Vegan Regenerative Agriculture and What You Need to Know About It

Despite its incredible importance to people all over the world, few people, even vegans, spare much thought for the soil we use for farming. Without fertile soil, we would struggle to survive. Good soil helps to grow most of our crops, so you can understand why it would be so important to take care of our soil. 

What is Regenerative Agriculture? 

The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska is one of many examples of a tribe currently using it to promote biodiversity and soil health. 

Looking at the concept of regenerative agriculture, the point behind it is to create a farming system where the land improves in the process rather than being depleted. Regenerative agriculture focuses heavily on soil health, responsible fertilizer use, and water management. 

Rather than growing a single crop, known as monocropping, all year round, the indigenous communities would use a combination of crops like maize, squash, and beans. They also would avoid tilling the earth, which leads to more soil erosion, depleting the soil of essential nutrients. 

This is why sometimes farmers will rotate crops every three to four years to avoid depleting, but this isn’t regenerative agriculture since it still uses monocropping.  

Regenerative agriculture sets out to leave the soil in a better condition than when you first used it. 

How Do They Do Regenerative Agriculture for Farming with Animals?

Not only does it degrade the soil, but it also causes water pollution since cows will muddy and pollute the creeks and streams and other water sources. 

To reduce this impact, they might switch from pigs to chickens to sheep to cattle. This choice helps to lower the amount of burden on the land. 

Admittedly, this does create fewer emissions, but some people still point out that even low-carbon steaks still produce more emissions than plant-based products. 

Examples of regenerative animal agriculture would include free-ranging chickens, composting, managed grazing, and silvopasture. 

Vegan Regenerative Agriculture: What is It and Could It Be the Answer to Healthier Soil?

Much of it would follow the same practices as what you’d get with regenerative agriculture. 

This would definitely bring about healthier soil than regenerative animal agriculture because it eliminates the damage to the soil altogether and eliminates animal cruelty. 

When you use cattle for agriculture, there will still be damage to the soil, and you’ll still have water pollution even if you use regenerative animal agriculture. 

How to Become a Regenerative Agriculture Vegan

One of the ways that you would become a regenerative agriculture vegan would be to buy strictly from vegan brands that only use the regenerative agriculture methods. 

Some vegans might mix this where you might buy from a couple of companies like this as a way to reduce your environmental impact even further without needing to solely buy regenerative brands. 

You should also try to eat seasonal and local foods since it will be easier for you to see exactly the farm and how they produce their crops. This lets you directly tell if they’re actually using regenerative agriculture.  

What Vegan Brands Produce Vegan Foods Regeneratively?

Final Thoughts

Vegan regenerative agriculture is one of the ways that we can use to become increasingly environmentally friendly. 

One of the things that I like about this concept is that it not only seeks to do no harm, but it seeks to use farming in a way that makes for a better environment than what it was originally. All of this contributes to a soil that will continue to produce crops for future generations. 

We need to find more sustainable ways to do things because soil erosion is at an all-time high. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2) estimates that 33% of the world’s soil has already been degraded, and this number could climb to 90% by 2050 if we don’t take action.