A Regenerative Agricultural System at Scale: an Outline of Required Outcomes for the Netherlands

Regenerative agriculture is considered a more sustainable alternative to current farming practices, but it is not yetwell defined. Building on scientific literature we have defined regenerative agriculture as ‘an approach to farming thatuses soil conservation as the entry point to regenerate and contribute to multiple provisioning, regulating and supportingecosystem services, with the aspiration that this will enhance not only the environmental, but also the social andeconomic dimensions of sustainable food production’. In addition to this definition at farm level we propose thefollowing vision for a regenerative agricultural system at landscape or higher system levels: A regenerative agriculturalsystem enables production of food and biomass and enables ecosystems to maintain a healthy state and evolve, whilecontributing to biological diversity, integrity of the biosphere, human and farm animal well-being and economicprosperity of society. Based on this long-term vision we have defined a comprehensive outline of a regenerativeagricultural system that includes, and takes into account, all ecosystem services, soil functions and planetaryboundaries. This outline covers fourteen topics and describes the ‘outcomes’ that are needed to meet the objectives of a regenerative agricultural system, without being prescriptive on ‘how’ these outcomes should be achieved. Therefore, weuse the term ‘required outcomes’ which precisely and quantitatively describe the target performance of the regenerativeagricultural system. These ‘required outcomes’ are related to the inputs and use of resources, the output (i.e. food,biomass) and losses/emissions, and the preferred state of soils, water bodies, animals, biodiversity and society. Theoutcomes encompass environmental, social, and economic aspects, and are defined at five different system levels: 1)field (above and below ground), 2) farm, 3) local landscape (including air and water bodies), 4) the Netherlands and 5)international. All required outcomes are based on and supported by scientific literature

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Groot Koerkamp, P.W.G., Schouten, W.J., Schreefel, L., Wojtynia, Niko, Beldman, A.C.G., de Boer, I.J.M., de Boer, Marjolein, Bos, A.P., Derks, M., van Dijk, Jerry, Grin, John, Heideveld, Antoine, Hekkert, Marko, Korthals, G.W., Lesschen, J.P., Schrijver, A., Rossing, W.A.H., Schulte, R.P.O., Smit, A.B., van Zanten, H.H.E.
Format:	Article in monograph or in proceedings biblioteca
Language:	English
Subjects:	Life Science,
Online Access:	https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/a-regenerative-agricultural-system-at-scale-an-outline-of-require
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