While explicit promotion of “Regenerative Agriculture” is a relatively recent trend, it’s practical implementation typically involves a combination of already proven farming practices that have been pioneered, refined and validated over decades by innovators and early adopters in the farming community (e.g. no-till or strip-till, controlled wheel traffic, cover cropping, diverse rotations, precision seeding and fertilization, integrated pest management (IPM) that protects pollinators and beneficials, animal integration in crops, rotational grazing of pastureland…).

Because there have been problematic examples of “greenwashing”, particularly around carbon markets, there is heightened sensitivity about the need for independent, third-party verification of benefits. For protocols that involve farming practices such as no-till and cover cropping, satellite and aerial imagery can be used to document the fact that they are in use on a given field and quantitative benefits can be calculated based on models.