Regenerative agriculture: Its meaning, rationale, prospective benefits and relation to policy

A critical narrative review is conducted of “regenerative agriculture” literature. An outcome-oriented definition, aiming beyond sustainability, is defended as consistent with evidence of regenerative farmers’ usage. It is partly a response to problems of soil degradation and has scientific rationale in contemporary understandings of soil formation and soil ecology. Potential benefits include input reduction enabled by an enhanced soil microbiome, improvements to farming livelihoods, farmscape ecosystems, health and wider environmental public goods. Research at a systems level is lacking, however; and scale of adoption is contingent on the business and policy environment.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  CABI Agriculture and Bioscience

• Publication date

  2025-08-21

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1079/ab.2025.0062
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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