The Uncertainty Mindset 2019-2020

Regenerative agriculture is a way of thinking, not a specific approach or set of approaches. In contrast with conventional agriculture, regenerative approaches:

1. Explicitly aim to be net non-extractive from the ecosystem. This means that the ecosystem is left with more in it at the end of the agricultural activity than before. (Net extraction is the implicit norm in conventional systems.)
2. Explicitly aim for low or zero material inputs. This means gradually reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and water through a design process. (Conventional agriculture depends on continual and heavy inputs of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and water.)

The non-extractive and zero-input goals of regenerative methods mean that they can aim for indefinite sustainability—the ability to continue farming using those methods.

See also: adaptability, affordances, complexity, diversity, food, freedom, inefficiency, innovation, long-term view, low-intervention wine, maintenance by design, negative capability, pizza, population wheats, realistic imagination, resilience, restaurants, stacking the deck, strategy, tradeoffs, uncertain futures, uncertainty mindset.