By Craig Madsen
The principles of regenerative agriculture work across all landscapes; they are about managing the ecosystem as a living system. How do we reduce disturbances to the soil (both chemical and physical), keep the soil covered, keep a living root growing to feed the biology, increase diversity (grow a diversity of plants), and integrate livestock?
The challenge is understanding how to adapt the principles of regenerative agriculture to your specific situation. That is why some people have added a sixth principle: context.
Context is how you apply the principles to your particular situation. You need to consider your economic situation (finances, markets), environmental conditions (what to grow to add diversity depends on your soils, environmental conditions, as well as markets), and social conditions.
Can you form a group of like-minded people to experiment with and share learnings? Are you willing to do your own safe-to-learn experiments? Are you a person who is interested in continually learning new things? There are no failures, just learning opportunities.
The amount of information on how farmers have integrated the principles of regenerative agriculture on their farms and ranches has increased significantly over the last several years. The linked case study is about Drew Leitch, a North Idaho farmer, and his journey to make his farm more resilient. This is an in-depth case study.
Experimenting on your farm can be as simple as trying different fertilizer levels, adding a humate to your fertilizer to increase efficiency, or seeding a diverse cover crop mix. Plan a safe-to-learn experiment on your property this year.