This article was written by Nate Birt, Vice President of Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative. Learn more at www.trustinfood.com
Regenerative agriculture is quickly moving from small and fringe to mainstream, says Lucy Stitzer, founder of the food and agriculture news website Dirt to Dinner.
“It’s pretty exciting. Walmart, for instance—they’ve committed to having zero emissions by 2040,” Stitzer tells Nate Birt, vice president of Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative supporting farmers on their journey of conservation agriculture adoption. “That’s a pretty audacious goal. As a result of that, they’re restoring 50 million acres of land.”
Other examples of the regenerative agriculture trend include Danone, which is helping dairy farmers in its supply chain make the shift and lock in margins. That’s encouraging, Stitzer shares, because the economic impact of practice adoption on farmers and ranchers is often overlooked.
Meanwhile, Land O’Lakes has partnered with Microsoft to improve farmers’ access to broadband in rural communities, ensuring they can better utilize precision agriculture tools and capture data from the field.
The participation of both public agencies and the private sector in supporting farmers’ stewardship efforts suggests food can be a unifying factor in an often polarized operating environment. Agriculture – especially big ag - is being thrown under the bus as degrading the environment when the reality is that farmers are generally more environmentally conscious than most of us.
“Companies, the government and the entire ecosystem recognize there’s not just one answer to growing our food,” Stitzer says. “At Dirt to Dinner, we know that people and consumers and us as well are tired of polarization. Our country is so divided, there’s a tendency for everyone to take sides. … Bringing food to your dinner table doesn’t have to have the same divide. I am idealistic enough to think that … we can use food to bring people together.”
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