Regenerating Land Value With Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture takes a systems-approach to producing food by focusing on restoring soil health, biodiversity, and nutrient and water cycles. While regenerative agriculture has been shown to restore ecosystems and sequester carbon, a major obstacle to widespread adoption is the lack of downstream demand for regenerative products and a marketplace that accounts for restored ecosystem services. 

We are providing a framework that captures the true value of regenerative agriculture by using field measurements and remote sensing techniques to measure the ecosystem impacts (carbon sequestration, soil health, biodiversity, and water infiltration, storage and quality) of practices rooted in indigenous knowledge, coupled with blockchain technology for ecosystem service payments (carbon and water credits).

This technology and environmental market based framework can guide farmers globally that are looking to transition to regenerative practices through the process of practice implementation, quantifying impacts and accounting of real value of production for food, fiber, and medicine.

Grasslands such as those found in our 1000 acre study area at Jalama Canyon Ranch (JCR), California, cover about 25% of California and 37% of the earth’s terrestrial area. Grasslands provide essential hydrologic functions (capture, storage, and slow release of water), biodiversity and sequestration of carbon. About 20% of the world’s native grasslands have been converted to cultivated crops resulting in land degradation and loss of multiple ecosystem functions. Regenerative agriculture has the potential to restore degraded grasslands while meeting the increasing demand for food.

At JCR, land degradation through conventional grazing practices has resulted in reduced water infiltration, increased runoff and erosion, decreased soil health and terrestrial carbon, and loss of native biodiversity. By utilizing practices such as adaptive planned grazing, erosion control, and regenerative planting patterns, we are targeting increased water infiltration and reduced runoff, decreased erosion and improved water quality, re-establishment of perennial grass, increased soil organic matter and higher biodiversity. We are quantifying improvements in ecosystem services and bringing them to environmental markets and suppliers, to capture the true value of our regenerative agricultural products. Our work in restoring JCR can incentivize the shift to regenerative agriculture for land stewards working in grassland ecosystems in California and across the world.

Our solution is a dynamic interplay of management practices and monitoring technologies that measure existing conditions (such as soil health, and water infiltration) and inform future management practices. We will use a combination of field measurements, remote sensing, and Internet of Things network (from LoRa Alliance) to create a digital twin of our agroecosystem at JCR. This enables us to monitor the current state of sites and evolve our management practices in response to site progress. Our monitoring framework, coupled with modeling techniques will be used to calculate sequestered carbon, and watershed wide water balance including soil moisture and groundwater recharge. These measured benefits will be brought to consumers through certifications (Ecological Outcome Verification) and will be traded on blockchain backed environmental markets (such as the Regen Network’s marketplace) to ensure verified and transparent trade.

Our solution will directly impact farmers and land stewards working in grassland ecosystems that are interested in regenerative agricultural practices to mitigate land degradation, improve soil health for sustained productivity, sequester carbon, bolster biodiversity, increase water retention and improve water quality. We are engaging with farmers, land stewards and creators of emerging agricultural technologies through collaborative platforms to stay abreast of emerging needs and concerns. The culmination of our efforts is a regenerative agriculture hub that provides knowledge on successful regenerative practices, their monitoring, and quantification, and the translation to financial value through environmental markets and certifications.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment report found that about 25% of agriculture’s global CO2 mitigation potential came from grazing land management. Our work at JCR targets policy advisors looking to point towards fundable projects that target carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation. JCR can serve as a living laboratory for researchers and students wanting a closer look at integrated land management, grassland ecology, carbon sequestration and watershed dynamics. The media rich nature in which an emerging generation engages with information and learning, requires us to rethink the way we provide access to living landscapes. We are using multimedia tools to communicate our plans, progress, and results to the community of policy makers, investors, and consumers. We are creating a digital twin of JCR, that will provide access to data and information detailing the transition of the ranch to an integrated agroecosystem.  

And finally, we target customers looking to make purchases based on positive ecological outcomes. We are developing a food brand that allows us to engage with both the supply network and the customer base while also being a producer of ecologically beneficial products. This food brand serves as a marketplace where products with verifiable ecological benefits can be purchased.

We will provide a framework of approach that can guide land stewards into transitioning towards transformative regenerative agricultural systems, while also demonstrating how appropriate technology can provide value for rural communities. Our solution addresses the global imperative to increase ecosystem function through agricultural systems, with a focus on the implementation of management principles and associated practices that restore healthy soils, water cycles, and increase biodiversity, while producing high quality food, fiber and medicine. We use a holistic approach to monitoring and quantification of restored functions to inform future management, and to attach a financial value to restored functions (such as carbon sequestration and co-benefits) through environmental markets and verifications.

Jalama Canyon Ranch (JCR) is a 1000-acre ranch in the coastal mountain ranges of Santa Barbara County, California, where past agricultural activities have resulted in intense land degradation. Our work at JCR is our opportunity to showcase regenerative agriculture at a large scale, while using leading technologies to monitor environmental metrics. We have started baseline monitoring and will continue to monitor ecosystem health indicators to inform future management. Upon successful implementation of our plans at JCR, we plan to replicate this framework on a farm in Central Valley, California.    

One of the main barriers of transitioning to regenerative agriculture is the perceived cost to farmers. This is because agricultural profits are often solely equated with crop yield and environmental impacts are discounted as externalities. With the growth of environmental markets and demand for ecologically beneficial products, restored ecosystem services should be viewed as financial assets. Our approach will demonstrate a process that captures the true value of regenerative agriculture by using a combination of field measurements, remotely sensed data, geospatial information systems, drones, modeling, and mobile apps. With the widespread use of these technologies, they have become more accessible and less costly. With the development of frameworks such as ours, the knowledge gap for adoption of such technologies will be reduced, enabling farmers all over the world to tap into today’s technological potential.

Our progress depends on a suite of environmental metrics that indicate the success of regenerative practices. These include metrics for soil health, biodiversity, watershed heath and nutrient cycling. Once successful trends in ecological metrics have been established, our progress can be measured through purchase of our products at a competitive price, and through ecosystem service payments.

Our solution team consists of 6 members - 

• Jesse Smith- Ag Management / Ecology / Sustainability

• Aarushi Jhatro- Research / Data Management 

• Tim Tensen- Tech / Remote Sensing

• Steve Finkel- Market / Private Sector

• Ana - Project Management 

• Ann Cl - Research / Education

Our team brings a diversity of experience and perspectives to a complex problem set, with deep knowledge and understanding of ecological systems, agricultural production, technology in service of living systems, data collection, analysis and communication, project management and financial development. Project lead Jesse Smith has been working for the past decade as a farmer and agricultural system designer with a focus on holistic management and perennial food system development. Aarushi has two masters degrees in water resources management and environmental science, and brings a holistic understanding of natural systems and a passion for integrating data into the development of natural resources management plans. Steve Finkel brings decades of experience in private sector investment, project development and asset management and understands the barriers and opportunities to help bend the field towards investment in ecosystem services. Ann Close has spent the past 25 years working at the intersection of education, research and rural environmental studies. Tim Tensen is an ecological designer, data-driven technologist and researcher, with experience in project design using remote sensing, data management in service of and ecosystem service markets. Ana Smith has spent the past 15 years working as a program director within non-profit organizations focused on ecological restoration and community engagement. Her work has spanned an international community of farmers and ranchers in Africa, Europe and North America.