How do we ensure that, year after year, we continue to be able to grow enough food to feed Canadians – and the world? It’s all in the way farmers manage their greatest resource, the land – and particularly the soil. Without healthy soils, we can’t grow food. It’s as simple as that.
Soil is a living ecosystem that includes pockets of moisture and air, minerals, organic matter (decaying plant material) and a multitude of organisms, like insects, worms, and bacteria and fungi that make the soil their home.
Soil has another important job: storing carbon. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most common greenhouse gases (GHGs). However, carbon is a key component of soil that is critical to its function, health, and productivity.
Carbon sequestration is when plants take in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and combine the carbon with water to create plant food. The excess carbon-rich plant food is stored or “sequestered” in the soil in the form of organic matter.
Regenerative agriculture and soil health
Regenerative agriculture is a term used to describe a set of farming practices that focus on enhancing soil health through a broad range of conservation measures. The key goals of regenerative agriculture are:
- To improve the land’s ability to sequester carbon.
- To increase the activity of microorganisms necessary for soil to break down plant matter.
When these two factors are optimized, organic matter and soil carbon increase. This improves soil health and our ability to grow food.

What is involved in regenerative agriculture?
Some key components include:
- Conservation tillage, also called zero-till or no-till, is a technique used during planting that minimizes disruption of the soil by planting seeds directly into the remnants of the previous year’s crop. This reduces the release of carbon from the soil into the air.
- Cover cropping involves planting crops with or after the main crop. This can protect against soil erosion, suppress weeds, as well as add organic matter and nutrients like nitrogen to the soil. Cover crops also benefit livestock producers because they can be used as a feed source for livestock.
- Crop rotations involve planting one type of crop in a field one year, a different crop the next, and so on, in a particular sequence. Every crop is susceptible to specific insects, weeds and diseases, so changing up the crops that are grown from year-to-year lowers pest risks. Crop rotation also helps prevent the depletion of soil nutrients because different crops require different amounts of nutrients.
- Introducing livestock to a farm operation contributes to a healthy soil system. Livestock can graze on cover crops while their hooves aerate the soil and the manure they produce adds organic matter to the soil.
What are the benefits?
Regenerative agriculture benefits farmers by improving the soil and ecosystems, giving farmers the ability to withstand extreme weather events, like droughts and floods, more easily. Increasing soil organic matter often leads to improved yields, meaning farmers can grow more food on the same amount of land. It can also mean that less fertilizer and pesticides are required, resulting in less use overall and lower costs for farmers.
The environmental benefits of regenerative agriculture include a decrease in soil erosion and an increase in the biodiversity of plants, grazing animals, wildlife and insects. Regenerative practices reduce agriculture’s impact on water quality by protecting and restoring clean water in nearby streams, rivers and lakes and by preventing nutrients from flowing from fields into water sources.
Regenerative agriculture contributes to sustainability.
In farming, sustainability means the ability to grow safe and healthy food now and into the future. Sustainable agriculture emphasizes the need to meet growing demands for food production while protecting the natural resources on which we depend.
Regenerative agriculture makes it possible for farmers to keep producing enough high-quality food to feed not only Canadians, but people in other countries who rely on our food supply as well. It also helps ensure farm families can make a living and have a healthy, viable farm to pass on to the next generation.
Do all farmers practice regenerative agriculture?
Although many farmers wouldn’t generally call it that, just about every farm in Canada practices regenerative agriculture in one way or another. For example, conservation tillage and crop rotations are widely adopted practices on Western Canadian grain farms, while many ranchers incorporate cover crop grazing into their feed systems. And these strategies can be found on many types of farms: conventional and organic, livestock and grain, small and large.
Agriculture – the practice of growing food – is continually evolving and will continue to do so to meet the needs of a changing world. Regenerative agriculture is just one strategy that farmers are using to meet those challenges.