Farm Carbon Toolkit General Manager Sam Smith NSch has published his Nuffield Farming report 'Regenerative agriculture: a shared ambition for the future of farming?', sponsored by McDonald's UK and Ireland.

The full report is now available on the Nuffield Farming report library. A recording of Sam presenting at the Nuffield Farming Conference can be found here.

During his Scholarship, Sam travelled to Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.

In his report, Sam says: "Regenerative agriculture (RA) has captured the attention of major food companies – a term that encompasses various sustainable farming practices, some as ancient as agriculture itself."

Sam aimed to take a supply chain perspective and explore how regenerative agriculture is being understood and propelled into the mainstream.

In his report, Sam describes five key findings: "Collaborative efforts to set ambitious, shared goals for RA are valuable – as goals help to drive our behaviours and culture.

"RA holds the potential to inspire profound, collective action, bolstering farm and supply chain resilience while aiding carbon drawdown and nature recovery. Substantial investments and a systems approach are required to avoid it becoming a lukewarm movement, progressing too slowly to effectively respond to climate risk."

However, he notes that not everyone embraces regenerative agriculture and companies championing it are at varying stages of their journey. "Narrow perspectives of RA, focused on only a few practices, risk undermining more expansive regenerative ambitions, envisioned by many."

Sam also outlines seven lessons for companies working to scale regenerative agriculture focusing on: shifting from pilot to mainstream projects, prioritising the needs of farmers, supporting and assisting farmers, on-farm interactions, effective measurement, a wariness of carbon offset schemes, and sharing costs within the value chain.

"The RA movement has huge potential as a transformative force in agriculture. While many are pursuing its ambitious goals, the journey is complex and should not be underestimated. It demands unlikely collaborations, big investments, new responsibilities, radical business models and creative, open mindsets," concludes Sam.

Study objectives

• Explore the adoption of regenerative agriculture across food and farming businesses: how it's understood and the varying levels of ambition.
• Understand how companies can create an environment where it is desirable for farmers to invest time and money in regenerative farming.
• Examine the relevance of regenerative agriculture movement within the broader sustainability sector.

Key messages

1. RA (regenerative agriculture) can inspire profound, collective action, bolstering farm and supply chain resilience while aiding carbon drawdown and nature recovery.
2. However substantial investments and a systems approach are required to avoid it being a lukewarm movement, progressing too slowly to effectively respond to climate risk.
3. Companies championing RA are at varying stages of their journey, exhibiting disparate levels of ambition, resulting in a fragmented landscape.
4. While pilot projects are valuable, emphasis should now shift to mainstreaming RA through new business and financing models.
5. Projects must prioritise the needs of farmers, involve co-creation and engage with the nuances of change and risk, especially as initial costs can be high, with delayed returns.
6. Farmer support requires a triad of technical assistance, cultural acceptability, and financial incentives to de-risk the practice changes.