Regenerative Agriculture: Restoring Soil and Combating Climate Change

Updated: February 6, 2026

Regenerative agriculture has become a common phrase in conversations about soil health, biodiversity, and climate. You will see it in farm newsletters, food brand marketing, and policy discussions. But the term can mean different things depending on who is using it, which is why it is worth grounding the conversation in what we can say with confidence.

Two pressures sit underneath the rise of regenerative agriculture: the condition of soils, and the emissions profile of land use. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that agriculture, forestry, and other land use contribute about 23% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, and N2O combined, 2007-2016) ^[1]. At the same time, FAO reporting has long warned that a significant share of the world’s soils are degraded, with a commonly cited figure of 33% of land being moderately to highly degraded due to issues like erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification, and chemical pollution ^[2].

Regenerative agriculture is often presented as an answer. The more accurate framing is that it is a toolbox: a set of practices that may improve soil function and resilience over time, depending on how they are applied and where.

What regenerative agriculture means in practice

There is no single global definition or universally enforced certification for “regenerative agriculture.” In practice, the phrase usually describes farming approaches that aim to:

• Reduce soil disturbance
• Keep soil covered as much as possible
• Increase plant diversity across time and space
• Support soil biology and nutrient cycling
• Integrate livestock or trees where it makes ecological sense

These ideas overlap with conservation agriculture, agroecology, organic systems, and soil health initiatives. The differences are often in emphasis, local context, and outcomes being measured.

Why it is trending now

1) Climate volatility is already a farm problem

The IPCC has emphasized that climate change increases risks for land systems and food security, including through heat extremes, drought, and heavy precipitation events ^[1]. Practices that improve infiltration, ground cover, and soil structure can help farms buffer some of that variability. That is not the same as solving climate change, but it can be meaningful adaptation.

2) Soil degradation is a productivity and resilience issue

Soil is not just a substrate. It is a living structure that stores water, cycles nutrients, and supports plant growth. When soils degrade, farms often become more reliant on external inputs and more vulnerable to drought and erosion ^[2].

3) People are noticing the gap between “efficient” and “durable” systems

Many modern agricultural systems are optimized for short-term yield and uniformity. Regenerative approaches, at their best, are a counterweight: they treat soil as a long-term asset, not a consumable.

The practices most often associated with regenerative systems

It is tempting to treat regenerative agriculture as a single method. It is not. Most farms adopt a mix of practices and adjust them season by season.

Reduced tillage or no-till

Repeated tillage can break soil structure, disrupt biological cycles, and increase susceptibility to erosion. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) describes how tillage damages soil structure and makes soil more prone to erosion and runoff, while reduced tillage can support healthier soil function ^[3].

Important nuance: no-till is not automatically “regenerative.” Outcomes depend on crop rotation, residue management, weed control strategy, and local conditions.

Cover cropping and continuous soil cover

Cover crops are planted between cash crops to keep soil protected, add biomass, and support soil structure. A widely cited review in Agronomy Journal summarizes evidence that cover crops can reduce runoff and sediment loss and support soil organic carbon, with effects depending on species, biomass, and years of adoption ^[4].

More diverse rotations

Diverse rotations can reduce pest pressure, improve nutrient cycling, and support more varied soil life. Diversity is one of the most consistent themes across soil health research, even when exact outcomes differ.

Managed grazing where livestock are part of the system

Rotational and adaptive grazing systems are sometimes promoted as a major climate solution. The evidence is mixed and context-dependent, and Project Drawdown has explicitly argued that regenerative grazing is often overhyped as a climate solution, even while still offering potential ecosystem benefits when well managed ^[5].

That distinction matters. Managed grazing may improve ground cover and soil function in some rangelands, but it should not be treated as a guaranteed net-negative emissions strategy.

Agroforestry

Agroforestry deliberately integrates trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. FAO describes agroforestry as a land management approach with ecological and socio-economic interactions between components, and notes its relevance to sustainable production and landscape resilience ^[6].

Agroforestry is not a fit for every farm, but in the right context it can support erosion control, microclimates, biodiversity, and diversified farm income.

The soil microbiome: a key piece people oversimplify

Healthy soils rely on complex microbial communities that influence nutrient cycling, soil structure, and plant stress tolerance. A 2023 perspective available via PubMed Central argues that the soil microbiome is an essential component of regenerative agroecosystems and that more research is needed to connect specific practices to microbial outcomes in different contexts ^[7].

This is a good example of why “regenerative” cannot be reduced to a checklist. Soil biology responds to climate, soil type, management history, and time.

Regenerative agriculture and carbon: what is reasonable to claim

Soils can store carbon, and some practices can increase soil organic carbon under certain conditions. But sequestration rates vary widely, changes can be reversible, and there are limits to how much carbon soils can store. The IPCC has emphasized both the significance of land in the climate system and the need to be careful about assumptions in land-based mitigation ^[1].

Project Drawdown’s work on cropping-system improvements frames practices like reduced tillage and continuous soil cover as approaches that can increase soil carbon and reduce emissions, while still treating results as dependent on implementation and context ^[8].

A grounded takeaway is this: regenerative practices may contribute to mitigation, but they should be pursued alongside, not instead of, emissions reductions in energy and industry.

Benefits that are often more predictable than carbon claims

Even when carbon outcomes are uncertain, regenerative practices can still be valuable because they tend to target soil function directly.

• Erosion and runoff risk: Reduced disturbance and more ground cover generally lower vulnerability to erosion and runoff ^[3].
• Water retention and drought buffering: Soils with better structure and more organic matter typically infiltrate and hold water more effectively.
• Resilience and stability: Systems that rely less on a single crop or a single input pathway tend to be less brittle under stress.

Challenges and honest limits

Regenerative agriculture is not a universal fix. The constraints are real:

• Transition risk: Changes in management can lead to short-term yield variability and higher learning costs.
• Equipment and knowledge barriers: Practices like no-till and cover cropping require different tools and agronomic planning.
• Outcome variability: What works in one climate or soil type may not translate directly to another.
• Marketing confusion: Without a single definition, “regenerative” can be used loosely. This increases the need for transparency.

In other words, the most credible regenerative story is usually specific: what practices are being used, where, for how long, and what outcomes are being measured.

How to evaluate “regenerative” claims as a consumer

If you are trying to make sense of regenerative messaging, a few questions cut through the noise:

• What practices are actually being used (cover crops, reduced tillage, rotations, grazing management, trees)?
• How long has the farm been using them?
• What outcomes are being tracked (soil organic matter, erosion indicators, water infiltration, biodiversity)?
• Is the brand making careful claims, or promising certainty where uncertainty exists?

Final thoughts

Regenerative agriculture is a real and important shift in mindset: treating soil as a living system worth rebuilding, not a resource to be mined for yield.

Some practices have strong evidence for improving soil function and reducing erosion risk. Climate benefits are possible, but they are not guaranteed and should be communicated with care. The best regenerative approaches are the ones that stay specific, measure outcomes, and remain honest about tradeoffs.

References

1. IPCC. Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) (includes AFOLU emissions estimate and land-climate context). https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
2. FAO. Status of the World’s Soil Resources (summary PDF noting 33% moderately to highly degraded). https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/FAO-world-soils-report-SUMMARY.pdf
3. USDA NRCS. “Soil Health” (tillage impacts, erosion susceptibility, and soil function). https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/natural-resource-concerns/soil/soil-health
4. Blanco-Canqui, H. “Cover Crops and Ecosystem Services: Insights from Studies in Temperate Soils.” Agronomy Journal (2015). https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2134/agronj15.0086
5. Project Drawdown. “Regenerative grazing is overhyped as a climate solution. We should do it anyway.” (nuanced discussion of evidence and limits). https://drawdown.org/insights/regenerative-grazing-is-overhyped-as-a-climate-solution-we-should-do-it-anyway
6. FAO. “What is agroforestry?” (overview and definition). https://www.fao.org/agroforestry/about-agroforestry/overview/en
7. Hermans, S.M. et al. “The soil microbiome: An essential, but neglected, component of regenerative agroecosystems.” (2023) PubMed Central. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9947323/
8. Project Drawdown. “Improve Annual Cropping” (reduced tillage and continuous soil cover framed as mitigation and soil protection practices). https://drawdown.org/explorer/improve-annual-cropping