One of the ranchers in the Grass Roots co-op describes her greatest title and role as “land-steward.” She’s talking about her work to help heal the ecosystem on the ranch; to foster healthy grasslands and soil that’s alive with roots and microbes continually drawing carbon out of the atmosphere. Like our other Grass Roots partners, she  manages the ranch based on principles of regenerative farming.  

Do these ideas sound familiar? Or maybe you haven’t yet taken a deep dive into agro-science and regenerative farming, but  you’ve been thinking that much of what’s happening in big, modern agriculture looks to be off  track. Mega farms, chemicals and genetic engineering doesn’t sound appetizing. Meanwhile,  climate change is altering life at high speed, in real time. Maybe you feel this world needs a kick.  

A revival. A recharge. A reset.  

Not to mention that you’d love to roast a chicken or rack of lamb, or sear a steak without feeling any ethical qualms about the source of the meat. You simply want the best-tasting, healthiest and highest quality meat available—even better if you know where it came from and how it was raised. (Grass Roots uses a little tech for that kind of transparency.)  

This is the future of farming.

Regenerative farming is an approach to agriculture that focuses on restoring and improving the health of the soil, enhancing biodiversity, and promoting long-term sustainability. It is often considered a holistic and ecological approach to farming.

The key principles of regenerative farming include:

• Soil health: This involves practices such as minimizing or eliminating tilling, using cover crops, crop rotation, and composting. These practices help to improve soil structure, increase organic matter content, enhance water retention capacity, and foster beneficial microbial activity.
• Biodiversity: This can be achieved through methods like planting diverse crops, integrating livestock, creating wildlife habitats, and preserving natural areas. Increased biodiversity can lead to a more balanced ecosystem, which can help control pests and diseases naturally.
• Water management: Techniques like conservation tillage, mulching, and precision irrigation help to conserve water resources and prevent soil erosion and nutrient runoff into water bodies.
• No-till farming: No-till, or conservation tillage, is a fundamental practice in regenerative farming. It minimizes or eliminates soil disturbance. Instead of turning over the soil, farmers leave crop residues and organic matter on the surface or use specialized equipment to create small openings for seed placement.
• Carbon sequestration: Actively working towards sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil. This is achieved through techniques like agroforestry, cover cropping, rotational grazing, and composting, which increase the organic matter content of the soil.
• Farm resilience: By reducing reliance on external inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics, and instead, emphasizing natural systems and processes that promote self-sufficiency, such as using natural fertilizers, adopting biological pest control methods, and practicing crop diversification.

We, you—all of us—breathe out CO2. Plants breathe it in. Through photosynthesis and when plants die and decompose, carbon-rich organic matter is transferred to the soil. (Thanks to the work of nematodes, earthworms, bacteria and fungi.) The resulting organic matter is what naturally holds water, nitrogen and phosphates—all essential for the growth of plants and food.  This is how a healthy soil microbiome is maintained.  

Recognizing this essential role of carbon in the natural world is central to regenerative farming. We hear plenty of negative talk about carbon. But carbon that’s sequestered in the soil isn’t a villain. Rather, it’s a natural and fortifying part of the eco-system. And when there’s a variety of plants and trees growing in living soil, moisture is better retained.

Regenerative farming involves agricultural methods that are holistic, sustainable and work to heal the land and soil. Farmers and ranchers in the Grass Roots co-op grow a diversity of plants and trees, establish cover crops and use no-till methods for planting, and incorporate grazing  animals that naturally produce compost.

Everything from microbes and insects to wildlife, birds and livestock can thrive. And hooved-herding herbivores are essential to the process. By continually moving animals to pastures and paddocks with fresh grassland, management of the grazing process is targeted and beneficial. Livestock forage for the most nutritious diet possible, and there’s never bare ground, so root  systems remain intact. The soil is stimulated by grazing chickens and the hooves of cows and sheep, and improved by manure.

What we’re going for at Grass Roots is better than the sum of the parts—pasture-raised, grass fed, sustainable, traceable, delicious—although regenerative farming brings all those features. Our higher goals are for healthier farms, animals, people, communities and the  environment as a whole. Healed soils and a healed climate. We believe in raising animals right, so you can feel good about what you’re eating. We’re going for abundance.  

By now, maybe you’re as fascinated by the possibilities of regenerative farming as we are. If not, we’ll do our best to continue sharing our learnings and maybe you'll join us one day.

Please let us know if you have questions about regenerative farming. You can count on us to keep sharing the best in dirt science and farm stories.