At this point, we’re all familiar with the word organic. It is a word that has taken on its own universe of meaning: it is a label on everything from carrots and spinach to lip balm and bed sheets that indicates producers meeting a specific set of technical standards; it is a word used to describe a certain kind of “wholesome” or “environmentally-friendly” lifestyle; it is a word that can dramatically impact the cost of something (and to some, only impacts cost rather than quality, sustainability, etc.). But what about the word regenerative? To begin to understand what regenerative means in the context of agriculture, it’s helpful to first dissect organic agriculture and understand how we got to the current moment.

Although it can sometimes feel like the word organic has taken over our food system, it is far from the dominant force in today’s supermarkets. Despite averaging about 8% growth per year in the past decade, U.S. organic retail sales still made up only about 5.5% of all retail food sales. What’s even more surprising is that certified organic acreage in the United States makes up less than 1% of all U.S. farmland. Additionally, organic agriculture is not a recently conceived idea. Approaches to agriculture that emphasize less inputs, seek to emulate and restore natural and holistic systems, and prioritize soil health and longevity have been around for a very long time. Ancient cultures and indigenous peoples across the world applied stewardship and agroecological management practices that modern farms are seeking to emulate.

The modern “organic agriculture” movement borrows heavily from these approaches, sometimes without acknowledging so, and has its beginnings close to a century ago with people such as J.I. Rodale, Sir Albert Howard, Lady Balfour, and Rudolf Steiner. The catalyst for the modern movement was largely the rapid industrialization of agriculture and the advent of synthetic inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides) and genetically engineered, high-yield crops. Although it’s generally accepted that the technological advances championed by those such as Norman Borlaug—he was one of the driving forces behind the “Green Revolution” of the 1960s, and pioneered high-yield strains of wheat—have helped to prevent hunger, debate rages on about whether that kind of approach has helped us or hurt us in the long run.

Whether it’s Michael Pollan detailing how industrial corn production has shifted us away from far more sustainable, and perhaps more importantly, healthy approaches to producing food in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, anecdotes of farmers who’ve transformed their land through dismantling and shifting away from conventional approaches, or dire warnings from brands such as Patagonia that conventional agriculture is a threat to topsoil, biodiversity, and people, the message is clear—there is something immensely appealing in the era of climate change about an approach to agriculture that not only promises to do less harm, but actually correct the errors of our past and restore the environment to its natural state.

“There is something immensely appealing in the era of climate change about an approach to agriculture that not only promises to do less harm, but actually correct the errors of our past and restore the environment to its natural state.” 

For years, many people—namely, environmentalists and those who can afford to spend more at the grocery store—have championed organic agriculture as the heralded solution to our problems. An approach which is more sustainable, earth-friendly, and healthier. However, there are a lot of misconceptions about organic farming, many of which I learned firsthand while working on an organic farm and selling our produce at a farmer’s market in Maine, and many of which are becoming more a part of the mainstream conversation.

Firstly, organic agriculture does not mean “chemical-free.” Organic agriculture often operates in a largely identical fashion to conventional agriculture, simply swapping out the inputs from synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to organically-derived fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides (the list of organically approved substances is long and complex). Another consideration is that farmers implementing an organic system using conventional methods may be dealing with the same level of pest or weed pressure while using less effective organic-approved controls. This can result in them using a much higher volume of chemicals, and contributes to organic farm’s immense plastic problem. Black plastic mulch is essentially a long strip of plastic film, relatively thin, that’s typically a bit wider than the width of the bed being planted into. It helps conserve soil moisture, modulate soil temperature, and controls weeds, and is widely used on organic farms. NPR highlighted this when they found that “the plastic film used on just 30 productive acres in one year would stretch 36 miles in a straight line”. Consider that some organic farms plant on thousands of acres, and multiply that across the country. That’s an enormous amount of plastic that goes straight to the landfill; it is not easily or widely able to be recycled. These are not perfect systems.

In addition, greenwashing has become more and more of an issue with organic agriculture. Some brands are certainly guilty of using environmentally-friendly labels on their products in order to sell them for a higher price while meeting bare-minimum standards. The word “big agriculture” has been used to describe massive conventional factory farms using genetically engineered crops and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. However, it’s becoming increasingly valid—as Michael Pollan does in Omnivore’s Dilemma—to wonder whether certain producers, such as Cal-Organic have become “big organic agriculture”, supplying organic produce year-round in massive quantities and largely mirroring conventional approaches to farming albeit with slight adjustments in the inputs being used.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t hate organic agriculture, and if you checked my shopping cart at the grocery store you would largely find labels with the word large and highly visible. I still think that by and large, organic inputs are far safer and less concerning than many of the inputs used by conventional methods. However, the more that I learn about organic approaches, and the more I talk with people who are “average consumers” about organic food, the more I become steadfast in my belief that it is not the approach to food production that we so crave. While organic approaches are often a step in the right direction, a broad and complex array of factors such as scale, crop diversification, and inputs determine whether that step truly veers away from conventional agriculture or simply pivots and walks in parallel towards topsoil degradation and ultimately a lack of long-term sustainability. And this is where the word regenerative comes into play.

So what does regenerative mean? The trouble with defining regenerative is that it does not have a precise definition—much like the word “sustainable,” it is a fairly nebulous term that refers to “both an attitude and a suite of practices”. It typically involves the application of agroecological management principles intended to mimic natural processes (e.g. minimal or zero chemical inputs, minimal disruption of topsoil, etc.) with the ultimate goal of restoring and preserving soil health, and thus having an impact upon crop and climate resiliency and improving carbon sequestration potential. Although there are significant differences between regenerative agriculture and agroecology, an in-depth analysis of the technical methodology of regenerative agriculture is a bit outside the scope of this article, and admittedly, a bit beyond my limited understanding of soil science and chemistry. However, as I’ve become more engrossed in the world of mariculture, I’ve become increasingly intrigued by seeing widespread, and perhaps haphazard, use of the word regenerative to describe kelp and oyster farms. It’s made me wonder—can regenerative principles be applied to seafood? If so, has anyone agreed on what that actually looks like in the context of the ocean?

Yes, growing kelp requires virtually no inputs. According to Barnacle Foods, “kelp farming and harvesting offers a way to fight climate change” and “improve the health of our oceans”. The word “regenerative” appears no less than five times on the home page of Atlantic Sea Farms, one of the first seaweed farms in the United States. Under their FAQ page, Atlantic Sea Farms elaborates further, explaining that kelp requires no inputs, “…no arable land, no fresh water, and never any pesticides or herbicides” and that “kelp mitigates the effects of ocean acidification and excess CO2 in our oceans”, concluding by arguing that kelp is a “golden child” of sustainability. Along a similar vein, Seagrove Kelp Co., one of the largest seaweed farms in the U.S., claims that kelp “is a net positive for the environment” and that by purchasing seaweed consumers are “helping to lower the Earth’s carbon footprint and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in our oceans”.

However, the science is not as crystal clear as these claims would make it seem. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would argue that kelp has negative effects on the ocean. In fact, people are scrambling around the world to restore and conserve natural kelp forests because we are learning how critical of ecosystems they are. But, marine nutrient cycling is far more diffuse than in a terrestrial environment, and rather than having decomposition occurring in the soil, much of the decomposition and related processes in the ocean occur at depth. This may have more implications for fisheries than for kelp farms, however measuring the carbon impact of a kelp farm takes on layers of complexity due to current strength, uncertainty around the ultimate resting place and length of time of kelp detritus, and other factors. A study in Hood Canal, WA of a 5-acre seaweed farm found that harvesting at peak biomass would have resulted in an equivalent carbon removal to the CO2 emitted by ⅓ of one typical passenger car in a year, although they emphasize that this doesn’t account for carbon fixed and released during respiration, dissolved organic material or eroded kelp blades, which could very well be significant.

There seems to be scientific consensus that farming seaweed sequesters some carbon, but the degree and scale of that sequestration—along with other benefits—seems to be rather varied depending upon the farm’s growing site, currents, species grown, and other factors. Could growing kelp alongside oysters help prevent some of the negative impacts of ocean acidification for that farm? Probably. Could a farm that grows kelp leave some of it in the water, thereby increasing habitat for forage fish and helping increase local biodiversity and habitat availability? Probably. However, it’s important to distinguish between a farm having local “regenerative” effects and saving the Earth or the oceans.

All of this isn’t to say that organic or regenerative production of food is misleading or bad in any way. On the whole, organic practices seek to reduce synthetic inputs and add a layer of environmental and health consciousness onto food production. Regenerative practices go a step further, adding in a layer of centuries-old ecological knowledge, attempting to mimic and restore nature, and approach food production in a much more holistic manner. These are transformative changes that are badly needed, and we need far more of the U.S. food system to adopt them. However, it feels like a focus on the “silver bullet” characterization of regenerative approaches and their ability to fight climate change, save the Earth, and restore our oceans may be premature. The word organic has taken on divisive political, economic, and cultural meaning, all before organic agriculture has become more than a miniscule fraction of overall agricultural production. Regenerative could be headed in the same direction, being deployed largely as a value proposition within the context of a food system that largely still upholds and perpetuates conventional modes of production. Perhaps the best way to save the Earth, instead of using the word regenerative to characterize the benefits of a specific crop or practice, is to develop and apply a precise definition of regenerative production that can be applied across growing mediums, whether terrestrial or marine, with the intention to create a more holistic, sustainable, and local food system in the United States. And perhaps mariculture, in its early stages and still grappling with how to translate agroecology into its own words, can be the one to define it more broadly.

The following sources were used that may be behind a paywall, please contact the Currents Editor-in-Chief for access.

Ikerd, J. (2021). THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER: Realities of regenerative agriculture. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 10(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2021.102.001

Loring, P. A. (2023). Can fisheries be “regenerative”? Adapting agroecological concepts for fisheries and the blue economy. FACETS, 8, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2023-0011

Tittonell, P., El Mujtar, V., Felix, G., Kebede, Y., Laborda, L., Luján Soto, R., & de Vente, J. (2022). Regenerative agriculture—Agroecology without politics? Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.844261

White, C. (2020). Why Regenerative Agriculture? The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 79(3), 799–812. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12334