You have probably heard the terms sustainable and regenerative. They sound similar. People often use them in the same way when they talk.. When it comes to taking care of the land and growing food they mean different things.
Sustainable farming is about not making things worse. It is about not using up all the soil, not using much water and not causing harm. This is a thing, but it is not enough. If the soil is already bad and the water is already dirty just keeping it that way is not good enough.
Regenerative farming is different. It is about making the land healthy. This means putting matter back in the soil getting more plants and animals to live there making the water cycle better and taking carbon out of the air. The goal is to make things better not to keep them the same.
Some things that people do in farming are composting and mulching to help the soil moving animals around like they would in nature planting crops that help the soil not tilling the land planting trees and designing food forests and managing water in a natural way.
For a place like Afterlee Ecovillage, regenerative farming is very important. The land has a history. The goal is to help it get better not just to keep it the same. So every decision, from where to put paths to how to manage water is made with the question: does this make things better?
The change from sustainable to regenerative is also a change in the way we think. It is about going from not hurting the land to helping the land. This is a way to think about how we treat the land and more and more farmers, designers and communities are starting to think this way. Regenerative farming is about agriculture and it is a good thing for the land and, for regenerative agriculture.