CHICAGO — As part of Institute of Food Technologists’ IFT FIRST, taking place July 16-18 in Chicago, the association hosted Business FIRST sessions, to provide insight on topics surrounding the food industry.
During the Building the Business Case for Regenerative Agriculture session, panelists provided information on how the trend of regenerative agriculture will impact food product development and the challenges of adopting these practices.
When transitioning from conventional or organic to regenerative practices, farmers and ranchers can face myriad difficulties, with the first being financial constraints. When a farmer decides to make that switch there may be an upfront cost of cover crop seed, and purchasing new farm equipment or implements. In addition to that, it can be difficult to find markets that are willing to pay a premium for regeneratively produced goods.
“As an example, there’s often a lack of infrastructure for the processing facilities for some of these repetitively produced goods, particularly small grains and some cover crops,” said Minerva Dorantes, PhD, a project soil scientist at the Soil Health Institute.
Another challenge is the ability to monitor and measure the progress of improving soil health. The Soil Health Institute has strategized to overcome this issue by providing measurements of soil health which are scalable, effective and economical solutions.
There are also cultural and social norms that farmers are receiving backlash from when adopting regenerative agriculture.
“I have heard numerous times from farmers how they’ve received criticism from their family members and their neighbors when they’ve chosen to adopt cover crops or no-till in systems that have been conventional for decades,” Dr. Dorantes said. “And so, combating those cultural and social norms, as we found is very important to overcoming challenges to adopting regenerative and soil health practices.”
There has also been a significant challenge due to a large portion of the cropland in the US being leased by landowners who do not farm the land themselves. Leases tend to be between one to five years, so some farmers may not find it feasible to put an upfront cost for a return on their soil practices or ecosystem benefits when they don’t see immediate results due to the land not being theirs.
These difficulties are affecting the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices by farmers, manufacturers and retailers.
“We need to consider all of these [challenges], in thinking about ways that we can overcome these to promote the implementation of regenerative ag practices for the long term,” Dr. Dorantes stated.
