Barriers to the adoption of regenerative agriculture

If my goal is to drive adoption of regenerative agriculture, an important part to pay attention to is why not everyone is doing it?

Barriers:

1. Financial
2. Knowledge
3. Changes in operations
4. Changes in distribution

The biggest part of all the above is that it is unknown.

Many farmers have built up experience over the years, getting good at what they do, how they do it. It’s a muscle memory that’s been built up over many years, sometimes even generation. A cadence and approach to doing thing s a certain way.

Changing the ways things are done is scary. And there is no guarantee that it will work.

I believe that there will always have to be some leap of faith.

For some farmers, this will come out of their values. But for others, it might also be the economic reality that calls for a change.

This second group is probably the biggest one.

How can we help farmers to make this transition?

Helping them to tackle those barriers is definitely a good start.

Barriers 1-3 are far out of my wheelhouse.

I’m in no position to tell a farmer how to make the financial transition, how soil health works, or how to work his land better.

Financial: Soil Capital

Operational:

Soil health:

That leave the last one of the barriers I mentioned: distribution.