Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research's video: LINKOnline Webinar: Regenerative Agriculture in New Zealand

Regenerative agriculture has been proposed not only as an on-farm solution but also as a driver of transformation for the global food system, addressing issues as big as land restoration, climate change, food security or even social and financial inequalities. As farmers respond to societal pressure to reduce their environmental footprint and meet consumer concerns about food safety, health and animal wefare, interest in regenerative agriculture is building momentum worldwide. Because regenerative agriculture is a ground-up farmer-led movement, it is highly adaptive and context-specific. Despite a wealth of anecdotal evidence, many of the claimed benefits of regenerative agriculture have not yet been thoroughly examined using adequate rigorous scientific methodologies. In this webinar, we highlighted the principles of regenerative agriculture and provided examples of what regenerative farming systems look like in New Zealand. We then provided an overview of current research to build a New Zealand scientific evidence-base and outlined emerging findings from a pilot study of pastoral livestock systems in the South Island.