloviev

Questions? Comments? Leave it below or send me an email – e@ethansoloviev.com

 

P.S. Two books I’m excited to read: Gary Paul Nabhan’s Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair and Leah Penniman’s Farming While Black. Have you read them?

If you enjoyed this issue of Regeneration Newsroom, please forward this to a friend that would find the information valuable!

 

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Regeneration Newsroom October 2018

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

$72 Million Ecosystem Benefits, Regenerative Fashion & Cosmetics, and Tickling Trump’s Ear…

Regenerative Grazing vs. Monoculture Corn - Illustration by Matt Kenyon

Regenerative Agriculture

“Who slashes farmland acreage by three-quarters, jettisons a machinery fleet, and upends field practices, yet watches profits rise by 70 percent?” This is  my top article for the month, for 2 reasons:

1. Farmer Del Ficke has an emotional story of personal trauma and regeneration that fed his family farm transformation. His awareness of culture is more nuanced and engaged than most I’ve heard about.

2. The story is emblematic of the “new” face of Regenerative Agriculture, the one that is growing the most quickly with large-scale farmers across the heartland of the United States and farming country in Australia. I’ll write more about this in my final note at the end.

Get ready to get geeky. Farmland LP has released their 2017 Impact Report, which goes deep into Carbon accounting and Ecosystem Service Valuation for their funds. Sneak peak: $74 million in ecosystem services generated since inception… Link – Also written up nicely here: (Organic and Regenerative Agriculture Study Funded by USDA Demonstrates $21.4 Million Ecosystem Benefit on 6,011 Acres Over Five Years)

Very important: Detailed overview of Savory Institute’s Land to Market™ program, the first outcomes-based regenerative ag standard. I think this is the best standard available and the one I recommend supporting. Link

From the Savory Land to MarketTM website; however this graphic was developed by Bill Reed of the Regenesis Group - I saw it in 2009, discussed in my post on the Regenerative Agriculture Continuum here.
From the Savory Land to MarketTM website; however this graphic was developed by Bill Reed of the Regenesis Group – I saw it in 2009, discussed in my post on the Regenerative Agriculture Continuum here.

Australian Farmers Driving Up Profits Through Regenerative Agriculture. “While debt has crippled many farmers over the past 12 years, NSW grazier Martin Royds increased his farm’s profits 230 per cent…” Link

Taking natural and organic cosmetic ingredients to the next level – “The ingredients that sustain and enhance people’s lives should also sustain and enhance their planetary home”. Great 3-article series on tropical regenerative agriculture at Finca Luna Nueva in Costa Rica – videos interviews included. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Towards Regenerative Fashion: “The North Face Adds Products Made Through Regenerative Agriculture.”  I appreciate the clarity that North Face is using to describe the line of Fibershed-sourced wool: They’re still doing a full LCA, but they know the sheep & grazing capture carbon. Link

In case you missed it: The White House’s Deep Decarbonization Plan for the United States, which includes Carbon Farming and Agroforestry. Published 2016… I wonder if anyone in the current White House has read this;) Link

“The Future of Flavor” is regenerative agriculture. I completely agree. Link

“Sustainability isn’t enough” says Minnesota Ranching family. Aiming towards regeneration with no-till, cover crops, and grazing. Also see (despite the reporter’s grimace;) a pretty good video on the same farm on AgWeek TV (skip to 23:14) Link

Regenerative Farming on AgWeek TV

Regenerative agriculture gets a nod (albeit a strange one sandwiched between techno-fantasies;) in Fast Company: “It’s the year 2038–here’s how we’ll eat 20 years in the future” – Link

Regeneration Canada launches new website, starts planning for 2019 Soil Summit. Link

Conflicting perspectives on drought in Australia – One farmer describes what regenerative grazing and tree planting have done for her land. Link

New book exploring path to regenerative agriculture – I’m looking forward to reading this! Link

One Size Fits None A Farm Girls Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture

Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz practices… regenerative agriculture?!?  Link

From the Guardian: “If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer”. While the biodiversity and economic results noted in this piece are impressive, I can only imagine what would happen if the farm used Holistic rotational grazing instead of extensive permanent paddocks. Link

Most people continue to use term “regenerative agriculture” to describe these 3 basic tenets of organic farming. Interesting little video. Link

Regenerative Agriculture and Racing Cars?

Verizon Indycars and agriculture? “It will be an organic regenerative farm right outside the raceway gates.”  Link

Short and interesting definition of Regen Ag from Modern Farmer, along with  a bunch of short and interesting definitions of other ag terms. Link

“We’ve encountered active hostility from conventional farmers; but the regenerative techniques and science are coming out of both the organic and the conventional sectors. This is a huge opportunity to start bridging that gap.” Nice interview on soil, and the potential for transforming agriculture. Link

Regenerative agriculture is gaining momentum in Australia. A state Agriculture and Food Minister officially launched a Regenerative Farmers Network, saying “What I see very much from the farmers in the regenerative space is they’re not out there preaching to other people about what they should do, they are leading by example.” (Plus some harsh zings at Biodynamics;) Link

Tickling Trump’s ear – a fascinating editorial in a small-town USA newspaper tackles national politics, international trade wars, and (!) the promise of regenerative agriculture. Fascinating to see how far and wide the meme is spreading! Link

The Garden at the End of the World – Patagonia’s new piece promoting Regenerative Organic Agriculture in name, though mainly a sweet little story of a biointensive garden in Patagonia, Chile. Link

Podcasts

(Top podcast this month) Investing in Regenerative Agriculture –  Follow-up on a story from last month Koen van Seijen interviews Satya Tropathi, chair of the board of the Sustainable India Finance Facility, a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme, World Agroforestry Centre and BNP Paribas.  Link

GreenBiz talks to Regen Network CEO Gregory Landua about blockchain and regenerative ag (skip ahead to 29:30 to hear this segment). They’ll be pitching at VERGE 2018. –  Link

Exploring the connection between Organic and Regenerative Agriculture – Supplyside West Podcast with Jeff Moyer of the Rodale Institute – Link

Kiss the Ground on Food Startups Podcast – how to reverse climate change! Link

Agroforestry

Hot not-even-on-the-press yet: Agroforestry Standards for Regenerative Agriculture. Journal article, pre-peer-review, very cool and important – Link

Innovation Forum: Mars, Nestlé, Unilever, Olam, Coca-Cola, and L’Oreal – At least on paper, these companies are beginning to explore regenerative agriculture and agroforestry – as they should be. Any deeper investigation I’ve done have indicated that their aspirations are far beyond their effects, but perhaps things are changing. Many will be speaking at the “Sustainable Landscapes Conference 2018” – Link

“6 reasons why the practice of Silvopasture will help save modern farming” – It’s important to see agroforestry systems that produce animal products getting more attention. With increasing global demand for meat, and the “animals are bad” narrative continuing to gain momentum, a third viewpoint can help reconcile the situation. Well worth the read. Link

Enhancing cacao production through regenerative agriculture. Great to have agroforestry & regenerative agroforestry integrated around a cacao cash-crop. Link

California Almonds and Regenerative Agriculture?
Photo: California Olive Ranch

Regenerative Investing & Business

Impact investing plants seeds of growth for small-scale farmers – some decent coverage from the Financial Times, more on ag-tech but with a regenerative farming mention for SLM Partners. Link

Nearly 400 investors with $32 trillion in assets step up action on climate change – Link and Link. Good start.

1/8 of Global Market Cap Now Committed to Science-Based Targets. An international collaboration between CDP, the United Nations, World Resources Institute and WWF independently assesses and verifies company emission reduction targets. Eventually, this group could even assess the positive carbon-sequestering activities that companies will integrate into their systems of supply. Link

With new $35m equity investment, California Olive Ranch says it’s looking towards Regenerative Agriculture. Olive trees do indeed have carbon-sequestering potential, but given the long-term drought situation and the predilection of California olive producers to plant massive monocultures (see photo;) it seems like a stretch. But I’d love to be proven wrong! Link

California Almonds and Regenerative Agriculture?
Photo: California Olive Ranch

A new proposal from the editor of ImpactAlpha: Rename ‘Generation Z’ to the “reGeneration”. Plus 6 investment trends to watch – Link

Breaking News from AgFunder: “FoodShot Global Launches Multi-Stakeholder Platform to Invest in ‘MoonShots for Better Food’” There’s a lot more capital flowing into ag tech than regenerative ag. Will regen ag entrepreneurs rise to take on challenges like these? Link

Dear Paul Hawken, I disagree: Regeneration is not “all about meeting current human needs.” Regeneration is much more than that, focusing on the potential of whole living systems. Aiming for people get to some minimum set  of needs met is not enough. Nevertheless, I’m excited to see the next book:) Link to Interview

Management & Governance: Do you know how Holacracy is different from Regenerative Business? Link

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

There are 5 primary intellectual and practical Lineages of people who are using the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. Each Lineage has a different definition, farming philosophy, and approach to growing their community. In the last year, one of them is quickly (but quietly) out-growing the others. I’ll write about these in more detail in another post soon, but here are the Five Lineages of Regenerative Agriculture:

1. Rodale Organic – Basic organic agriculture practices promoted by Rodale since the 1970s, re-dubbed “Regenerative Organic” in recent years and requiring the tenets of organic agriculture as a baseline. The focus is soil. CPG brands have been strongly promoting this lineage, most notably through the Regen Organic Certification.

2. Permaculture/Regrarians – Permaculture as a global movement loves the IDEA of regenerative agriculture, but for the most part fails to achieve significant levels of agricultural production. Regrarians, emerging from permaculture, has for decades integrated Holistic Management, Keyline, and ecological design processes at farm-scale around the world.

3. Holistic Management – promoted by both the Savory Institute and Holistic Management International, focusing on a comprehensive decision-making framework designed for animal-centric ecosystem regeneration. Last month Savory released their Land to Market Ecological Outcome Verification system, with backing of some significant food brands.

4. Regenerative Paradigm – over 50 years ago, the term ‘Regenerative’ was developed by Charles Krone to describe a radically different paradigm of approaching human and systems development. Guided by the Carol Sanford Institute, a small but effective community of practice including Regenesis, Terra Genesis International, and others has applied the paradigm to Business, Design, Planning, Education, and Agriculture.

5. Soil Profits / No-Till / NRCS – Typified and led by Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown, and others, this lineage draws practices and inspiration from other Lineages but appeals strongly to conventional farmers by eschewing the dogmas of organic agriculture and focusing on bottom line profits through increased soil health.

This final Lineage is the one that I see quietly experiencing exponential growth – dominating the Regen Ag mentions of middle-America newspapers and actually being adopted by mainstream conventional farmers.

By bypassing prejudices against ‘organic’, and allowing farmers to still use synthetic inputs, this lineage is received openly enough to then show the economic arguments for decreasing inputs and improving soil through good crop rotation, no-till, and grazing practices

The narrative that something as effective and sexy as “Regenerative Agriculture” is available  to conventional farmers is a big deal. While I think this lineage misses opportunities through its incompleteness and dis-integrative approach, I believe it is incredibly important for the world to watch and support its growth and evolution.

                           – Ethan Soloviev

P.S. If you’re interested in some in-person learning, I recommend the upcoming Regenerative Earth Summit – I’ll be speaking there along folks from Patagonia, North Face, Eileen Fisher, Savory Institute, Fair Trade USA, Rodale Institute, and the American Sustainable Business Council. I hope to see you there!

If you enjoyed this issue of Regeneration Newsroom, please forward this to a friend that would find the information valuable!

 

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Regeneration Newsroom August 2018

Indian Farmland - Transitioning to Regenerative Ag Soon?

Curated top stories in Regenerative Agriculture, Business, and Investing • ethansoloviev.com

20 Million Acres Transitioning to Regenerative Ag, World Bank Promotes Agroforestry, $40 Million Raised…

Indian Farmland - Transitioning to Regenerative Ag Soon?

Regenerative Agriculture

Carbon Farming Works. Can it scale up in time to make a difference? – Link

Towards Regenerative Fashion: Stony Creek Colors grows Indigo for blue dye on former tobacco fields in Tennessee USA, scales up operations, and claims to improve the soil. Read more at https://stonycreekcolors.com/ and even buy their dye on Amazon!

Here’s a short & sweet primer on carbon farming, mislabeled as regenerative agriculture:) Larger and larger venues picking up on the concept, exploring it with great interest and low rigor. – [Link]

Succinct introduction to regenerative agriculture in ‘The Conscious Carnivore Guide’ from the New Food Economy. – Link

There’s slow but steady news of small farms aiming for regenerative agriculture trickling into mainstream press: Like here from western Canada, here from southern Minnesota USA, and here from North Carolina USA.

This industrial greenhouse operation growing growing mostly non-organic with chemicals claims they will go regenerative… I’ll believe it when I see it! – Link and Link

Ben Dobson and the good folks at Hudson Carbon offer a new write-up (kind of like their extended definition) of regenerative agriculture. Includes some interesting ecosystem-derived insights. The group’s practical on-the-ground work and scale are outstanding, though I think their mostly-soil focus misses the deeper layers of Regenerative Agriculture that are possible. – Link

You can now grow monoculture corn, till, spray pesticides, not be organic, not necessarily increase soil carbon, and still be a “Regenerative Farm”. Amazing how fast the watering-down is proceeding. – Link

Aside from the flagrant mis-use and banalization of “regenerative”, the results from this peer-reviewed article are awesome and encouraging! Turns out basic conservation ag practices increase farm profits and have some positive effect on biodiversity. – Link

Some quotes from the article [brackets are my addition]:

  • “Pests were 10-fold more abundant in insecticide treated corn fields than on insecticide-free [so-called] regenerative farms,”
  • “[So-called] Regenerative fields had 29% lower grain production but 78% higher profits over traditional corn production systems”
  • “Profit was positively correlated with the particulate organic matter of the soil, not yield”
  • “Simply applying individual regenerative practices within the current production model will not likely produce the documented results.”

Are 20 million acres of land really going to transition to regenerative agriculture? Here’s a UN project scaled with massive government support and an innovative public/private financing system. World Agroforestry Centre involvement; key will be “placing farmers at the forefront of knowledge creation and dissemination.” – Link

Podcasts

(Top podcast this month) Investing in Regenerative Agriculture –  My friend Koen van Seijen interviews up-and-coming organic grains powerhouse Pipeline Foods. I recommend listening to his whole series. – Link

Investing in Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

Rodale Institute scientists explain their case for regenerative ag. Rodale’s perspective is mostly focused on tried-and-true organic farming practices that produce small increases in soil carbon – there’s a lot more that can be done if trees are added to the mix through agroforestry. – Link

Ecosystem Diversity Prevents Insect Pressure with John Kempf. – Link

A Cattle Farmer & Consultant jam on regenerative ag. – Link

Agroforestry

World Bank leads an effort to promote agroforestry for major commodity crops (Corn, Soy, Palm Oil), also explores crops that should be grown in agroforestry systems (Cocoa, Coffee, Shea). – Link

Propagate Ventures Interviewed on their agroforestry investment model. These guys are fun. – Link

Investing

Food Tank interviews Wood Turner of Ag Capital, who have recently adopted the term “Regenerative Agriculture” without any apparent change in their large-scale monoculture operations. The perennial nature of their crops (Hazels, blueberries, citrus) does indeed make them more likely to have a net-positive impact — but as far as I can tell they haven’t documented it, or done anything deeper than using a new word. Nevertheless, this is a good read. – Link

3 Trillion committed to invest in “companies that factor climate risks into their strategies”. While at first glance this might seem great, it will not lead directly to regenerative agriculture or even much change from business as usual – many global petroleum companies put a lot of focus on upcoming climate risks… – Link

Wide Open Ag raises $5m (AUD) in IPO on ASX exchange. Company claims to be doing “diversified, regenerative agriculture”. They use the “4 Returns” Framework developed by the Commonlands Foundation. – Link

$15m Raise – Midwestern Bio-Ag is a stalwart in good organic agriculture practices, products, and support. They’re partnering with General Mills (including a multi-million dollar investment) on the Gunsmoke Farms project, which while touted as “regenerative.” Looks like it will basically be organic. – Link

Six Lessons from Investor Survey As land-grabbing continues and local communities fight back, it is imperative for investors to consider land rights when making agricultural or natural resource investments. USAID surveys the field and presents 6 key findings. (They’re kind of obvious :/ but it’s a good start.) – Link

Related, and more interesting:  Indigenous peoples manage or own more than 25% of earth’s land?!? Thank goodness. – Link

Carbon Negative Sail Cargo

Sail Cargo – Here’s a far-out investment opportunity from the past, for the future. Carbon-negative sail-trade of regenerative agroforestry product. I recommend going through the investor booklet. – Link

Regenerative Business

Leadership is not about motivating or inspiring people. Wait, what? – Link

This business has been rocking it for a while. Great article on Dr. Bronner’s regenerative agriculture work – Link

Herbal infused drink-maker REBBL raises $20 million to continue growing – Link

Competition for regeneration – Still a long ways to go until a functional business sprouts here, but the initial numbers sound good… Link

Ethan Soloviev’s big-picture interpretation of this month’s news:

“Regenerative” Agriculture has within the last 6 months exploded beyond it’s previous audience and advocates, who were primarily in the permaculture and holistic management communities. With its quick expansion has come immediate watering-down, with most people now thinking that regenerative agriculture just a few basic conservation agriculture practices. (I beg to differ – see this white paper for details.) Even non-organic farms practicing tillage, using insecticides, and not certified organic can be “regenerative” – without regard for whether or not they are actually regenerating anything.

Following General Mills’ lead, other Ag & Food business conglomerates will also announce “regenerative” initiatives. I predict that Bayer-Monsanto and others will start promoting “Regenerative” agriculture within 24 months.

What does this mean? The greenwashing will continue to grow in scale and brazenness. The farmers and entrepreneurs working towards deeper levels of regenerative agriculture will continue their work with integrity, but it will be harder for them to stand out and differentiate their offerings. Certifications like the “Regenerative Organic Standard” won’t do much to help, because their checklist-format criteria can’t account for the unique brilliance of individual farms and farmers.

I hope I’m wrong. Stay tuned in the coming months to find out.

                           – Ethan Soloviev

 

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Regenerative Enterprise: 4 Years Later

This month we released translations of our book Regenerative Enterprise into 4 new languages. Potential readership increased by 986 million people; the area in which readers might live increased by 3 billion hectares or 21% of the earth’s landmass. Regenerative Enterprise in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French

On February 17, 2017 we release Regenerative Enterprise in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French. 

When we wrote the book in 2013, the terms “Regenerative Enterprise” and “Regenerative Business” were almost unheard of. These days the term is hot, appearing everywhere from SOCAP to Sustainable Brands to the Harvard Business Review.

On this 4-year anniversary, we are pausing to reflect on the evolution of the ideas presented in our book. We highlight one area that has stayed largely the same, explore four areas where our thinking has changed significantly, and conclude with specific learnings about how to create Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems.

What Has Remained the Same

The unique and essential message of our work remains unchanged: 

Eight Forms of Capital, ©2017 Copyright Regenerative Enterprise Institute

Eight Forms of Capital, ©2017 Copyright Regenerative Enterprise Institute

The Eight Forms of Capital still exist. Financial capital is still the dominant global currency. The continual pursuit of Financial-capital-only profits perpetuates the highly destructive extraction of value from Living and Cultural capitals.

Increasing and evolving the health of whole living systems requires nurturing all forms of capital. To do so, Regenerative Businesses must generate multi-capital profits — especially to cultivate the four “Nurture Capitals”: Living, Social, Spiritual, and Cultural.

It is extremely difficult for any single company to accomplish this alone. Therefore, businesses must mimic natural systems, designing and operating Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems that integrate and optimize for multiple forms of capital as a whole network.

What Has Changed

Our thinking, and the field we are all working in, has evolved and grown significantly in each of the following four areas.

Change 1. Uplifted Ground

We can feel a palpable shift in the global business community. The “soil” of the worldwide enterprise is enriched and enlivened. Companies are focusing on ecological and social wellbeing, from massive brands like Unilever to multitudes of small and medium social enterprises and purpose-driven businesses. Investment has also grown: Socially responsible and impact investing increased 347% from 2010–2016 (Assets in SRI grew from $2.51 trillion to $8.72 trillion; Source: US SIF)

At the same time, our Regenerative Enterprise thinking has been adopted, engaged, and evolved around the world. Eight Forms of Capital has been featured in the Regenerative Capitalism work of the Capital Institute, by international firm Frog’s “Designmind” blog, at an International Development Design Summit in Brazil, as the organizing framework for the book Prosper!, in Slow Money Chapters around the US, by the GoodWork Institute, and has been taught at institutions of higher education from Columbia to the University of California.

More than ever before, the business world is ripe and ready for Regenerative Enterprise.

Change 2. Connected to Source

We originally learned the term “Regenerative” from the Permaculture movement and the landscape design thinking of John Tillman Lyle. Unfortunately, we used the term as it’s used in many current contexts: functional, flat, and lacking potential.

It turns out that there is a community of practitioners who have been using and growing the work of Regeneration. Led by author and educator Carol Sanford, the community has pioneered the work of Regenerative Business for over 40 years inside of major companies like Google, Clorox, DuPont, Colgate Palmolive, and Seventh Generation. The work continues through the annual Regenerative Business Summit, hosted by the Carol Sanford Institute and Regenerative Business Alliance.

Regenerative Business Summit

 

Since the Regenerative Enterprise was released we have had the opportunity to engage deeply with this community. It thoroughly disrupted our limited understanding of Regeneration, business, and enterprise, as well as our overly mechanistic beliefs about how people and organizations grow.

Working with the Carol Sanford Institute is like stepping out of “flatland” — a cave where everything exists only in a colorless and restricted two dimensions — and into a rich new multi-dimensional world outside of what we thought was possible.

Change 3. Principles & Imperatives

In our book we offer nine principles and three imperatives to help you develop the effectiveness and multi-capital profits of your business: 

These principles are excellent. If every business in the world worked by them, we’d be living in a different world. And, we have learned that simply taking someone else’s principles (even really “good” ones) and applying them to your business is not effective or regenerative.

Instead, principles must be generated fresh for each business, from the business itself. Each entrepreneur and each enterprise is thoroughly unique, and can express its uniqueness through developing it’s own set of managing principles. This is similar to the faulty (yet extremely popular) idea of “best practices” — the idea that something that worked for someone somewhere else will necessarily be the “best” approach in your unique situation. It won’t. Blindly adopting “best practices” is the opposite of expressing your own uniqueness — in fact, it squashes creativity and innovation.

The same goes for global imperatives. Working with living systems frameworks like the Eight Forms of Capital, Regenerative Enterprises must articulate their own imperatives. Once clear and fully adopted, unique principles and imperatives are a powerful source of effectiveness for each business to have its desired impact on the world.

Interlude: How to Create Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems

In the last four years we have designed and grown Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems around the world. We’ve built them for multi-national corporations, for specific industries (e.g. Regenerative Cacao), and for our own communities (e.g. Finka Aekolado & Cooperativa EcoCacao).

I asked my co-author Gregory Landua to share his thoughts on the strongest forces at play when designing and developing Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems. Here’s what he said:

The biggest restraints are the interface between modern industrial supply logistics monocultures and the creative polyculture of direct-trade-driven regenerative agriculture.

The economy of scale required for the current monoculture is hard to achieve, but entrepreneurs keep trying. This is not really the pathway towards a regenerative economy.

Pushing against these restraints is the enormous groundswell of people with deep desire to find solutions that address the roots of ecological, social, and economic crises.

How can we reconcile these opposing forces? 

1. Enterprises must have a strong sense of the six streams of Regenerative Business so they can see how to add value to all players in the ecosystem.

2. Businesses should create strong relationships instead of trying to compete on the alienating commodities markets where externalized costs make it impossible to show the true multi-capital damage of “business as usual”.

3. Cultivate reciprocity at the level of the enterprise ecosystem and beyond. This is not possible if everyone is trying to simply extract value from the system. Multi-capital profits require non-linear reciprocity.

Change 4. Beyond the Ecosystem

Building interconnected clusters of businesses that mimic the capacity of natural systems to regenerate the four nurture capitals is important. What has changed in our thinking is that we no longer believe this is enough.

Truly regenerative enterprise ecosystems must take aim at shifting a specific larger system in the world — something larger than themselves, but also concrete — “Optimizing to generate multiple forms of capital” is good, but it is too abstract in to drive strategic business design.

If companies do not clearly and specifically choose which system they want to change (e.g., the criminal justice system, the business education system, the commodities supply system), they will not be effective in generating new potential and possibility in the world.

Focusing on a concrete system to change will help magnetize appropriate businesses to engage with a growing enterprise ecosystem. Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems must look beyond themselves, and design specific strategies to put their multi-capital profits to work to contribute to larger systemic transformation. 

What’s Next?

Invite your Spanish-, French-, Italian-, and Portuguese-speaking contacts to read Regenerative Enterprise. If you haven’t read it yet, get the English version. All the books are available in multiple formats at the Regenerative Enterprise Institute.

Translations: The jump from 1.5 billion English speakers to 2.5 billion potential readers is a big step, but it’s not enough.

Who will translate the ideas into Mandarin? Hindi? Arabic? Russian? Bengali?

Who will design and grow place-sourced locally appropriate Regenerative Enterprise Ecosystems in each bioregion of the earth?

After hearing what’s changing for us… what will you change next?

Get the translations at http://www.regenterprise.com/translations/

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Books that Changed My Life (2016): Antifragile

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What Was Happening in My Life

I was working on the pitch decks for Regenerative Real Estate, the unsuccessful GIS-driven agricultural real estate company we started to scale up regenerative agriculture. My business partner at the time called and said, “You have to read this book.” I finally had a chance to dig into Taleb’s third book (Antifragile is part of the ‘Incerto’ Series, written after “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan”) as I travelled in Viet Nam and Taiwan, perfectly complex and chaotic eco-cultural systems in which to ruminate on fragility, resilience, and regeneration.

How “Antifragile” Changed My Life

I’m going to give away the core of the book right now. Answer this question: What is the opposite of ‘fragile’?

For 99% off people I’ve asked, the responses are invariably “strong” or “sturdy” or “resilient” or “robust”. But none of these are the opposite of fragile. If I drop a beautiful ceramic bowl, and it breaks, then it was fragile. If I drop the same bowl and it stays intact, then it was resilient. (Definition of resilient = able to withstand shocks and maintain function.) But resilience is the mid-point on a continuum, not the opposite!

Antifragile Continuum

So what would happen to the bowl if it was the opposite of fragile? When it hit the ground, instead of breaking or maintaining itself, it would get stronger. This is antifragility: systems whose capabilities increase in times of stress or disturbance.

“Antifragile” opened my eyes to an unseen characteristic and capacity of the world around me. Our immune systems are antifragile. Entrepreneurship as a whole is antifragile. Some political and governance systems (e.g. Switzerland, many indigenous cultures) are antifragile.

Going forward, my work was to design systems for antifragility. What does antifragile agriculture look like? How can an antifragile business be designed? What principles and agreements grow antifragility in human relationships?

I’ll write more on all of these. Plus, the relationship between antifragility and regeneration. In the meantime, I strongly recommend you read this book.

 

Get it on Amazon or AbeBooks

(If you’re just arriving at Re-Source: Ethan Soloviev on Regenerative Agriculture, Business and Life, welcome! This post is part of a series called ‘Life Changing Books’ – the most important books in my overall development and evolution. Click here to see a list of all the books, organized chronologically and thematically!)

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Books that Changed My Life (2015): The Responsible Business

The Responsible Business by Carol Sanford
The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success by Carol Sanford

What Was Happening in My Life

I was building the new structure, systems, and impact of Terra Genesis International. We were working with a multinational cosmetics company to transform their supply “chain”, focusing on regenerative agriculture and permaculture farming around the world. It was an immersion into international business and the inner mechanics of the global economy. I needed insight to navigate the complexity, from someone who had deep experience in this realm.

How “The Responsible Business” Changed My Life

With the foreword by the Chairman of Bank of America, it was immediately clear that this book was not written by some small-time startup consultant. The stories of large-scale business transformation gave me striking depth into how global corporations can work at their best. I could see how a focus on business essence could lead to positive systems change. And the book’s core framework (the 5 Stakeholders of a Responsible Business) gave me immediate practical insight on how a company could turn it’s eyes outwards and see how to change its effect in the world.

When I finished the book, I felt empowered to transform any business. The process would not be fast or easy (for my company, or the businesses we were working with), but the path was clear.

Get it on Amazon or AbeBooks

(If you’re just arriving at Re-Source: Ethan Soloviev on Regenerative Agriculture, Business and Life, welcome! This post is part of a series called ‘Life Changing Books’ – the most important books in my overall development and evolution. Click here to see a list of all the books, organized chronologically and thematically!)