#113 - REGEN FINDINGS, PLEDGE, NRCS

This Week in Regenerative Agriculture

Wednesday, June 4th

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Soil Capital’s independently audited dataset of 1,262 French farms found that during the 2023 droughts, low-adoption regenerative farms saw yields drop 22% versus just 8% on high-adoption farms — a pattern that held across 85% of drought-affected cereal regions and remained statistically significant after controlling for soil type. To fund the transition, Soil Capital pays farmers through a performance-based carbon credit system: verified gains in soil carbon and emission reductions are sold to corporate buyers, with revenue shared back to farmers — tying financial incentives directly to measurable outcomes.

Link

Forty major food and agriculture organizations — including ADM and Louis Dreyfus Co. — signed a declaration under the SAI Platform’s Regenerating Together Programme, committing to soil health, water stewardship, biodiversity, and farmer livelihoods. The declaration frames these challenges as interconnected, requiring cross-industry collaboration rather than company-by-company efforts.

Link

Riley and Jimmie Kammerer of Piedmont, South Dakota are participating in the USDA-NRCS Regenerative Pilot Program (RPP), making them the first producers in the Black Hills area to sign an early adopter’s contract. Over the next five years, their plan addresses a broad range of land health challenges, including organic matter depletion, wind erosion, and aggregate instability, with the initial phase covering 212 acres converted to season-long cover crops and virtual fencing deployed across 5,800 acres to enable precision grazing management.

Link

A first-of-its-kind University of Arizona analysis found that tribal agriculture generated $753.3 million in total economic output and supported more than 2,300 jobs statewide in 2022 — with American Indians operating 62% of all farms and managing 81% of Arizona’s total agricultural land. Despite that outsized footprint, tribal farms received just 16% of total federal agricultural payouts in the state, with average payments of roughly $3,800 per farm compared to $63,600 for non-tribal operations — a disparity the researchers attribute to fractionated land tenure, jurisdictional complexity, and a digital divide.

Link

ADM has expanded its Farm Forward Initiative in Maharashtra, India, partnering with TechnoServe to train 15,000 new smallholder soybean farmers in regenerative practices — backed by US$500,000 from ADM Cares over 18 months. TechnoServe leads ground-level implementation, covering soil management, crop rotation, and water-efficient techniques, while farmers gain access to digital tools like the Mahavistar app, which delivers satellite data, crop analytics, and real-time weather insights.

Link

1. Nebraska farmers are aging out of agriculture. That could be detrimental to soil conservation efforts [Link]

Venture of the Week

Groundbreaking Organizations.

Biome Makers sequences soil microbiome DNA through its BeCrop® platform, using a database of 55 million organisms to map microbial functional interactions and generate predictive agronomic insights. With customers on four continents and over one million acres impacted, the company is positioning soil biology as a measurable, decision-grade input for regenerative farm management.

biomarkers.com

This Week In Regenerative Agriculture is published by Why Regenerative. It is compiled by Jackson Baris with ChatGPT. Sign up for our newsletter here.