2 min
Four agronomists took a closer look at regenerative agriculture. Is it the good versus the bad and the ugly? They don't think so, says James Sumberg (IDS Emeritus Fellow) on behalf of Professor Ken Giller, Assistant Professor Renske Hijbeek, and Senior Researcher Jens Andersson from Wageningen University.
Now more than ever, we need serious reflection and debate about desirable futures for agriculture and food production. It is of such importance that this debate must be open and accessible to all.
But how should an inclusive debate about agriculture and food futures be framed, particularly when the social, environmental and economic stakes are so high?
What is very clear to us is that framing the debate about agriculture in terms of simple dichotomies – that suggest a battle of ‘right’ against ‘wrong’, ‘good’ against ‘evil’ – does no justice to either the seriousness of the challenge, or the enormous variation in agricultural environments and production systems.
Simple agricultural dichotomies have no place in this debate
One of the most common of these framing dichotomies pits ‘family’ against ‘industrial’ farms, while another contrasts ‘alternative’ with ‘conventional’ farming methods. The implication is that all farms can be meaningfully classed as either ‘family’ or ‘industrial’, and all farming methods or systems are either ‘alternative’ or ‘conventional’. But it is obviously not that simple. What most often happens is that a category like ‘conventional’ becomes a large bucket into which anything and everything that is not organic, agro-ecological, biodynamic or permaculture is thrown. This bucket then includes the vast majority of all farm enterprises, farm families and farmed land, and will contain tremendous diversity in terms of scale, social organisation, crops grown, techniques used, commercial orientation, productivity and so on. So, while the dichotomy is seductive, it is empty, intellectually dishonest, and provides absolutely no analytical purchase. It therefore has no place, and certainly no central place, in public, policy or scientific debate.
A similar argument can be made around the labelling of some agricultural techniques or systems as ‘sustainable’ or ‘climate smart’ with the (most often) unstated understanding that everything else is necessarily ‘unsustainable’ or ‘not climate smart’. Again, these simplistic dichotomies result in extremely large and diverse residual categories, being the outcome of neither robust nor systematic methods of determining what should be considered ‘in’ or ‘out’.
In a paper just published in Outlook on Agriculture, we take a critical look at the recent increased interest in ‘regenerative’ agriculture – one half of another simplistic dichotomy. The focus on regeneration is motivated primarily through a crisis narrative around declining soil health and loss of biodiversity. Interestingly, the techniques that were previously hailed as ‘sustainable’ and ‘climate smart’, including organic, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, high intensity grazing and so on, have now all become ‘regenerative’.
There is a serious lack of evidence as to how quickly or effectively, or in what contexts, these ‘regenerative’ techniques actually address the (assumed to be universal) soil health and biodiversity crises. Nevertheless, the label ‘regenerative’ is proving to be very attractive to wide range of high profile international agri-corporations, NGOs and development organisations. The regenerative agriculture bandwagon is very much on the move, despite the fact that as a framing device it is most unlikely to enlighten public debate.
We hope that the new paper will encourage agricultural researchers and others to be more active in public debates on the future of agriculture and food, and in the struggle against the continuing tyranny of seductive yet empty labels.
James Sumberg is an IDS Emeritus Fellow, Ken Giller is Wageningen University Professor, Renske Hijbeek is Wageningen University Assistant Professor, and Jens Andersson is Wageningen University Senior Researcher
But how should an inclusive debate about agriculture and food futures be framed, particularly when the social, environmental and economic stakes are so high?
What is very clear to us is that framing the debate about agriculture in terms of simple dichotomies – that suggest a battle of ‘right’ against ‘wrong’, ‘good’ against ‘evil’ – does no justice to either the seriousness of the challenge, or the enormous variation in agricultural environments and production systems.
Simple agricultural dichotomies have no place in this debate
One of the most common of these framing dichotomies pits ‘family’ against ‘industrial’ farms, while another contrasts ‘alternative’ with ‘conventional’ farming methods. The implication is that all farms can be meaningfully classed as either ‘family’ or ‘industrial’, and all farming methods or systems are either ‘alternative’ or ‘conventional’. But it is obviously not that simple. What most often happens is that a category like ‘conventional’ becomes a large bucket into which anything and everything that is not organic, agro-ecological, biodynamic or permaculture is thrown. This bucket then includes the vast majority of all farm enterprises, farm families and farmed land, and will contain tremendous diversity in terms of scale, social organisation, crops grown, techniques used, commercial orientation, productivity and so on. So, while the dichotomy is seductive, it is empty, intellectually dishonest, and provides absolutely no analytical purchase. It therefore has no place, and certainly no central place, in public, policy or scientific debate.
A similar argument can be made around the labelling of some agricultural techniques or systems as ‘sustainable’ or ‘climate smart’ with the (most often) unstated understanding that everything else is necessarily ‘unsustainable’ or ‘not climate smart’. Again, these simplistic dichotomies result in extremely large and diverse residual categories, being the outcome of neither robust nor systematic methods of determining what should be considered ‘in’ or ‘out’.
While the dichotomy is seductive, it is empty, intellectually dishonest, and provides absolutely no analytical purchase. It therefore has no place, and certainly no central place, in public, policy or scientific debatePushing back against the ‘regenerative agriculture’ bandwagon
In a paper just published in Outlook on Agriculture, we take a critical look at the recent increased interest in ‘regenerative’ agriculture – one half of another simplistic dichotomy. The focus on regeneration is motivated primarily through a crisis narrative around declining soil health and loss of biodiversity. Interestingly, the techniques that were previously hailed as ‘sustainable’ and ‘climate smart’, including organic, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, high intensity grazing and so on, have now all become ‘regenerative’.
There is a serious lack of evidence as to how quickly or effectively, or in what contexts, these ‘regenerative’ techniques actually address the (assumed to be universal) soil health and biodiversity crises. Nevertheless, the label ‘regenerative’ is proving to be very attractive to wide range of high profile international agri-corporations, NGOs and development organisations. The regenerative agriculture bandwagon is very much on the move, despite the fact that as a framing device it is most unlikely to enlighten public debate.
We hope that the new paper will encourage agricultural researchers and others to be more active in public debates on the future of agriculture and food, and in the struggle against the continuing tyranny of seductive yet empty labels.
James Sumberg is an IDS Emeritus Fellow, Ken Giller is Wageningen University Professor, Renske Hijbeek is Wageningen University Assistant Professor, and Jens Andersson is Wageningen University Senior Researcher
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#6 Dick, yes, how?
Maybe, for a beginning, not to write an "invitation" in which you exclude, if you want a discussion 'accessible to all'.
" It therefore has no place, and certainly no central place, in public, policy or scientific debate."
Who is to determine that? The (scientific) elite?
So, a suggestion is also that you give the text to some of these 'whappies' (in fact those that you fear and won't give a place) for commenting, and listen carefully what they say about it.
Inclusive discussion is, I think, also a problem on Fl. How to invite people from different corners, I say it this way and don't use the word 'disciplines', and how to organise the discussion that they say meaningfull things, is indeed difficult.
#7, Dick, sorry, I saw your comment just now. (the 'green comments' are not in 'reactie-overzicht'). I'll think about the idea of an 'inclusive discussion' and give my comment soon.
Eric, please answer the question!
The point I am making, is a simple one: you can make the reproach you did (no doubt about that), but how do you propose to make people want listen to another?
Now Frank-Eric, please tell us how to make for an inclusive discussion. Can you?
#4, Dick, I think that that 'strong' saying is in contradiction with this one: "It is of such importance that this debate must be open and accessible to all."
If you say "opposing regenerative agriculture to industrial farming is yet another false dichotomy that it is empty, intellectually dishonest, and provides absolutely no analytical purchase. It therefore has no place, and certainly no central place, in public, policy or scientific debate.", I think you exclude 'gourou's' and others with it.
So I wonder what is meant by 'this debate that must be open and accessible to all'.
#2 Maarten, " Soil is the very fundament of live on earth. It is first grade logic. Those who think we can live without soils (think vertical farming) are fools".
I think it is rather 'energy' that is (one) of the fundaments of life. One of the reasons that we, untill now, cannot live without soil, is, that it is impossible to capture enough energy for us to eat by another way. But it is solar energy that we eat in a digestible form.