While today marks the conclusion of the public comment period for California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) working group draft, there will be opportunities to provide public comment to the State Board as it goes through its own process to formulate a definition.
Stay informed and find updates at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) website: https://lnkd.in/gbnXTsgb
I support the more lengthy public comment made by A Greener World (see past news item); and I submitted my short comment already in the last CDFA public listening session:
Hello, My name is Kerry Hughes, and I am a California resident, a Soil Scientist, an Ethnobotanist, and Advisor to A Greener World. I support the definition of CDFA and would like to emphasize the point that many have made that the starting point of regenerative agriculture should NOT be organic.
Although I fully support Organic agriculture, Regenerative Agriculture is distinct and should be defined as a form of agriculture that continually moves away from being Input-based. Organic Agriculture already has a definition and it is not a starting point. It lacks many very important attributes of truly regenerative agriculture. Moreover, Organic Certification has been going on for decades and as of yet only reached a very small land percentage. We can not afford to have this be a baseline, and must finally partner with farmers to move the needle. This has been a farmer-led movement for a long time, and it is time we partner with them!
Through building of soil health, on-farm fertility and ecosystem health, Regenerative Agriculture is necessarily truly an integrated system that has a goal of reducing the dependency on inputs. This is a distinct approach with much needed potential for improving the land. Necessarily built into this approach will be high animal welfare and an increase in biodiversity. I believe it is important to guard against greenwashing, and to this end to adopt meaningful metrics (of comprehensive soil health and biodiversity) that are tracked and certified by a true third party certification body.
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Defining Regenerative Agriculture – Still Time to Participate!
