Michael Grunwald’s thought-provoking essay, “Sorry, but This Is the Future of Food” (Dec. 13, 2024 NY Times) and others argue that big agriculture brings many environmental impacts but that small ag is too inefficient to feed the world and so cannot fix these problems. These issues are indeed serious and deserve our attention – we need to figure out how to grow nutrient-rich food while not degrading soils and impairing our health, biodiversity, and Earth’s climate. It would be wrong, however, to get stuck in either/or binaries (big vs. small, chemical inputs vs. organic). Let us instead reimagine agriculture as a “yes, and” system that can combine the strengths of industrial agriculture with regenerative practices.

Industrial agriculture’s high yields have saved countless people across the world from malnutrition and starvation. But the practices generating this enormous benefit have also released billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, drastically reduced bird and insect populations, diminished soil health, and washed away valuable soil and nutrients. Although yields continue to grow for now, 35% of America’s corn belt has lost 100% of its topsoil, while midwestern cities struggle to afford clean water. The links among these serious challenges transcend big versus small thinking. Going back to older, small-scale agriculture will not work, but neither will just doing big ag better. Rather, we must invent new ways to grow food that combine the best of big and small agriculture while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting and restoring the soils and biodiversity that sustain both agriculture and other life on earth.

The most compelling and affordable (but often discounted or overlooked) way to address both food security and climate change is regenerative restoration. Restoring above- and below-ground diversity on degraded, underutilized, and poorly managed agricultural lands can increase the amount of food we produce while reducing inputs, conserving soils, enhancing nutrient levels, and stably storing vast quantities of carbon. Crucially, we must learn how to continuously improve these efforts to maximize their efficiency and sustainability as we scale them up. Impractical? Let us consider two examples.

Regenerative systems that incorporate diverse cover crops, no-till methods, carefully designed crop rotations, and soil amendments like biochar have shown the potential to increase yields while reducing input costs. Cattle rancher Alejandro Carillo in northern Mexico has tripled his productivity and increased his profitability 350%. Other row crop farmers, like the long-term regenerative Brandt Farm in Ohio, have demonstrated competitive yields while halving input costs AND increasing both soil carbon and corn nutrient density. And lest anyone think that regenerative principles are only applicable to broad acre farms and ranches, Fenster et. al. (2021) conducted an in-depth study of almond orchards comparing those employing regenerative principles with conventional practices robustly documenting increases in soil carbon, water infiltration, biodiversity, and reduced pest pressure with not only no sacrifice in yield, but twice the profitability.

Diving deeper into beef production, promising results from studies of regenerative grazing systems are emerging. Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing manages livestock by repeatedly moving small dense herds across large pastures using portable fencing. This mimics the grazing patterns of wild ruminants like bison and elk, accelerating nutrient cycling, minimizing soil disturbance, keeping soil covered with forage, and maintaining living roots. Recent studies show that AMP grazing increases nitrogen levels, reducing or eliminating the need to fertilize. Soil structure also improves, allowing these soils to store more carbon. Healthy soil grows more nutrient-dense forage, enabling animals to convert feed into energy more efficiently, reducing waste and emissions. Scientists estimate that improved forage quality alone can reduce methane emissions per pound of beef by up to 20%.

A recent multi-year study of AMP versus conventional farms in the southeastern US in which two of us were involved has so far produced eleven peer-reviewed papers documenting improvements in things like soil carbon, soil nitrogen, water infiltration, and biodiversity of various layers of life from vegetation, to soil microbes, to insects and to grassland birds.

Industrial feedlots, though efficient, are currently linear systems that treat waste as a problem rather than a resource. By adopting circular practices, such as converting manure into bioenergy and fertilizers, these systems can reduce emissions, minimize the use of fossil fuels, and recycle nutrients back to croplands that grow feed. Feed grown regeneratively also captures carbon in soil, improves water infiltration, reduces runoff, and protects biodiversity. This suggests a future livestock production system where regenerative cow-calf production systems, coupled with low-waste finishing systems, deliver food and energy to consumers while recycling fertility back to farms that grow the feed.

Regenerative practices that seek to restore ecological functions are not a utopian, back-to-nature pipe dream but rather represent a healthy future and goal for agriculture. As we scale up these efforts, they will become the new “Big Ag”. Grunwald’s essay mentioned General Mills and Danone. Mars, Nestle, Syngenta, McDonalds, and Walmart, among many others, are actively supporting regenerative agriculture as well. And make no mistake, we believe the future of food has abundant room for producers on small farms and ranches who will continue to nurture soils with care.

We endorse a “yes, and” approach, accelerating exploration of not just the space between, but the space beyond “big and industrial” and “small and regenerative” as a viable and practical solution to food security, climate change, land degradation, biodiversity, and ecosystem concerns. Today, innovative new research and field studies suggest that tremendous value will arise simply from more enlightened management of what we know works now, as well as expanding the repertoire of affordable, scalable solutions for which see two broad categories that fit the regenerative paradigm well: 1) technologies, tools and practices that seek to build upon, nudge and nurture natural processes instead of trying to conquer and control them; and 2) technologies that help us observe and quantify natural processes so that we can learn to manage them better as systems.

Imagine a food system where degraded lands are restored to health, farms, and ranches produce more food with fewer inputs, agricultural and food waste is minimized, and working carbon cycles through the biosphere in a way that sustains life rather than fuels climate change. This is not a romantic notion of returning to the past, but a forward-looking vision grounded in science and practicality. It’s a world where working carbon moves through the cycles of life more efficiently and faster, accumulating in soil and lifting all life in the process.

This is a future of food to celebrate, not to be sorry about.
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* Steve Apfelbaum, founder of Applied Ecological Services, Senior Ecologist and Director, Applied Ecological Institute, Inc ;Russ Conser, Co-founder and CEO of Standard Soil, PBC; David Lawrence, Founder and CEO of Land and Carbon, Inc.; Robert Lawrence, Chief Carbon and Land Officer, Land and Carbon, Inc.