What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes

Summary

Regenerative agriculture is an alternative means of producing food that, its advocates claim, may have lower – or even net positive – environmental and/or social impacts. Regenerative agriculture has recently received significant attention from producers, retailers, researchers, and consumers, as well as politicians and the mainstream media. Despite widespread interest in regenerative agriculture, no legal or regulatory definition of the term ‘regenerative agriculture’ exists nor has a widely accepted definition emerged in common usage. This paper answers the research question: How have different scholars and practitioners defined regenerative agriculture? We reviewed 229 journal articles and 25 practitioner websites to characterize the term ‘regenerative agriculture’. Our review revealed