What is ‘regenerative’ and why is it so important in the fight against climate change?
Anne Jones, SID’s Sustainability Consultant and Development Director for the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation, gives us her take on what is regenerative.
Grapes for wine, grains for beers and spirits, botanicals for gin, peat for some styles of whiskey — what do they all have in common? They are the foundations of our industry and keep us firmly rooted in the earth. However luxurious the brand, drinks are essentially agricultural products. We have a responsibility to our environment and to improving the health of the land on which we operate for the benefit of future generations.
When it comes to sustainability, we have to consider our impact on the environment, and the environment’s impact on us. There are increasingly common stories of climate change impacting production, and the industry is developing a greater focus on playing its own part in being more sustainable. One of the most positive impacts we can have as an industry is on how we grow our raw materials, and encourage production in harmony with nature, increasing carbon storage in the soil and developing strong natural ecosystems.
The ‘regenerative vs organic vs biodynamic’ debate has never been more heated or more polarising. And that’s a conversation we need to be careful about fuelling. It’s not the case that producers need to make a choice between the different approaches, they can be (and often are) complementary or overlapping.
So let’s examine the concepts and any differences between them.
The organic movement has done an incredible job at creating, maintaining and communicating a consistent global terminology, based on the principles of health, ecology, fairness and care. It has maximum limits for chemical applications and in order to use the term organic, producers must be certified by an independent auditor and sign up to the certification body in its region.
Biodynamics was one of the first ‘organic’ frameworks, driven by the philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, and is a holistic approach to the whole growing environment, combining different elements of the ecosystem including the spiritual nature of the place and the phases of the moon.
In practice, many of the activities of both biodynamic and organic production would naturally overlap with regenerative principles. A “regenerative” approach is one that’s more philosophical than organic, and more pragmatic than biodynamic, and is widely considered to be a process and not an outcome. It’s about the concept of working in harmony with nature to not only restore but enhance soil health. Because conditions and habitats evolve year by year, there’s never a final ‘destination’ at which one can arrive. It has global principles that can be applied locally based upon knowledge of the ‘terroir’ or specific location. The 5 main principles are:
- Don’t disturb the soil (no till)
- Keep the soil covered (cover crops)
- Keep living roots in the soil
- Grow a diverse range of crops
- Encourage use of livestock on the land
The Regenerative Viticulture Foundation website has broken these down into 16 topics that are considered helpful for viticulture, and there is an RV guide where producers can enter their own practices and see resources and support for what else might be relevant for them. The approach is generally about doing less and minimising or eradicating inputs that disturb the natural balance of the ecosystem, with one eye on traditional methods and the other on the latest scientific research.
No discussion of regenerative agriculture would be complete without a mention of definitions and certifications. As the movement gathers pace, there’s an increasing desire to understand the framework of what actions to encourage (or discourage). There’s also been more understanding of the commercial benefits of being ‘regenerative’ which has led to the creation of various certifications. These range from those that encourage gradual improvement to those that have organic as a prerequisite for entry, the main ones being A Greener World, Regenify, the Regenerative Organic Certification, and the Regenerative Viticulture Alliance. California has recently been discussing a definition of regenerative in order to support decisions around grants and other incentives for regenerative practices.
So — what is regenerative? The short answer is that there’s no short answer, but that it is generally accepted to be a positive change of mindset towards restoring and rejuvenating soil health and the underground ecosystem. And that breadth of approach is also why we need a mindset shift of our own as active participants in this industry. Mitigating the impact of climate change does not rely on binary choices, because the landscape is continuously evolving. It’s about ‘doing right’, not ‘being right’, and we can only do that together, learning from each other, sharing best practice and inspiring more sustainable behaviours one step, one field and one vintage at a time.
Hear more on this topic and why Sustainability in Drinks is THE place to be on 14th and 15th October
