Regenerative Farming
Regenerative agriculture or farming is a movement that started small in the 1980s. However it is becoming a buzz word nowadays. It sounds positive: however there’s no universal definition. In general, the regenerative movement seeks to build more resilient farm ecosystems from the soil upward. ‘Regenerative’ farmers tend to use soil-conserving and soil-building practices such as minimising tillage, cover cropping, keeping the soil covered and increasing biodiversity in pastures and crops. This is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing increasing biodiversity in the soil and the whole ecosystem including the water cycle. These practices can help to increase farm health. However because there is no definitive definition it can lead to greenwashing. In NZ there have been lobbying by large agricultural firms or "agribusinesses" national and multinational which, as some commentators would say has stretched the vague definition of to the limit whilst trying to control the narrative. Definitions (or careful lack of definitions ) do not address the application of fertilisers, nutrient run off and the larger ecosystem of land and water.
Image curtesy of Caitlyn Hanley Greater Portland Council of Governments (GPCOG)
The word ‘regenerative‘ begs the question , what is wrong now? Simply put, the answer is, we are asking the land to work above its carrying capacity. To do this we add fertiliser, we supplement feed, we irrigate. All these degrades the land.
Farming of any sort is not ‘natural’. It’s something we impose on the land. Often by destroying the natural ecology to develop fields on which we grow plants and animals. We can approximate the natural environment as close as possible ie work with nature which creates healthy new environments and produce products. Or we can develop “agribusiness” which degrades the environment sometimes sufficiently for the farming to move.
Dairy farming in NZ has deviated from traditional farming depite being primarily pasture based. Our inputs are high, estimates of nitrogen applied to New Zealand's farmland in fertiliser skyrocketed 62,000 tonnes in 1996 to 452,000 tones in 2019. A six times increase in a little over 2 decades. Much fertiliser comes from mining rocks rich in phosphate or potash (potassium).
photo credit Dennis Jarvis Flickr
Palm Kernel Extract is imported to supplement feed. In 2023, more than 1.7m tonnes of palm kernel extract was imported from Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests have been felled in favour of palm plantations.
Photo Credit Keith Woodford is Professor of Agri-Food Systems (Honorary) at Lincoln University
Irrigation is a problem to sustainability. It allows more grass to grow but slowly poisons the land especially if pumped from artesian water with dissolved minerals. The use of irrigation often results in extra fertilier application and the cycle repeats.
An example of degradation from irrigation is in southern Mesopotamia in Biblical times. Intensive irrigation of the Fertile Crescent boosted crops but also salinisation which led to decreased crop yields longer term and collapse of those early city states. Irrigation remains a two edged sword in the Middle East today.
I find it ironic and sad that those mega companies furthest from the land are promoting the land in this way through this SAI platform.
At TeePee Cider we do not promote ourselves as regenerative. We prefer to think of our orchard as being holistic farmed. Holistic means encompassing the whole of a thing, and not just the part. Human and nature working together.
Whilst we have planted apple and pear trees not native to NZ, we encompass nature. We try and bring it into the orchard. To compensate for the loss of native bush we plant native trees on our boundaries. In this example Kahikatea which likes the swampier parts
We provide habitats for birds and native reptiles. We trap introduced mammalian pests. We do not use artificial fertilisers, nor pesticides and herbicides, preferring a traditional standard orchard that lets the air blow through and sheep grazing on the grass sward. We fertilise with clover in the grass. Clover ( nor pasture grasses) is not native to NZ but introduced from England to improve the poorer soils here. The nitrogen from clover is bound into the humus and does not leach off into waterways.
Ironically we could claim to be regenerative. We planted the orchard on old marginal pasture. The soil was thin, poor and compacted by cattle. Unsuitable for intensive cattle farming as its soils had degraded. Now after 20 years the loam thickness is increasing. The rain soaks away faster. And the biodiversity increases each year.