In one of the first opportunities for post Covid travel I was very excited to be invited to a congress at Schloss Kirchberg, a centre for organic agriculture and food in southern Germany, by Climate Farmers, a Berlin based group working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. The Climate Farmers team were becoming concerned that the unparalleled potential of regenerative agriculture to store carbon in the ground and restore healthy ecosystems, while improving the livelihood of farmers was not sufficiently understood by farmers and was at risk of becoming just another greenwashing scheme, never achieving its potential for farmers, the environment or citizens.

About 70 people, all actively involved in regenerative land stewardship, were invited to a 3 day gathering with the aim of producing a Manifesto for Regenerative Agriculture. There were no formal presentations, just a suggested list of subjects to be discussed by small groups with the findings reported back to the core team who put the manifesto together. Somehow this worked and a manifesto was produced, laying out the central positions of the European pioneers of regenerative agriculture to help key decision-makers and other stakeholders understand regenerative farming and what it needs for its growth.

The Manifesto is available on the Climate Farmers website:

https://www.climatefarmers.org/european-regenerative-agriculture-manifesto/

The main difference to the common view of regenerative agriculture in the UK is that we agreed there are no one size fits all ‘Regenerative Practices’. By definition regeneration means something, primarily soil, is being regenerated and this regeneration must have measurable results. However, farm businesses and the ecosystems they operate within are also in dire need of regeneration and to achieve this a holistic approach is essential. Regeneration is an evolving process within the complexity of nature and needs educated observation, monitoring and continual adaption of our farming practices to achieve what we must.

To produce such agreement, formalised in a document in a short time with a group of people from all over the EU was quite an achievement, but for me the lasting outcome is the friendships and professional network created in those few days. It has already led to the creation of a European network of Savory Institute trained and accredited people, now working together in a way we never imagined before.