There are already two third-party certified regenerative labels appearing on supermarket shelves. So, how can consumers distinguish among the labels starting to appear out there? FoodPrint has added regenerative to its Food Label Guide guide, accessible here, and which can give you details on some of the basics. But he thinks the vast majority of products will be “Level 1 simply have a no-till drill and a no-till corn planter and you throw some cover crops on the farm at some point, and it’s going to be a big scam.” He says small farmers like him are being left out of the regenerative conversation, and fears there will be no market for their superior, truly regenerative products because of the confusion the corporate capture of labeling schemes will sow. Highest-standard “level 5 is going to be what all of us think of as regenerative: integrating grazing animals with no-till and row crop production, building communities and local food - they’re going to have half a dozen of those” kinds of farmers, he predicts. With Whole Foods now reviewing and approving regenerative claims on products sold in its store (the company did not respond to a request to elucidate its confusingly worded commitment), Gunthorp predicts a similar future for this new scheme. Picking and choosing from among standards like this raises the hackles of Greg Gunthorp, a regenerative pastured livestock and poultry rancher in Lagrange, Indiana who remembers back to Whole Foods’ decision to implement GAP sustainability ratings for meat, with “5+” meaning an animal spent its whole life on one farm with every possible comfort and ecological benefit but very few 5+-rated options available at its butcher counter. This support largely focuses on cover cropping and also a planting method known as no-till, which doesn’t rip up the soil but also might include the use of chemicals like Roundup for eradicating weeds. Some regenerative advocates want regenerative labels to include social criteria that address inequities and injustices in the food system - something organic certification does not.Īn example of a low bar might be international industrial agriculture corporation Cargill’s “support” for regenerative agriculture that still allows farmers to use chemical inputs.
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She and other researchers believe that regenerative needs to include a whole suite of practices: keeping soil covered at all times plus rotating a variety of crops plus not tilling the land plus reducing chemical inputs plus including livestock, in part to replace synthetic fertilizers. Truly regenerative means meeting a comprehensive set of principles and practices,” says FoodPrint chief scientist Urvashi Rangan. “Some companies are setting a low bar by making misleading regenerative claims based on one or two practices. As vocabulary and methodology get hashed out, large corporations are rushing in to apply the term to their products, potentially watering down the meaning.
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But how to do this, and what practices should be allowable, is currently a matter of debate. What most expert proponents of regenerative agriculture agree is essential to the term is a commitment to progressively improving soil health, in order to raise plants and animals that are also healthier. Begging the question: How can a general public that’s largely unaware of the existence of regenerative agriculture - let alone able to parse its wide-ranging practices - be expected to seek it out when they shop? “It’s like the Wild West out there,” says Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of the Food and Agriculture Program at nonprofit Friends of the Earth. Since each label has a different metric behind its claim, chances are high that they will only further confuse a lot of already ambivalent consumers. This low level of understanding about what regenerative agriculture is coincides with the arrival of “regenerative” labels on food packaging.
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