Regenerative Agriculture in Practice
Regenerative agriculture, a farming approach that focuses on soil health and ecosystems, has recently received considerable attention, particularly as an essential element of sustainable agriculture in the context of climate change. This paper reviews quantitative evidence of regenerative agriculture’s impact on productivity, resilience, and climate change mitigation—through carbon sequestration in soil. The effectiveness of regenerative agriculture depends on local climate conditions and existing practices. In addition, large-scale adoption of regenerative agriculture faces multiple challenges, such as the trade-off between short-term loss and long-term gains, smallholder farmer profitability, and other common market failures in agriculture. These challenges are especially salient in African agriculture. However, payments for ecosystem services, though yet to be carefully designed, can potentially incentivize farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture and create an additional source of income. Finally, further empirical evidence on the causal impacts of regenerative agriculture is needed to support policy design and recommendations. The paper concludes with open questions on regenerative agriculture for future study.
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2024-09-24
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| Subjects: | REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE, CLIMATE CHANGE, PRODUCTIVITY, RESILIENCE, CARBON SEQUESTRATION, CLIMATE ACTION, SDG 13, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099509109192492007/IDU11d3b562317e481498a184d51aeb6b6adde05 https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42192 |
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| Summary: | Regenerative agriculture, a farming
approach that focuses on soil health and ecosystems, has
recently received considerable attention, particularly as an
essential element of sustainable agriculture in the context
of climate change. This paper reviews quantitative evidence
of regenerative agriculture’s impact on productivity,
resilience, and climate change mitigation—through carbon
sequestration in soil. The effectiveness of regenerative
agriculture depends on local climate conditions and existing
practices. In addition, large-scale adoption of regenerative
agriculture faces multiple challenges, such as the trade-off
between short-term loss and long-term gains, smallholder
farmer profitability, and other common market failures in
agriculture. These challenges are especially salient in
African agriculture. However, payments for ecosystem
services, though yet to be carefully designed, can
potentially incentivize farmers to adopt regenerative
agriculture and create an additional source of income.
Finally, further empirical evidence on the causal impacts of
regenerative agriculture is needed to support policy design
and recommendations. The paper concludes with open questions
on regenerative agriculture for future study. |
|---|