Blog by Ellen Fay, co-founder and co-Executive Director,
Philip Wright’s talk on Regenerative Agriculture – Putting Research into Practice offered a grounded, farmer-focused perspective on what regenerative agriculture really means in the field. Rather than presenting a rigid system, the key message throughout was that regenerative farming is about best practice, flexibility, and understanding your own soils.
Here are the key takeaways:
1) Transitioning to regenerative agriculture
- There is no single blueprint for regenerative agriculture, and successful systems must remain flexible and adapted to individual farms, soils, climates, and cropping systems. In this sense, regenerative agriculture can be viewed as an extension of best practice, rather than a completely separate approach.
- All crops, including potatoes, can be grown within regenerative systems, although some crops require more specific or careful soil management to succeed under lower disturbance practices.
- Maintaining yield is critical for farm viability and long-term resilience. Yield loss during transition is a genuine and valid risk, and poorly managed change can actually undermine both soil health and business sustainability.
2) Understanding your soils is an essential starting point
- A clear understanding of soil type and current condition is essential before making system changes. Critically, a focus on soil type and its inherent ability (or inability!) to self-structure, regional factors such as rainfall, crop-specific requirements, and the existing state of soil biology, which may take time to recover under reduced disturbance systems.
- Minimum tillage and direct drilling are not viable on poorly drained or structurally weak soils. Good drainage (where needed) and good soil structure are fundamental prerequisites before reducing cultivation intensity.
- Ultimately, soil understanding and soil condition determine whether regenerative systems succeed, not machinery. Purchasing or using specialist equipment such as a direct drill does not make a system regenerative unless the soil itself is physically and biologically capable of supporting it.
3) Managing tillage and soil disturbance
- Where soils are in good structural condition, reducing tillage intensity can deliver multiple benefits, including lower erosion risk, increased soil organic matter, reduced carbon losses, improved aggregation, greater soil resilience, and less effort required to establish seedbeds.
- Although lower cultivation intensity improves soil recovery, some level of disturbance may still be necessary, particularly in the early years of transition when soils are adjusting to new management systems. Improvements can be quickly undone, so soil structure should be monitored through the profile and remedied when necessary.
4) Best practice for soil health
- Degradation of soil structure should be repaired only where necessary rather than through routine intervention. There is no need to mechanically correct well-structured soils.
- Biological and mechanical solutions should work together. Cover crop roots can naturally alleviate compaction, while mechanical loosening should be reserved for situations where biological processes cannot resolve the issue, such as in heavily trafficked headlands – or where they cannot reach, such as the subsoil.
- Prevention is more effective than cure when managing soil health. Minimising axle loads, reducing pressure, timing operations carefully and with soil type in mind, and protecting soil structure are key strategies for avoiding long-term damage.
- Keeping living roots in the soil for as long as possible supports soil organic matter, enhances soil biology, and contributes to overall soil function and resilience.
