The Six Principles of Regenerative Farming: Why are they important?

By Daisy Wood, Technical Officer, LEAF, UK

Regenerative agriculture has at its core the intention to regenerate, or even restore the health of soil and the wider environment. It typically employs techniques that promote efficient use of natural resources , focussing on building soil health, increasing biodiversity and reducing carbon emissions. Currently there are five key principles that dominate regenerative farming. Recently a sixth principle, context, has been proposed which highlights the importance of site specificity and individuality.

The six core principles to regenerative agriculture are:

• Context
• Minimise Soil Disturbance
• Diversity
• Protect Soil Surface
• Maintain Living Roots
• Livestock Integration

Within this blog, each principle will be addressed, and their importance explained.

[1]. Context

This principle highlights the importance of site specificity and recognises the individuality of each farm scenario. Understanding the context of your farm means regenerative agriculture can be implemented in line with individual farm operations. No two farms are alike, they all have differing climates, soil types, crop/livestock types, funding availability, skills and goals that will influence them and their operations. A farmer practicing this principle could set objectives and monitor their results to quantify and demonstrate regenerative outcomes.

Why is this principle important?

• Ensures every farm works towards their individual transition to regenerative agriculture.
• A farms context and objectives need to be understood before the other five principles can be successfully implemented.
• Studies have found contextual regenerative farming can produce crops with higher levels of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals and pork with higher levels of omega-3 fats.
• Has the potential to help farmers produce more nutrient dense foods, which could improve overall human nutrition.

[2]. Minimise Soil Disturbance

Improving and regenerating soils is at the heart of regenerative agriculture, therefore understanding and applying the principle of reduced soil disturbance is essential. There are three types of soil disturbance: physical, chemical and biological.

• Physical disturbance: tillage or grazing which removes the biological integrity of the soil ecosystem. This can be reduced through the reduction, or elimination of tillage practices, reduction of machinery compaction, and minimising overgrazing.
• Chemical disturbance: application of fertilisers and pesticides which can be detrimental to microbes within the soil. Minimising chemical applications will reduce this disturbance.
• Biological disturbance: a lack of living roots within our soil causes biological disturbance. This is discussed within the ‘Maintain Living Roots’ principle below.

To work towards this principle, farmers can use LEAF’s Simply Sustainable Soils resource which gives you six simple steps for your soil to help improve the performance, health and long term sustainability of your land.

Why is this principle important?

• No till/minimal tillage enhances soil aggregation and carbon sequestration.
• Animal health and nutrition can be enhanced through soil health improvements and better quality forage.
• Improved soil organic matter can benefit crop yields due to its improved nutrient supply.
• Undisturbed soil allows for living organisms to situate and function properly.
• Minimising soil disturbance maintains soil integrity, pore connections and improves soil fertility.
• Minimising soil disturbance improves water infiltration because soil pores at the surface are connected and remain connected to the soil fabric underground. This reduces risk of flooding, and surface run-off.
• Natural flora can thrive if left relatively undisturbed.

[3]. Diversity

This principle highlights the importance of maximising community diversity to promote healthy, functional ecosystems and decrease pest and disease occurrence. Practices such as rotational leys, companion cropping, and cover cropping could be implemented to encourage plant diversity. Multispecies grazing on diverse mixes of forage in pastures could be implemented to encourage habitat diversity.

Why is this principle important?

• Biodiversity enhances ecosystem function because different species perform slightly different roles.
• Improving crop diversity increases drought and flooding resilience which directly reduces the risk of crop damage.
• Cover crops, more diverse crop rotations and perennial crops boost soil fertility and build biological ecosystem diversity which is important to crop resilience.
• Perennial pasture can improve water quality and increase soil water storage capacity through organic matter accumulation.
• Increasing on-farm species diversity supports a range of ecosystem services (food provision, water supply, nutrient cycling) and greater ecological function.
• Crop diversity has been found to help suppress disease and control pests, with one study showing a 73% disease reduction compared to monocrops.

[4]. Protect Soil Surface

This principle highlights how crucial the soil surface, a layer of mineral soil with high organic matter accumulation, is for water regulation, soil structure and nutrient sourcing. Having the soil surface covered with living plants, or crop residues protects the soil itself, and the organisms living within it, against weathering and erosion damage. The most successful way of implementing this principle is through over winter cover cropping, alongside judicious maincrop/cover-crop management.

Why is this principle important?

• Provides soils physical protection from rainfall, trampling and frost damage.
• Protects soil from sun exposure which can cause erosion.
• Cover-crops act as a windbreak and reduce topsoil erosion.
• Improves soil structure resulting in a more diverse pore network, effective infiltration, and gas exchange.
• Encourages increased worm and microbial activity.

[5]. Maintain Living Roots

This principle highlights the importance of maintaining living roots within the soil to retain nutrients, improve plant growth and microbe biodiversity. Living plants photosynthesise energy from the sun into chemically bound energy which is then transferred into plant root systems and the soil ecosystem. When soil does not contain living roots, it continues to metabolise organic matter, releasing carbon as CO2, which then passes into the atmosphere. Maintaining living roots is therefore important to maintain soil carbon sequestration. Living roots are important for plant-plant and plant-soil communications via root exudates. Root exudates are chemical compounds, released from living root cells, that act as signalling molecules to help mediate plant-microbe interactions. These exudates have a positive influence on plant growth and soil health, via a wide array of mechanisms including enhanced supply of nutrients, increased nitrogen fixation, and increased stress tolerance. Living roots are also important for plant-root absorption of nutrients and water. This is done via an extension of the plant root – mycorrhizal fungi. The fungi pass water and nutrients to the plant, and the plant in turn supplies the fungi with energy from photosynthesis. This mycorrhizal fungus interconnects individual plants to form common mycorrhizal networks, which can transport signals in response to pathogen infestation, acting as a natural pest management to protect the plants.

Why is this principle important?

• Plants which are left in place for longer grow deeper roots which encourage the build-up of organic matter and reduces the risk of soil erosion.
• Situated plants protect the soil from erosion.
• Plants absorb residual nutrients, particularly nitrogen, and hold them so they’re available for the next crop as the catch crop decomposes.
• Improves bioturbation (the reworking of soils and sediments by animals and plants), which increases nutrient fluxes and improves organic matter distribution.
• Improves soil infiltration, run off reduction and soil aggregation through the excretion of polysaccharides from root exudates which acts like glue to hold the soil together.
• Root exudates provide energy (polysaccharides) for the base of the food web.
• Mycorrhizal fungal strands are smaller than plant roots, cover greater spatial extents and grow in smaller soil pores. This is vital for nourishing plants with extensive, free fertiliser and watering services.
• Mycorrhizal fungi transport plant-plant signals which mean uninfested plants can response to the potential risk of pest, or pathogen infection before they are themselves attacked.

[6]. Livestock Integration

This principle highlights the importance of responsibly grazing livestock to spread organic matter and increase nutrient cycling and plant growth. This can be done through high impact mob grazing: short disturbance followed by long recovery periods. The management and manipulation of five critical grazing fundamentals must be considered to ensure this principle is successfully implemented: these are timing, frequency, intensity, duration, and rest. Although for some farming systems the integration of livestock is not possible, this principle can still be considered, for example through the use of manure and slurry as an inorganic source of nutrients.

Why is this principle important?

• Well managed grazing practices stimulate plant growth and increase soil carbon deposits, grazing land productivity, soil fertility, plant biodiversity and soil carbon sequestration.
• Mob grazing can reduce livestock stress and disease incidences as it reduces competition for grass between cattle by allowing them to graze one area before moving on to the next.
• Suitable livestock integration can improve pasture performance. Long recovery periods allow soil and plant species to recover and encourages multispecies pasture diversity.

By implementing these 6 principles, farmers can use regenerative agricultural practices to enhance soil health, encourage carbon sequestration and improve the climate resilience of their farms. Understanding the benefits and importance of these principles will ensure that regenerative agriculture plays a key role in understanding and therefore ensuring a successful transition towards a sustainable agricultural future. LEAF is working within AgriCaptureCO2 to help farmers understand and develop their transition towards regenerative agriculture.