Balanced application will bring regenerative agronomy success

FIONA BURNETT , ARABLE KNOWLEDGE LEAD | SRUC

Balancing food production with the needs of the environment is challenging and there is no one-size fits all solution that will work on every farm. Attention to detail and an approach carefully tailored to each farm is needed, with hard evidence replacing fuzzy rhetoric.

Arable crops underpin food production – whether consumed as grains and vegetables, or as food for animals or use in biofuels. They occupy 24% of the land area of the UK and are vital to food security but also need to address biodiversity gains and play their part in mitigating climate change. The argument that the UK does not need to be food secure is simply to offshore the problem to somewhere else, whilst also damaging local supply chains. Finding the middle ground between production and the needs of the environment is where new solutions and innovations are starting to emerge and why the term ‘regenerative’ farming is coming to the fore.

Much is said and written about regenerative practices, but it is a term that means different things to different people and is easy to claim but hard to evidence when it comes to food labelling. Originally it was taken to mean practices that regenerated the health of the soil and were less reliant on artificial inputs. It also began as more of a philosophy and movement, rather than any particular science or discipline. At its core, it recognises the need to balance food production with the need to protect biodiversity and the environment. But ‘regenerative’ has evolved a long way in a short time.

One of both its strengths and its weaknesses is the lack of any rigid definition. We believe that regenerative practices should apply right along the supply chain and apply to all enterprises involved.

What it should not be, is simply clinging on to old farming practices which limit yield and the resilience of the farming business. The use of new technologies is integral to more sustainable and profitable farming systems, and we use the term ‘regenerative’ to include new innovations such as precision technology, novel biological solutions, tailored crop inputs and novel crops.

Like all integrated practices it is harder to implement regenerative practices on farm than a one-size fits all high-input system. Maintaining flexibility and tailoring approaches to each farm, or indeed each field, and thinking across the rotation is vital. Setting rigid rules can lead to unintended consequences – for example, a supermarket protocol that gave a set definition of a healthy soil would be impossible for someone on a sandy soil to achieve and would mean that farmers on a high organic matter soil would have no incentive to improve. And it should apply right along the supply chain. It would be perverse for farmers to do their bit and then hand it into a food chain that doesn’t value the commodity or treads irresponsibly on social and environmental commitments.

Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach to farm management that focuses on restoring and enhancing the natural processes that underpin production

(e.g. energy capture, nutrient cycling, and species interactions). Restoring ecosystem health ensures these vital processes can withstand environmental shocks, building resilience into the farming system. Regenerative agriculture draws on a toolkit of management actions, and decisions are underpinned by the farmers’ knowledge of their land, and their situation, to find solutions that work for them.

Approaches need to be tailored to each individual farm and it is knowledge intensive which is where SAC consultants can help, using the evidence from SRUC research.

It has to be as evidence-based as any other discipline – pesticides are rigidly tested and regulated but some inputs, such as biostimulants, are not subject to the same degree of scrutiny, and it is in no one’s interest, let alone the environment’s, to be applying inputs that the crop does not need. Hard facts are needed and SRUC research into agroecology, which is the underpinning science, can highlight the things that work in UK’s climate, soils, and arable systems.