California Begins Groundbreaking Effort To Define Regenerative Agriculture

State officials are about to kick off months of listening to industry stakeholders in a move that could affect the movement’s future nationwide.

The state of California is in the beginning stages of a months-long campaign to develop a definition for the term regenerative agriculture, an effort that could yield a common way of understanding it, at least among California officials, by the end of the year.

The endeavor seems simple enough: codifying a vague term that is growing increasingly resonant among farmers, environmentalists and natural and organic products brands. But the undertaking promises challenges and potential controversies, as diverse stakeholders in the nation’s most agriculturally rich state—its farms generated $54.5 billion in sales in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture—do not uniformly agree upon what the definition should include or avoid. And given California’s outsized influence in shaping nationwide movements and trends, whatever the state drafts could affect how farmers around the country pursue regenerative agriculture and inform consumer perceptions of the term.