Major Food Companies Address Climate Change with New Regen-Ag Standard

The new standard seeks to encourage farmers to restore the carbon cycle and build soil health, crop resilience, and nutrient density.

This work builds upon the Regenerative Agriculture Definition created in 2017 by The Carbon Underground, California State/Chico, and the Regenerative Agriculture Initiative that includes over 150 companies, organizations and scientists as signatories. The core design team for the new standard also includes farmers, ranchers, soil scientists and certification experts and includes input and agreement from nearly 50 organizations on the goals of the new standard, which include:

• Ability to rapidly achieve impact

• Outcomes-based metrics, that can be verified and enforced

• Value, viability and flexibility for farmers, with credit for outcomes already achieved

• Clarity and transparency for supply chains

• Compatibility with related standards, such as Regenerative Organic, Organic, and Non-GMO. (Companies or growers who have invested in complementary standards will have those achievements recognized within this program, but they are not mandatory.)

• Flexibility for improvements as new data become available

“The goal of this new standard is not simply to restore soil, but to do it quickly,” said Larry Kopald, President and Co-Founder of The Carbon Underground. “The windows for avoiding catastrophic climate change and complete top soil loss are projected to close in decades, not centuries.”

Read the entire press release from Santa Francisco Business Times here.

Download a copy of the press release here.