Serious problems that are facing the agriculture sector such as climate change and soil deterioration which is caused by non-sustainable ways of farming are bound to make our current methods for sustaining the growing population with food obsolete. If we resist embracing change and finding solutions and stay ignorant, it is more than obvious that the damage we are causing will end up being permanent to the soil. On the other hand, most commercial farm owners state that using pesticides and synthetic fertilizers is currently the only way of growing food at rates that are efficient enough for them to do business and keep up with the annual produce quantity requirements they are imposed.

So what is the actual solution? Regenerative Agriculture – let’s find out why.

What is regenerative agriculture

The meaning of regenerative agriculture is fairly simple to comprehend. It is a set of techniques and methodologies in farming that put sustainability, eco-friendliness and long-term organic farming at the forefront. In order words, it falls in line with organic farming, however, instead of focusing on chemicals that damage the soil or inhumane ways of raising livestock in order to maximize gain, the approach of regenerative farming focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of natural ways to grow crops, whilst achieving the same objective of gaining more with less, but in a sustainable way. On the other hand, some say that regenerative farming is far more difficult to pull off and that it is much more difficult to gain momentum with this approach.

Just like with any method of organic farming, there are problems that come with it. These problems often involve difficulties with scaling your farming efforts because farmers who partake in natural ways of growing crops and raising cattle put the soil and the earth as their main priority above business. Therefore, the main question is whether there is a way to be more sustainable without having difficulties to scale? This is where the concept of AgTech comes in.

How agtech can help regenerative farming

The biggest advantage of incorporating agriculture technology into regenerative farming is automation. Sustainable and organic ways of farming require more land, work, attention and it is also fairly limiting because farmers are not willing to use pesticides and other chemicals on plants. This directly causes bigger yield losses due to plant diseases. The way regenerative farming tackles this issue is by cultivating specific types of crops that guard the soil against pesticide runoffs. The only problem is that shielding the soil with plants is not as effective as using AgTech concepts such as smart greenhouses – facilities that use heat regulation and engineered fertilizers that dissolve 80-90% of damaging chemicals in the soil. In addition, portable livestock farms that utilize AI to engage in automatic livestock rotation for dispersing nutrients could free farmers up, making the idea of scalability more realistic.

By using AgTech innovations and organic farming methodologies such as regenerative farming, farmers will be able to combat climate change, making the environment cooler by up to 100%. This is a very realistic outcome that will be achieved by sequestering CO2 in the soil and if these techniques are used on cultivated land, carbon emissions could be offset over 40%, not taking other factors such as improved reforestation and afforestation into consideration.