Regenerative Agriculture in Europe

Regenerative agriculture (RegenAg) is on the rise, aiming to make farming sustainable. But what is RegenAg? How does RegenAg compare to other agricultural concepts? How does RegenAg differ across Europe? Can RegenAg be economically viable? And can it be measured? This report identifies that it is difficult to assess the current state of a concept that does not have a clear definition. We compared RegenAg to agroecology, conservation agriculture and organic farming. The most striking differentiation seems to be that RegenAg is defined by its outcomes. This provides freedom to farmers, while considering the context specificity of RegenAg. Measuring actual outcomes is hard to accomplish and often has a weak relation with farm level measures. Hybrid measuring approaches based on farm measures in combination with farm data can be useful. This report concludes with recommendations to consider RegenAg as a set of objectives, rather than a set of measures and to start an EU-wide indicator system.