European Regenerative Agriculture Manifesto

Signed by 70 experts during the
1st Climate Farming Congress in 2021

FEATURED ON

THE 1st CLIMATE FARMING CONGRESS

The background story of the manifesto

The European Regenerative Agriculture Manifesto was created during the 1st Climate Farming Congress in November 2021. 

An in-person gathering for farmers in which we laid the foundation for a strong European community, exchanged ideas, learned from one another and shaped the future of regenerative agriculture with a farmer-centric manifesto.

This was the first European summit of the pioneers. An overdue gathering, considering the backdrop of immense ecologic and climate-related threats.

»We arrived at a magic castle in Germany, not just a castle, but one that symbolises the power of the farmer, and that’s what we all felt … It is not an easy task to agree on a manifest on the future of regenerative farming in a couple of days, but because we as a group saw that it is absolutely urgent, we were able to do the impossible. You might say that this manifest is our biggest achievement. But the biggest achievement in my point of view is that 70 strangers met for the first time and that these few days were enough to create lasting friendships and a network of professionals, one hundred percent ready to save the world.«


​​Louis De Jaeger
Participant of the Climate Farming Congress

EUROPEAN REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE MANIFESTO

Making the voice of farmers heard

The Climate Farming Congress culminated in the creation of the manifesto signed by 80 participants from 16 European countries. 

Laying out the central positions of the European pioneers of regenerative agriculture to help key decision-makers and other stakeholders understand regenerative farming and what it needs for its growth.

THE MANIFESTO’S CENTRAL POINTS

Central positions of the European pioneers

  • Regenerative Agriculture goes beyond “reducing harm” or even “doing good”, which originates from the operator’s perspective of what constitutes “good”, and starts at the object’s (person, organisation, land) potential, and how an intervention might lead to a full expression of that potential.

     

  • Regenerative agriculture is always context-specific. “We are not dogmatic about farming practices and systemic approaches, but rather embrace the diversity of pathways towards regenerating in different contexts. No practice should be seen independently as harmful (or beneficial) for ecosystems, before being assessed in relation to the specific context and the long term regenerative impact.”

      

  • The experts at the Congress were clear that there are no “regenerative practices” per sé, which also means that there can be no prescriptive, practice-based approach to regenerative agriculture.

     

  • The first step in regenerating a landscape must be the deep analysis of the “given ecological, socio-cultural and economic context”, which includes “multiple levels, including field level, farm level, landscape level, biomes level and food system level”.

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