January 22, 2026

From Regenerative Farming Practices to Regenerative Outcomes

Regenerative agriculture has moved rapidly from the margins to the mainstream of food and farming conversations. A 2024 CREO report found a strong majority of the top 100 global food companies have pledged support for regenerative agriculture, together committing over US$3.2 billion in investments.

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Today, regenerative agriculture features in corporate strategies, sourcing commitments, brand storytelling and investor decks. This is impressive progress in a short space of time, yet much of this discussion remains anchored in what farmers are doing, rather than what those actions are delivering.

In other words, we concentrate too much on regenerative practices, such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, diverse rotations, livestock integration, compost application to name just some, rather than regenerative outcomes and how we deliver the intended goals.

Emily Bull assessing legume nodulation, an indicator of soil health and nitrogen availability.

“This imbalance matters. Practices are only valuable if they deliver positive, verifiable change. Without a clear focus on outcomes, there is a risk well‑intentioned efforts fail to regenerate anything at all - or the situation worsens, when progress in one area is negated by setbacks elsewhere.”

From commitment to credibility

For farmers, the shift from practices to outcomes is the difference between hope and evidence. Outcomes create the proof needed to show regeneration is happening, resulting in improved productivity, reduced input dependency or increased resilience over time.

Without the proof of impact, we fear public and private funding for regenerative practices will dry up, leaving regenerative agriculture an unfunded and stranded ‘commitment’ rather than a viable business model actively reforming modern farming.

For food businesses, the shift from practices to outcomes represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Measuring outcomes is harder than listing practices. It requires data, baselines, consistency and a willingness to confront uncomfortable results.

It is also the pathway to credibility. Outcome‑based approaches allow companies to understand what is truly working in their supply chains, to prioritise investment where it delivers the greatest benefit and to communicate progress with confidence to customers, investors, regulators and farmers.

“Most importantly, outcome measures refocus our collective attention to the purpose of regeneration itself: measurable improvement in the health and resilience of agricultural systems and communities.”

Monitoring soil/ground cover using basal ground cover transects; another indicator of soil health

Regeneration must work for farmers

Regenerative agriculture is often discussed as if the primary risk sits with brands or supply chains. In reality, it is farmers who carry the greatest burden and risk. Many practices leading to regenerative outcomes require new skills, knowledge and equipment, additional labour, increased management complexity or short‑term yield risk. These costs are borne upfront, while the promised benefits of improved soil health, resilience or reduced inputs take time to materialise.

Some programmes currently reward farmers for practice implementation. But without measuring outcomes to check if practices are appropriate for the context and leading to regeneration, these payments are unsustainable and farmers are left absorbing higher costs without a corresponding economic return when the payment is removed.

Outcome measurement is therefore not a reporting exercise, it is the mechanism by which farmers can demonstrate value, unlock support and justify continued investment in change.

Lessons from animal welfare

The food sector has been here before. In animal welfare, early commitments often focused on inputs: housing systems, space allowances or enrichment requirements. Over time, it became clear compliance with prescribed practices did not always translate into better welfare for animals.

As a result, the conversation evolved. Leading companies began to incorporate outcome‑based measures, such as lameness, mortality, injury rates and behavioural indicators alongside, or instead of, input standards. This shift improved transparency, sharpened accountability and, most importantly, delivered better real‑world results.

Regenerative agriculture now faces a similar inflection point.

The risk of practice‑led regeneration

Each of the many regenerative practices being promoted has evidence behind it in the right context, but farming systems are complex, and context is everything. The dangers of relying too much on ‘practices’ are threefold - and deeply practical.

1. Trade-offs may remain invisible.

A practice improving soil structure on one farm may reduce yields on another. Reduced tillage may protect soil carbon but increase reliance on herbicides. If these trade‑offs are not measured, they remain invisible.

2. We may be rewarding activity rather than impact.

Ticking boxes instead of changing systems and outcomes.

3. We may be stacking practices that actively counteract one another.

Positive regenerative actions can be neutralised, or even reversed, when they are layered alongside harmful mainstream practices. The continued use of certain herbicides or pesticides, for example, may directly undermine soil biology, biodiversity or nutrient cycling, rendering the intended regenerative benefit of actions such as reduced tillage effectively obsolete.

When this happens, farmers incur the cost of implementing a ‘regenerative practice’ without receiving the outcome, and the overall system drifts towards a net degenerative position.

Beef cattle being mob grazed within a regenerative farming system

What do regenerative outcomes look like?

If regeneration is the goal, outcomes must be explicit, measurable and relevant to the food system. While the right indicators will vary by geography and enterprise, outcome measures typically fall into a few core domains:

Soil function: changes in soil carbon stocks, aggregate stability, infiltration rates, nutrient cycling and biological activity.

Water: water‑holding capacity, runoff, nutrient losses and resilience to drought or flooding.

Biodiversity: habitat provision, functional diversity and trends in the main indicator species above and below ground.

Climate: net greenhouse gas balance, not just emissions reductions but removals and avoided losses.

Productivity and resilience: yield stability, input efficiency animal health and welfare and the system’s ability to withstand shocks.

Social: Community engagement, work-life balance and the production of healthy food.

We acknowledge this is not a short list and not everything can be measured easily. Outcomes must be appropriate to the context, stakeholders and goals sought - and crucially, tracked consistently over time and interpreted together. A single positive indicator does not define regeneration if it comes at the expense of others.

A call to action

If regenerative agriculture is to fulfil its promise, the sector must be prepared to ask harder questions about how best to implement it and support farmers in their transition. Are the practices being promoted delivering the expected outcomes? Are gains in one area being offset elsewhere? And are we prepared to change course when the data tells us to?

Understanding and developing meaningful, credible outcome measures is not a simple task, but it is an essential one. For organisations looking to move beyond practice‑based commitments and towards robust, outcome‑driven regeneration, this is the moment to act.

If you would like to talk to us about defining, measuring and managing regenerative outcomes that work for your business and stand up to scrutiny to deliver real impact, contact us today.