With producer and policy interest in regenerative agriculture growing across Canada, policymakers and industry leaders are debating how to standardize the concept without undermining its core principles or grassroots appeal.

The lack of agreed definitions has made it harder to scale adoption and communicate impact to governments, buyers and the public. Efforts to build standards that are credible without being too rigid, though, has been a wrestling match for industry.

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Jordan Sinclair, chief executive officer of ALUS, which supports initiatives such as grazing and nature-based management of marginal farmland, said her group avoids technical labels altogether. “We don’t call it regenerative ag and we don’t call it sustainable ag,” she said. “We just see it as being a solution provider.”

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Another obstacle is that not all farmers can afford or would benefit from formal certification, especially smaller producers. “We don’t want to see people excluded from a system because if they’re doing the practices, they should be able to make the claim,” [Tia] Loftsgard said. [T]he term must be protected from misuse, but should also not turned into a bureaucratic obstacle.

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