What is
Regenerative Organic?

Regenerative organic farming goes beyond sustainable. It steadily improves the health of the earth and everything that lives on it, including us.

Farmer Idalia Margarita Ruiz Rodriguez harvests ripe Rosa mangoes near Managua, Nicaragua. The farm grows for Sol Simple, one of the first companies in the world to earn Regenerative Organic certification.
Photo by Amy Kumler

Turning agriculture from a problem into a solution

Conventional
Agriculture

Photo Courtesy of Alamy

Depends on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides to boost food yields. Often follows a factory model, with vast swaths of land producing single crops and animals raised in cages and feedlots. Big Ag contributes a quarter of the world’s total greenhouse gases, erodes topsoils, generates toxic runoff and damages health.

Organic
Farming

G. Freyer

Bans synthetic inputs, GMOs, antibiotics, and growth hormones. Instead, organic farmers use traditional techniques like composting, crop rotations, and grazing animals on pasture, drawing on centuries of knowledge. Organic farming works with nature rather than against it.

Regenerative
Organic

Amy Kumler

Encompasses organic farming and then raises the bar, prioritizing building soil health as a way to fight climate change. A holistic system, regenerative organic sees the well-being of earth, humans and animals as interconnected. High standards for animal and worker welfare are critical.

When soil is healthy, many benefits flow.

Evidence suggests what common sense has always told us: that fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains regeneratively grown in rich, organic soil hold onto more nutrients. Eating a tomato grown with these practices, for example, can deliver more cancer-fighting flavonoids than one raised conventionally.

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A compost pile at a Sol Simple Regenerative Organic Certified™ farm in Nicaragua. Sol Simple farmers organized their own compost co-op. Photo by Amy Kumler

Regenerative organic systems are rich in trees, perennials and living, microbe-rich soil. Trees and perennials (such as certain cover crops) excel at drawing down carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis. They drip it through their roots into the soil, where microbes ingest the carbon and keep it in the ground.

An agroforest in Nicaragua, filled with fruit trees and other perennials. Photo by Amy Kumler

If we keep farming conventionally, the world’s topsoil, which produces nearly all our food, will disappear within 60 years. Regenerative organic farming creates thriving populations of microbes, which break down organic matter (dead plants) into topsoil. Also, RO systems like agroforests and perennial plants have well-developed roots that keep topsoil from eroding.

Exposed Kernza® roots, whose massive underground structure restores soil, at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Photo by Amy Kumler

These are modern versions of techniques developed over centuries, from all parts of the earth. Sidelined by conventional farming for the past 70 years, they’re a bright alternative.

Organic Learn More

No synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics or growth hormones.

Cover Crops

Farmers grow crops like alfalfa or clover instead of letting their land lie fallow between cash-crop seasons. These cover crops increase soil organic matter, produce natural fertilizer, sequester carbon, and reduce erosion.

Compost

Waste from the farm gets converted into compost, which acts as a natural fertilizer and mulch—helping soil retain moisture and suppressing weeds.

Crop Rotation

Crop varieties are rotated each year to avoid depleting specific nutrients and stop disease and pests from proliferating.

Intercropping

Multiple types of crops are planted closely together to increase yields and soil health over time. This system imitates natural polycultures, where plants of different species benefit one another.

Low- to No-Tilling

Tilling involves breaking up soil to plant seeds or control weeds. Less tilling (or none at all) reduces erosion. It also helps soil build up organic matter and retain water.

Agroforestry Learn More

Like wild forests, agroforests have multiple tiers of plants—trees, bushes, vines. They’re far more biodiverse than monocrop systems, draw down carbon, and improve water retention.

Restorative Grazing

Grazing animals, if managed properly, can bring pastures back to life, increasing biodiversity below and above ground. Restored pasture draws down carbon, too.

Perennial Crops

Unlike annual crops, perennials live for many years in one spot. Their well-developed root systems draw down carbon and deliver it deep into the soil, and prevent erosion, too.

In 2017, we partnered with several other brands to establish Regenerative Organic Certified™, the world’s highest-bar organic designation. To be RO certified, farms must meet robust standards for soil health, animal welfare and worker fairness. Learn more about RO certification here.

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Part 1: Big Agriculture Is Broken

Industrial farming allowed us to produce more food cheaply, but at a huge cost to our environment and health.

Watch

Part 2: Soil Is the Solution

Soil is the foundation of our food system—and life itself. It’s time for soil-centric revolution.

Watch

Worker walking through tall rows of growing plants before harvest

Part 3: What We’re Doing (and Why)

Our new regenerative organic certification sets a high bar for soil health, worker fairness, and animal welfare—interconnected parts of any food ecosystem.

Watch