Transforming to a regenerative U.S. agriculture: the role of policy, process, and education

Abstract

U.S. agriculture is both a major source of global food and a key contributor to multiple interconnected crises. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and severe impacts on soil and water quality are among the challenges caused by U.S. industrial agriculture. Regenerative methods of farming are necessary to confront all these challenges simultaneously, in addition to addressing the increasing challenges to farm labor conditions. Transforming U.S. agriculture to a regenerative system will require a focus on creating traction for the values, beliefs, worldviews, and paradigms that effectively support such transformation while decreasing the friction that works against them. With a focus on creating traction for transformation, we review the factors and processes that tend to promote and maintain ecological improvements on farms. Starting from a case study that points to some of the sources of friction and traction in the current U.S. agricultural system, we use the framework of three spheres of transformation to focus discussion on how processes that form beliefs and values shape and can reshape farming. We develop a series of points of entry for engaging the systemic changes that will offer farmers traction for transformation. We review literature on agricultural networks, polycentric governance, social learning, agricultural education, and farmer characteristics that lend themselves to ecologically mindful change, thereby identifying interventions that tend to provide traction for change. These approaches, and the supports that allow rural communities and the people that work in them to survive and thrive, are necessary to create the traction needed for farms to undergo a shift to regenerative agricultural practices. We link these changes to the promise of the twentieth century New Deal agricultural programs and the potential of the Green New Deal.

Learning About Ecosystem Services with PEWI: Student Reflections

“…Students are able to apply concepts that they have learned in other classes related to hydrology, ecology, wildlife management, forestry, and agronomy. PEWI helps validate the idea that some landscape configurations can create broader economic portfolios (via more diverse cropping systems) and economic development opportunities (infrastructure to support new markets), reduce technological externalities (via conservation and crop diversification), which in combination create more socially and ecologically resilient watersheds (Boody et al, 2005;Day and Cramer 2021).…”

Agroecological innovation to scale livestock agriculture for positive economic, environmental, and social outcomes

“…At the other end of the spectrum, making positive change via education and outreach to farmers directly has been the mainstay of extension and outreach efforts for decades (Lubell 2004, Calo 2018, Day and Cramer 2022. Well-intentioned expertise abounds, but metrics of ecosystem, community and individual health show a continued decline.…”

Beyond “blah blah blah”: exploring the “how” of transformation

“…The question of how transformations come about is taken up by Cathy Day and Sarah Cramer ( 2021 ) in “Transforming to a regenerative US agriculture: the role of policy, process, and education.” Recognizing that little attention has been paid to the underlying values and beliefs that perpetuate unsustainable farming systems, Day and Cramer focus on the affective and social aspects of agricultural transformations to regenerative practices. In reviewing and synthesizing the literature on education and policy-making in relation to U.S. agriculture, they emphasize the friction associated with transformative change, as well as opportunities for greater traction.…”

“…The importance of social learning and changes to formal education and funding are discussed, as is the importance of supporting the well-being of both farmers and farm workers. In calling for greater attention to the beliefs, values, worldviews, and paradigms of farmers, policymakers, and educators, Day and Cramer ( 2021 ) link changes in the personal sphere with changes in policy and practice, and they highlight the importance of sharing and spreading new stories about the potentials and possibilities of regenerative agriculture.…”