Measure and report the impact of regenerative management in your agroecosystem

Climate Farmers has developed a framework that evaluates the impact of regenerative agriculture across 5 interdependent areas: soil health, biodiversity, water cycle, farmer livelihood and community benefits. The purpose of the framework is to create a shared understanding among food system actors, support decision-making and remunerate actions that deliver positive outcomes.

We focus on outcomes rather than practices because regenerative management looks different depending on the context in which it is implemented. It is up to land stewards to determine which actions are best suited to improve their farms in accordance with their unique agroecosystems and personal goals.

The Climate Farmers’ measurement framework grew out of the Farm Report Card, a tool which we developed to help farmers in our Community make informed decisions based on a holistic view of their farms constructed from data that farmers can gather on their own. Thanks to the learnings gained from our collaboration with the Soil Health Benchmarks project and the Sustainable Food Trust’s trial of its Regen10’s framework we incorporated additional key indicators across all the impact areas. The result is a practical tool for farmers which also provides reliable and comprehensive information to other food system actors such as retailers, consumers and investors.

Science-based measurement and verification are essential to the transition to regenerative agriculture. Farmers need a tool to monitor their progress and make informed decisions. Households in search of healthy food produced in harmony with nature demand a reliable verification system that ensures that the food they buy is what it claims to be. Food system actors from producers and distributors to retailers and financial institutions need a transparent methodology that accurately measures the environmental and social return on their investment.

Humility and respect for the complexity of ecosystems require that we make a disclaimer. Our measurement framework is a low resolution photograph of a moving target. We can’t begin to quantify nature, let alone understand the evolving interactions of all its elements. And even if we could, as a society we have neither the time nor the money to do so. We have strived with our measurement framework to strike a balance between completeness and accuracy on the one hand and practicality on the other.

Climate Farmers’ measurement, reporting and verification framework (MRV) is organized much like the root system of a tree. The trunk represents the farmer’s overall regenerative agriculture score. The main impact areas of soil, biodiversity, water, livelihood and community represent the thickest primary roots which feed the tree with the information obtained from the secondary roots or categories deeper in the soil. These categories get their information from the finest root hairs or indicators. At the deepest level are the metrics, the framework’s mycorrhiza, which exchange values with the rest of the system. We score each branch of the framework based on the results obtained from the underlying indicators.

Humans compartmentalize concepts into impact areas, categories and indicators to make it easier for us to make sense of nature’s complexity. But in reality, they are interdependent. Key metrics such as soil organic matter or vegetation influence almost all the impact areas of the framework, even the socio-economic ones. What’s more, the indicators influence one another. An increase in soil microbiological activity will tend to improve the water infiltration and nutrient uptake by plants.

Over the years we have used the following criteria to isolate a series of key metrics which we believe best reflect the impact of regenerative management in agroecosystems:

• Relevance to objective: Is the metric likely to drive effective change in the right direction.
• Evidence base: Is the evidence linking the metric to the objective adequately robust.
• Generality: Can the metric be applied meaningfully across different geographical and agricultural contexts.
• Alignment: How well aligned is the metric with existing reporting frameworks.
• Scalability: Can the metric be aggregated across farms, landscapes and food systems. 

The framework methodology draws on data from 3 different types of sources:

1. Onsite evaluation. This report includes the evaluator’s visual soil and biodiversity assessments and basic farm data.
2. Lab reports. We take soil, leaf, water and insect samples from the farm and send them to laboratories for analysis. 
3. Farmer surveys. We ask the farmers to respond to questionnaires to understand how they manage the farm and the impact that their decisions have on their well-being and that of the communities in which they operate.

The framework methodology can best be understood visually.

The same structure applies to the socio-economic impact areas such as farmer livelihood.